Addis Ababa — A symposium on the African Union (AU) kicked off in Addis Ababa today, intended to discuss progress towards establishing the AU, and to gain input from a range of stakeholders about the best way forward. The meeting is a prelude to the Third African Development Forum (ADF III), which begins in earnest Monday. K.Y. Amoako, Executive Secretary of the United Nations' Economic Commission for Africa, opened the event with the following speech.

Friends and Colleagues,

Since this is a weekend day, permit me to welcome you in a much more informal way than will be necessary, when we meet again tomorrow, for the start of the African Development Forum.

I am glad that you made the decision to come together today. Each of you present was invited with care, as you have important insights and experience to contribute.

It is a particular pleasure to be here under the guidance, in this session, of my brother Salim Salim and to be here with his highly respected successor, Amara Essy, an old friend and a new friend, both of whom I respect and value.

And I am also thankful that Abdul Mohammed, and his colleagues in the InterAfrica Group, have done so much to make this occasion possible by their diligent, insightful and dogged work to put today's program together.

Friends,

The importance of a strong and successful African Union is shared by all. There is a momentum towards integration, that must be nourished effectively. This requires the engagement of leaders, like yourselves. You will be joined by hundreds of other leaders, starting tomorrow, in what some have called Africa's Davos. I don't know about that. But maybe if Davos were much welcoming of civil society, it could be the global ADF!

Tomorrow, I will help start the ADF by listing six concerns that I believe we will have to work on, to more effectively achieve a vibrant African Union. Let me summarize them quickly:

First, is the need for comprehensive efforts, to foster all levels of enterprise, ranging from the small-scale informal sector to large firms, in our trade and other integration policies.

Second, is to assure that integration more reliably produces regional public goods. These include peace, coordinated action in tackling major social issues, such as HIV/AIDS and food insecurities, or fostering first-rate intellectual public goods, including scientific research and public policy analysis, at both national and regional levels.

Third, we must integrate efficiently, and to do this we face the need to rationalize existing structures, and find better divisions of labor, between sub-regional and regional organizations.

Fourth, we must adequately finance integration, bearing in mind that we also need to appreciate the costs of failing to integrate.

Fifth, is the question of priorities and sequences. I raise this on a number of grounds. All things cannot be done at once. New capacities need to be created. And there will be a need to build confidence and support, for the more fundamental economic and political integration steps ahead.

And sixth, is the need to have broad-based participation, at the national and regional levels, to create long-term support for regionalization.

Let me concentrate here on the question of pace, that is, what should the priorities be in constructing the African Union, and can we conceptualize them in ways which constitute a strategy to build confidence?

I believe there are real and perceived issues, which mean that a government might endorse regional integration one day, but then create roadblocks to implementing agreements the next. We could together draft a long list of such issues, but think of them in terms of how such issues should be managed:

There is the fear that countries will lose significant tax revenue if they move towards free trade. This is an issue that can be addressed through objective data, which, by the way, will show it to be a quite modest difficulty.

There is the fear that small countries will be submerged, by the interests of their bigger neighbors, and on the other hand a fear that regional integration should not proceed at the rate of the slowest. In this regard there is much to be learned from other regions' experience.

And there is the fear of loss of sovereignty. This is one of the hardest fears to change. It requires us to ask, what sovereignty is for. Our hope is that the pooling of sovereignty, that comes about through economic and political integration, will mean that Africa is far better placed to meet its goals for development and governance, and we will have governments that are more capable and more effective than those that exist today.

How should such fears and hesitations be more fully identified and addressed? If we were a successful commercial enterprise we would interview our customers, bring their concerns to all our major departments, change our products and run a marketing campaign connecting our new products to what the consumers said they wanted.

Are the dynamics needed in designing the African Union so very different? A viable African Union must consider both the aspirations, and the fears and distrust, of integration. The concerns and needs of governments, business and civil society must be understood. Evidence and analysis, on the issues raised by these sectors, need to be compiled. To respond to some of these issues, new programs and architectural features may need to be devised. And the real issues which leaders have need to be openly discussedso that, in their resolution, solid support can be built for integration.

Identifying do-able and effective ways to address sovereignty concerns is perhaps the key litmus test as to whether an African Union will endure and grow.

I have raised the issues of political perceptions, and the need to create broad-based support for regional integration, because this is at least the fourth time that African leaders have set out very ambitious agendas for integration, and each time, the results have fallen far short of the expectations. If this time, regional integration is to succeed, to the point that we become a true community of nations and economies, we had better be sure that the designs truly meet the needs of customers: governments, business and civil society.

Finally, I have mentioned the questions of pace and sequence, because many have been asking whether the Union can be launched by July, or whether the transition should be extended say, for a year. If there is an extension, how could that time be best used? Are there a specific set of short-term confidence building steps which should be taken in this period? How should this time be used, in terms of institution creation and attracting the best and brightest, to start off the African Union? And, uppermost, could solid progress be made to address fears about sovereignty? Are there ways, even during the next year or so, that symposiums like this could be spread into on-going national and sub-regional dialogues?

It is concerns like these issues, which have brought the OAU, ECA and the InterAfrica Group together with you today. If you can help point the way on these kinds of issues, you will really have done Africa a favor in giving up your Sunday (!).

Thank you again for being here. It is an exciting time to contemplate a more unified and progressing Africa.[ADF3]