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Africa: Zimbabwe Tops Agenda As AU Ministers Meet
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The Nation (Nairobi)
7 May 2008
Posted to the web 7 May 2008
Zephania Ubwani
Arusha
The Zimbabwe political crisis is to feature in the extra-ordinary session of African Union foreign ministers meeting which opened here yesterday.
Tanzania's Foreign Affairs minister, Bernard Membe, said the Zimbabwe issue has been added to the agenda of the two-day meeting.
He told reporters that the issue would come up during the presentation of the Peace and Security Commission to the foreign ministers' session, technically known as the AU executive council.
Mr Membe, the council's current chairman, could not tell what the ministers would decide on the southern African country, whose March 29 presidential election results have been disputed.
Plunged deeper Zimbabwe plunged deeper into a political quagmire at the weekend when the main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, rejected the poll results.
The results, released a month after the disputed polls, showed that Mr Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) beat President Robert Mugabe, but failed to avoid a second round of voting. Other conflicts across the continent will also be discussed during a well-attended eleventh extra-ordinary session at the Arusha International Conference Centre.
The meeting has been convened to dicuss ways of strengthening the AU and its organs and institutions, a measure aimed to ensure the continent is politically and economically integrated. AU organs include the Commission (secretariat), at its headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Pan African Parliament, the African Court of Justice and the Economic and Social Commission.
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Regional economic communities (RECs) in the continent will also be assessed with the aim of making them more effective as AU building blocs as well as aligning their programme with those of the AU and NEPAD. The meeting began with the tabling of an evaluation report on AU strengths and weaknesses by the chairperson of a high- level panel led by Prof Adebayo Adedeji.
Mr Adedeji, a former executive secretary of the UNEconomic Commission for Africa (ECA), was recently picked to lead a team of experts to audit the AU as it is currently structured.
The audit also sought to review the structures and functions of RECs, including their relationship with the AU in order to accelerate integration in the continent.
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