West Africa Rising…in Regional Instability?

“The Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”:

West Africa Rising…in Regional Instability?

By E.K.Bensah Jr

In 2010, Spain made sports headline news for winning both the World Cup in South Africa and having its national – Rafael Nadal – become the first man to win three straight major tournaments in the same year. In 2011, the West African state of Burkina Faso has made ECOWAS history by winning both ECOWAS’s answer to the “tour de France” (the 2nd edition of the ECOWAS International Cycling Tour which ended in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire last week), and the top-job of ECOWAS Commission President. The new ECOWAS Head is former Prime Minister and current Ambassador of Burkina Faso to Brussels HE Kadré Désiré Ouedraogo who will serve in this capacity for four years.

If sports were ever a credible harbinger of politics and/or a country’s future, then Ghana’s loss at the Africa Cup of Nations 2012 (AFCON) probably should have been an indicator that the out-gone James Victor Gbeho departure was a foregone conclusion. Sadly, that logic is blown to smithereens when we realize that while Ghana earned 3^rd position at the ECOWAS Cycling tour, it could only leave with its tail between it legs at AFCON, ending up a sorry fourth.

On a serious note, some might say that West Africa’s been in the news for the wrong reasons. Once again, we have what some might call the establishment of a geriatric leader in Senegal’s Wade seeking to entrench his gerontocracy by standing a third term. Despite the ‘boo’s he received at the polls during the commencement of the election on Sunday 26^th, he remains steadfast in seeking his third term.

Neither the 150 election observers that ECOWAS dispatched to Senegal (comprising members from some of the ECOWAS institutions, such as the Council of the Wise; reps of the Community Court of Justice; ECOWAS Parliament; including legal and civil society electoral experts from West Africa), nor the AU/ECOWAS envoy Obasanjo has been able to do anything concrete to get Wade to consider his position. Truth be told, it is the former Nigerian leader—more than anyone—who has been tasked with the mandate of formulating a solution to the political permafrost. Regrettably, the only solution that has come thus far from Obasanjo has been for Wade—in the event of a win—to step down after two years.

Inevitably, the Western press is likely to have a field day (and frankly, so will African press!) that here is Obasanjo once again having failed to bring closure in 2011 to a crisis in Cote d’Ivoire and failing yet again in this instance. Elsewhere, some might have called for another envoy to have been appointed. It remains unclear who exactly appointed him as an AU/ECOWAS envoy. Although the decision was taken at the 40^th Ordinary Session that was represented by the 15 ECOWAS leaders, it is unclear whether it was a consensus choice. Still, that a plenipotentiary-of-sorts was dispatched at all speaks volumes of an emerging structure that the sub-region and the AU so badly needs.

ECOWAS emerging structures and the Mali crisis

While it might not be very clear to West Africans and other observers how elections observers were sent to Senegal, what we do know is that—and something that must be communicated more clearly to deflect perceptions of inertia on development in the sub-region—it is under ECOWAS’ Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance that enjoins ECOWAS member states to send observer missions to member states conducting presidential elections ‘as part of its determination to ensure democratic convergence across the sub-region.’

Another important structure has been that of the ECOWAS Committee of Chiefs of Defence Staff(CCDS) to review emerging security threats in the sub-region. In this case, however, following the 40^th Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State from 16-17^th February, they have been tasked to review threats that pertain to the Sahel region and the Gulf of Guinea.

There is no secret to why the CCDS is meeting. The major reason has been because of Mali, where Tuareg fighters demanding an autonomous Azawad region are reported to have attacked no less than six Northern towns in the past month. Government forces have responded with helicopter gunships and heavy weapons fire. The violence has displaced at least 55000 people, with many taking refuge in neighbouring countries.

On ECOWAS’ part, while the Authority has strongly condemned the MNLA rebellion in Mali and expressed its full support for efforts being exerted by Mali to ‘defend its territorial integrity’, the sub-regional organisation has not only called for “an immediate and unconditional cessation of hostilities by the rebels’’, but also approved the release of three million US dollars to assist Mali deal with the humanitarian consequences of the rebellion. In addition, ECOWAS has called on humanitarian agencies, as well as the International Community, to join ECOWAS to take all necessary measures that would “guarantee protection, relief and succor for the populations adversely affected by the crises in Mali and Niger.”

Regrettably, it seems like West Africa is truly rising – as far as regional instability is concerned, for there remain threats of piracy and organized crime in the Gulf of Guinea. To this end, the ECOWAS Commission has been tasked to urgently develop a holistic strategic maritime policy framework to guide future actions and cooperation – even to the extent of soliciting collaboration and assistance from the Economic Community of Central African States(ECCAS) so as to ensure that challenges have been confronted in a concerted manner.

Make no mistake: ECOWAS has what is acknowledged not just among the seven other AU-recognised regional economic communities (RECs), but worldwide, what is acknowledged to be a sophisticated Peace and Security Architecture.

If you have forgotten, allow me to remind you that at a time after the fall of the Berlin Wall when a then-timorous USA and prevaricating UN Security Council was reluctant to act in Liberia, ECOWAS got involved itself in conflict management on an ad hoc basis, thanks, according to academic Dr. Niagalé Bagayoko, “to the set up in 1990 of a sub-regional intervention force, ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG)”. He continues that ECOMOG ‘acted as a buffer force in Liberia (1990-1998), in Sierra Leone (1997-2000) in Guinea-Bissau (1998-1999), in Côte d‟Ivoire (2003) and again in Liberia (2003)’. It would be in 1999, that a Protocol creating the ECOWAS Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution, Peace-keeping and Security would be adopted.

Now while I may have liberally hinted West Africa is rising in regional instability, it certainly is a West Africa rising – for many more positive reasons, which will be played out over the weeks!

In 2009, in his capacity as a “Do More Talk Less Ambassador” of the 42^nd Generation—an NGO that promotes and discusses Pan-Africanism--Emmanuel gave a series of lectures on the role of ECOWAS and the AU in facilitating a Pan-African identity. Emmanuel owns "Critiquing Regionalism" (http://critiquing-regionalism.org). Established in 2004 as an initiative to respond to the dearth of knowledge on global regional integration initiatives worldwide, this non-profit blog features regional integration initiatives on MERCOSUR/EU/Africa/Asia and many others. You can reach him on ekbensah@ekbensah.net / Mobile: +233-268.687.653.

Pax Aufricana: Towards a Prosperous and United Africa by 2034?

“The Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”:

Pax Aufricana: Towards a Prosperous and United Africa by 2034?

By E.K.Bensah Jr

The manifold tags of “Africa rising” and the whimsical “Pax Aufricana” (coined by yours truly) are all tags to connote something bigger happening on the continent of Africa. They are not chimerical aspirations of what some of us would like to see. Despite the claims that intra-african trade, for example, is around 11%, the fact remains that Africa, through the Union, is doing something about it by not just proposing a Continental (African) Free Trade Area(CFTA), but coming out with an action plan, which has measurable goals, targets and agreed timelines.

If the African Union can be so “cerebral” (read:meticulous) about something critical to the Union’s survival and prosperity, it beggars belief that the AU would seem to be operating on the blind side of a roadmap for its future. Let’s face it: much of the criticism leveled and aspersions cast on the AU have been pretty tough: it’s about the AU drinking tea at meetings and “doing nothing”. So we know the AU appears to be pretty impotent—some might say pusillanimous against the face of donors directing the strings of where the AU, in their eyes, ought to be – but we also know the AU has been very forthright and headstrong on its peace and security architecture. We know it was criticized on Cote d’Ivoire, and on Libya, but as then-AU Chairman Dr.Ping rightly said to BBC’s Stephen Sackur in a “Hardtalk” interview last year, the West barely gave the AU a chance to operationalise its roadmap.

It’s frankly risible to see the UN Security Council doing all it can to get China and Russia (who vetoed any kind of intervention in the crisis in Syria) to rescind and pursue diplomatic ventures alongside the Arab League, when the AU was never given a chance to pursue diplomacy as comprehensively as the Arab League has been given carte blanche to. But that’s another story!

Although in last week’s piece, I accentuated an understanding of the five pillars around the AU’s roadmap, the real story in this article is to elaborate on the AU’s Strategic Plan of 2009-2012. Given that this is the last year of its “realization”, I believe it’s not just fitting to expatiate on the plan, but imperative -- just as regional integration is to the continent of Africa.

Unlike the AU’s predecessor—the Organisation of African Unity (OAU)—that was more concerned with supporting liberation movements in the erstwhile African territories under colonialism and apartheid, the AU has become the premier organization ‘spearheading Africa’s development and integration.’ That said, this is not the AU as an abstract construct, but the very specific African Union Commission.

The role of the African Union Commission (AUC)

The European Commission probably cannot yet be compared to the African Union Commission, especially now that the latter employs slightly over 20,000 Eurocrats (European international civil servants). The AUC employs a fraction of that, yet is charged with the delivery of the AU’s strategic plan. This might prompt speculation as to why it would be entrusted with such responsibility when it is understaffed. Before we get there, we need to understand a bit about the AUC.

The mission of the AUC is to become: “an efficient and value-adding institution driving the African integration and development process in close collaboration with African Union member states, the Regional Economic Communities and African citizens.” Despite the establishment of the RECs, let’s be clear that the AU has been around longer than the RECs so there is necessarily not only respect but experience that is conferred on it by virtue of it being the de jure successor of the OAU. As such, it remains the only unique Pan-African body that has the political mandate to develop the continental policy space and speak for Africa. Despite its good intentions, African Integration Actors (another whimsical coinage of yours truly), such as the UNECA and African Development Bank do not possess that ‘sui generis’ mandate.

This leads one to examine a bit more closely the so-called “strategic comparative advantages” that ‘constitute the core of its programming action’. These comparative advantages are consistent with the five emergent themes that exist for the AUC. These are: political integration; scientific, economic, social and physical integration and development; Governance; institutional capacity-building for continental integration and development; peace and security.

On POLITICAL INTEGRATION, the major strategic comparative advantage is the AUC having a mandate from the AU to undertake programmes on political integration, as well as the continental reach and mandate of fifty-four States to coordinate integration of Member states and RECs. 

On SCIENTIC, ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND PHYSICAL INTEGRATION…, the AUC is in a unique position to develop and design continent-wide integration programmes and projects, such as those on infrastructure, educational systems, ICT and research, etc.

With respect to GOVERNANCE, the Commission ‘provides the most practical arena to set up continental standards and approach on governance, and has the mandate to establish and implement governance-related initiatives such as APRM.’ In addition, it has political oversight and leadership ‘to determine and achieve an African indigenous, locally-driven and owned process of governance standards.’

As for INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY-BUILDING FOR CONTINENTAL INTEGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, the AUC is a strategic actor in the promotion and building of institutions and capacities for the continental integration and development agenda. It seeks to harmonise member states’ decisions and translates them into action plans to be implemented through/by member states and RECs.

Finally, on PEACE AND SECURITY, the AUC has the mandate to lead (and direct) peace and security programmes, as well as the capability to implement global and continent-wide decisions on conflict resolution, prevention and management.  As I indicated in the last piece, its 15-member Peace and Security Council (a hybrid of the UN’s Security Council and the AU’s own structures) is perhaps the greatest manifestation of the continent’s efforts to ensure Africa realises the prosperous and united Africa it seeks to do under the African Economic Community by 2034!

If you had any doubt about the AU’s Africa Peace and Security Architecture(APSA), I seriously entreat you to check out the AU’s Peace and Security Department website with updates from the AU’s Situation Room: http://www.peaceau.org/en/

In 2009, in his capacity as a “Do More Talk Less Ambassador” of the 42^nd Generation—an NGO that promotes and discusses Pan-Africanism--Emmanuel gave a series of lectures on the role of ECOWAS and the AU in facilitating a Pan-African identity. Emmanuel owns "Critiquing Regionalism" (http://critiquing-regionalism.org). Established in 2004 as an initiative to respond to the dearth of knowledge on global regional integration initiatives worldwide, this non-profit blog features regional integration initiatives on MERCOSUR/EU/Africa/Asia and many others. You can reach him on ekbensah@ekbensah.net / Mobile: +233-268.687.653.

Africa's rise and how it’s Time to Project AU Power!

“The Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”:

Africa's rise and how it’s Time to Project AU Power!

By E.K.Bensah Jr

If there were ever a greatest exponent of serendipity, it must have been when I found myself in the home of the African Union in March 2011. Unbeknownst to many, I met my kindred spirit—Mr. Stuart Hastings of towardsunity.org—in person for the first time. I had met him two years earlier online when I was searching through tomes of material on comparative regional integration and trying to find out also whether there were other souls concerned more with the comparative approach on regionalism than simply the single-minded one where, say, the AU, EU or ECOWAS is the main focus.

I would come across Stuart’s site and immediately spark a conversation with him about how the tectonic plates were shifting towards regional unions, and how we both needed to play a part in that change.

His website, then as now, was clear: to travel the world from his home town of Canada and return to produce a book on how far regional unions, such as the EU, MERCOSUR; African Union; and ASEAN can promote promote peace and humanity through democratic dispensations they offer in their institutional structures, and how it was important to re-think some of the current narratives driving hegemons in those respective unions.

So it would be that Stuart and I would meet on 19 March, 2011 at Lime Tree cafe, situated in the rather plush Boston Day Spa on the lush and swanky Bole Road in Addis. I will never forget that day for the people who were there—Stuart Hastings; and a young official of the UN Economic Commission for Africa who might never confess in public he is a Pan-Africanist—and for the fact that after I got back to my hotel, I would catch the news on BBC and Al-Jazeera that a multi-state coalition had began a military intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973.

I had had a stress-free visit to the AU building days earlier, and so it seemed a bit surreal to see diplomats fluttering in and out after 19 March all over television. It was even harder to believe that the-then almost-completed AU building would play host to an apparent impotence of AU officials and policy-makers it would soon host almost a year later.

It is easy to speculate that it is probably these apparently-impotent AU policy-makers who have just witnessed the inauguration of the new, 28-floor AU building at the just-ended 18^th session of the AU in the Ethiopian capital. After the cacophony over the past few days of this Chinese gift to the Africans and the numerous speculations that have abounded over possible quid-pro-quos that might be associated with this expensive gift, it's time to get serious.

There's no gainsaying that China will expect some favours from Africa for having built this building that supposedly towers over the whole of Addis. To harp on it, in my view, is as relevant as claiming that the Europeans and Western donors who pay some sixty percent of many African countries’ budget would expect these-same countries to be indebted to them. The argument is even a non-starter. What I would hope we would talk about are two major things.

First – how it symbolises a renaissance of South-South cooperation and second, how it is a projection of the increasing power of the African Union.

Symbolism of the AU building

Both experts and amateurs on African integration, and Western journalists alike have been speculating over what China is likely to expect from the building they have donated to the African Union. What, for me, took the biscuit was no less than the venerable BBC World Service’s very respected “News Hour” programme on Sunday 29^th January interviewing the East African correspondent Will Ross, with an angle that was Sino-African centred in a way that suggested that China wants our natural resources, knows Africa is rising and so wants to capitalize on that rise. In my view, this is not analysis; it is common-sense. There really is no such thing as a free lunch. It is just that with the Chinese, they deliver that lunch faster and with few conditions. That may be the beauty of the relationship, and I believe what African integration watchers all over must be doing right now is to use this as an opportunity to explore and enhance the Sino-African relationship.

In 2010, UNCTAD launched the Economic Development in Africa report. Entitled “South-South Cooperation: Africa and the New Forms of Development Partnerships” it examined recent trends in the economic relationships of Africa with other developing countries and the new forms of partnership that are animating those relationships.

The increasing role of large developing countries in global trade, finance, investment and governance, coupled with their rapid economic growth, has stimulated debate on the implications for Africa´s development.

The report urges African nations to intensify efforts at developing better productive capacities to maximize their gains from the emerging partnerships and the gradual global shift of economic power to the East from the West. African countries, the report states “have to produce goods with high income elasticities of demand and that present greater opportunities for export market expansion”.

The report comprises five chapters dealing with the challenges and opportunities in South-South cooperation, Africa’s trade with developing countries, southern official flows to Africa, southern Foreign Direct Investment to Africa and making South-South Cooperation work for Africa.

The report concludes that Africa-South Cooperation—whether it is Sino— or Indio—not only has the potential to enhance Africa´s capacity to address its development challenges but the full realization of the benefits requires gearing cooperation towards the development of productive capacities across the region.

Bottom line is that Africa as a continent does not yet have a unified strategy relating to Africa-South cooperation and this is evidenced in part, for example, by the way in which the 2010 report was produced by UNCTAD, and not the African Union. Going forward, the AU can use the donation of the building to consolidate the Sino-African relationship—perhaps around infrastructure? — and create an effective strategy round it in a way that will slowly and surely put paid to the West’s.

Projection of power in the AU’s 10^th anniversary year!

Who has not seen pictures of the Brussels-based European Commission on TV and thought “wow, that’s a huge building!” And for those who have seen it in person, there’s no gainsaying it’s a rather imposing building. This contrasts sharply with what Stuart Hasting related to in one of our numerous discussions of his globe-trotting in Asia to see the secretariat of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Nepal.

First and most importantly, after having been established in 1985, one would have thought that they might have upgraded their building a little. Pictures online of the Secretariat are consistent with the descriptions associated with Hasting’s sojourn anecdotes. This has prompted much speculation among those of us committed to propagating the development of regional unions and groupings – especially in the developing world— as good – and the greatest exemplification of the very-necessary projection of power the AU so needs to do. Given that this is coming in the tenth anniversary of the African Union, this could not but be a better and fitting presage of Africa’s putative rise!

In 2009, in his capacity as a “Do More Talk Less Ambassador” of the 42^nd Generation—an NGO that promotes and discusses Pan-Africanism--Emmanuel gave a series of lectures on the role of ECOWAS and the AU in facilitating a Pan-African identity. Emmanuel owns "Critiquing Regionalism" (http://critiquing-regionalism.org). Established in 2004 as an initiative to respond to the dearth of knowledge on global regional integration initiatives worldwide, this non-profit blog features regional integration initiatives on MERCOSUR/EU/Africa/Asia and many others. You can reach him on ekbensah@ekbensah.net / Mobile: +233-268.687.653.