African Union

The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance – you better take it seriously!

Feb 1st, 2012 4:28 PM UTC
By Friederike Röder

In three weeks, the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance will enter into force. The Charter was adopted by the African Union (AU) five years ago. Now that fifteen member states have ratified it, the Charter becomes legally binding and operational. Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria and Cameroon were the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th countries to ratify the Charter. Why should we bother about this document? A Charter that was ratified in majority by countries that don’t lead by example in terms of good governance; a Charter that might be just another paper tiger without any teeths; one of a range of legal documents that don’t change anything about the real lives of African citizens?

Not quite.

The African Charter actually doesn’t contain many new elements. But, much more important, it summarizes and reconfirms existing African engagements on good governance that the continent’s leaders have taken over the last thirty years or so. And the Charter takes them a step further, in operationalizing their implementation. So instead of adding to the pile, it tries to rationalize the African good governance architecture and improve its translation into reality.

Though the African Charter doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it still is a leading international convention in terms of good governance. First of all because the principles of the AU, which are enshrined by the Charter, are very far-reaching. For instance the AU has the right to take action in case of an unconstitutional change of government in one of its member states. Second, because the Charter is the only international convention that dares to take up the sensitive issue of democracy, while other treaties prefer sticking to human rights principles or anti-corruption measures.

The African Charter has already proved to be a useful tool. One of the first countries to ratify was Mauritania – just before a coup hit the country. In order to negotiate the return to constitutional order, the AU took the Charter as reference point. At that moment, the Charter was strictly speaking not yet legally applicable because it had not entered into force, but this didn’t matter as Mauritania had endorsed it. As this example suggests, the fact that the Charter has been ratified by some not-so-democratic countries is an encouraging sign, rather than simply a basis for criticism. These are the countries that potentially will need the Charter and in which this legal document could make a difference.

Last but not least, the process of the Charter itself should be acknowledged. After having been adopted by the AU in 2007, only four countries had ratified it after more than four years! So the Charter was at risk of disappearing before even having really entered the stage. The Pan-African Parliament took on this challenge. This Parliament, also called the PAP, is the equivalent of the European Parliament, but with some small differences: the African body has around 50 employees, the EU parliament 6000. The European Union parliamentarians have an official role in decision-making, the African Union parliamentarians are still limited to a consultative role. Knowing its limits, the Parliament partnered with civil society and launched a campaign called “11 before 2011” in order to get to 15 ratifications, the number needed for the Charter to enter into force. It took a lot of lobbying, several regional conferences, a documentary on TV, outreach to student activists in several countries and a year longer than initially planned, but now the campaign has reached its goal. Congratulations! Though this is not where the work ends: now the goal is to have the rest of the 53 AU member states ratify the Charter!

Music legend Hugh Masekela joins our Hungry No More campaign

Jan 24th, 2012 8:00 PM UTC
By Dr Sipho Moyo

This blog post was first published on the ONE Africa Blog

As our Hungry No More campaign continues, famed musician and trumpeter Hugh Masekela joins us in calling on African leaders to focus investments in their agricultural sectors, which will contribute to growing their economies and reducing extreme poverty.

Hugh Masekela

Hugh’s support couldn’t come at a better time as the African Union Summit begins this week with our Heads of State in Addis Ababa. Now’s the perfect opportunity to continue our campaign and press our leaders to take action. We’ll be presenting your petition and signatures at the AU later this week!

Here’s what Hugh has to say:

Growing up as a musician in South Africa I witnessed first hand the man-made obscenity that was apartheid and used music to protest against injustice.

Apartheid is now consigned to the history books, but another obscenity still exists on our continent. A famine in Somalia that has killed 30,000 children in 3 months.

Yet the current crisis is a man-made disaster that could have been avoided.

As our leaders prepare to meet next week in Ethiopia to attend a critical summit, please join me in signing ONE’s petition:

The petition reads:

Dear African Leaders,
We are haunted by the famine in Somalia that has killed 30,000 children in 3 months. We respectfully request that you help make this the last famine by: 1) supporting delivery of promised emergency aid; 2) increasing effort on peace and security; 3) keeping the long-term promise toward spending 10% of national budgets on agriculture and food security; and 4) doing so transparently, so citizens can ensure this money is well spent.

With access to suitable seeds, technologies, and improved connections to markets, small-holder farmers can generate more income, send their children to school, help to keep food prices affordable and help lift their communities out of poverty.

When they meet next week our governments must show real leadership and ensure this is the last famine in Africa.

Please take action now.

Thank you for your support,

Hugh Masekela
Musician and ONE member

Join Hugh and our partners in signing the petition today.

Africans pledge $350 million for famine relief; long-term solutions to be discussed in Kenya next month

Aug 26th, 2011 12:50 PM UTC
By Nora Coghlan

African governments and institutions committed nearly $350 million for famine relief yesterday at the African Union’s first-ever pledging conference. Coming together under the banner “One Africa – One Voice Against Hunger,” panelists and participants called for African solidary and united action to respond to the Horn’s worst drought in 60 years.

The collective effort demonstrated by the AU is a solid first step that should be applauded. The African Development Bank accounted for the vast majority of the pledge, committing $300 million for programs over a five-year period. Notable individual contributions were made by Algeria (pledging $10 million), South Africa ($10 million), Egypt ($5 million), Angola ($5 million) and the Democratic Republic of Congo ($5 million). Another nine countries made $1-3 million pledges (including Africa’s newest country of South Sudan), and a handful more made smaller cash and in-kind donations.

Though the AU is facing criticism for the size of its commitment, the precedent set at yesterday’s summit is an important one that should be applauded. As the BBC’s Martin Plaut points out, the AU was never designed to be a fundraising organization and the conference “charts a new course” for the institution.

Acknowledging that the AU is often criticized for its “slow and inadequate” responses to emergencies, AU Commissioner Jean Ping urged participants to take note of other important contributions made by African states, such Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti’s hosting of Somali refugees and troops sent to Mogadishu by Uganda and Burundi.

UN Deputy Secretary General Asha Rose Miguro also applauded African efforts, noting that “above all, this crisis is being tackled by local people and institutions.” She warned that a future generation is hanging in the balance, and commended the AU for taking its “rightful place at the forefront of the response.”

Similar to pledges made by traditional donors, clarity is needed around many yesterday’s commitments. This is especially true for South Africa (whose $10 million pledge included private donations) and countries that contributed to the $350 million commitment from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) last week (including Algeria, Egypt and Gabon). AU Vice-Commissioner Erastus Mwencha said the AU was working with outside institutions to track commitments and monitor their delivery.

In the months ahead, it is also critical that Africans lead the campaign to develop long-term solutions to prevent future crises. Many of yesterday’s presenters reiterated that experts were predicting the drought months ahead of time; Prime Minister Meles Zenawi dedicated most of his remarks to outlining the measures taken to prepare for the drought in Ethiopia, which he said kept the country from slipping into famine.

Since yesterday’s summit was designed to respond to the crisis, the lack of concrete commitments towards long-term food security was not surprising. There was also no mention of the pledges by many African governments to allocate 10% of their national budgets towards agricultural development (known as the Maputo targets).

When delegates meet in Kenya next month to discuss long-term solutions to drought and famine, these targets should be on the forefront of the agenda. Doing so would demonstrate that African governments are not only stepping up to respond to the current emergency, but are also committed to providing the leadership necessary to prevent these crises in the future.

At the African Union Assembly

Feb 5th, 2010 10:08 AM UTC
By Edith Jibunoh

African leaders have just concluded another their 14th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union with some interesting outcomes and a lot to think about as we head towards the World Cup in June and the September UN summit on the MDGs, two defining moments for African engagement with the international community on the future of the continents development progress.

The 14th summit focused on positioning the continent to benefit from the use of Information and Communication Technology and President Kagame set the tone by appealing to the continent’s leaders to work hard to harness the potential of broad band and urged leaders to replicate the successes achieved across countries in the mobile technology industry and to some extent the internet. He also noted that as of 2009, continental communication technology usage was estimated at approximately 280 million compared to 11 million in 1998.

This summit also witnessed the handover of chairmanship of the group from President Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya to President Mutharika of Malawi after intense negotiations by Gaddafi who was seeking a second term. President Mutharika emphasized the importance of Africa developing Africa and said he would focus on food security during his tenure. This is great news for the continent which desperately needs to focus on food production and self sufficiency. President Mutharika, who has been President of Malawi since 2004, holds the agriculture portfolio in his own country and in a 2007 cabinet reshuffle, he also took on the education portfolio.

In further summit developments, the AU Heads of State also endorsed the selection of Zimbabwe to the AU Peace and Security Council, one of the AU’s most powerful blocs responsible for resolving conflicts between member states and with helping to sort out domestic political turmoil. Given the current state of affairs in Zimbabwe, with the political parties deadlocked over lingering contentions in the power sharing agreement signed in 2009, this was a surprising decision by the AU. Zimbabwe was elected into the council for three years along with Libya, Nigeria and Kenya. The others, elected for a two-year term, include Chad, Djibouti, Rwanda, South Africa, Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, Mauritania, Equatorial Guinea and Burundi. The peace and security council did approve a plan to give more power to the AU to act against unconstitutional changes of power. The new plan includes calls on various international organizations to apply sanctions as soon as an unconstitutional change occurs. The AU is still working on the approval for the implementation of a 2007 treaty, the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance which has been approved by 29 countries but only 3 countries have ratified it, not enough to enable the treaty to come into force. At least 12 other state signatories are required before it becomes binding. The next AU summit (scheduled for July) is going to consider the proposed merger of the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights with the African Court of Justice with a new mandate to handle serious offences like war crimes.

Another outcome of the AU meetings was the resolution to adopt the dissolution of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and replace it with a new agency which will be known as the New Partnership for Africa’s Developments (NEPAD) Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA). The new agency will be a technical body of the AU and will facilitate the implementation of continental and regional priority programs and mobilize resources and partners in support of their implementation. They have been allocated $3 million to start the new structure. The NPCA will now be supervised by Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Jean Ping.

AU members also agreed to increase pressure on Madagascar’s leader Andry Rajoelina (Madagascar is still suspended from the AU, along with Guinea, for an unconstitutional change in government last year). It was also agreed that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi will remain chief negotiator in the next two global climate change conferences. The next AU meetings are scheduled for July 25th – 27th, a few weeks later than the usual end June/early July mid-year annual meeting. This is to ensure that the meetings do not clash with the World Cup. There is widespread excitement amongst populations across the continent in anticipation of the World Cup and leaders, recognizing the importance of this moment, are keen to tap into the attention in their favour.