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 Plans cannot be Slaves to a Donor Construct!

“The Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”:

Pax Aufricana: Africa’s Plans cannot be Slaves to a Donor Construct!

By E.K.Bensah Jr

Perhaps one of the greatest sources of bemusement around African integration is the manner in which citizens remain clueless about the continent—and do not seem to want to change that ignorance into something positive. One is likely to hear more naysayers complaining about the continent than proponents praising it. If we can accept that a continent of now-54 member states would hardly and immediately have harmony on issues of trade; climate change; the environment and much more, why on Earth would we expect it to deliver so much so soon after only ten years in existence? This is also not to wholly put the blame on citizens, for these days, institutions like the African Union cannot get away with excuses that there are no resources for New Media and/or Social Networking strategies.

The visceral itch to refer to new Media is no accident: with smartphones booming across Africa, and an increasing number of Africans accessing the internet on their mobile phones, the 21^st century is spawning a new generation of savvy-activists very much into propagating and advocating issues almost at lightning-speed, and using tools like Twitter and Facebook.  At the very least, there are many youth on the continent intelligent and New-media-savvy enough to volunteer their time to helping out with the AU’s outreach. If no less than the UN Economic Commission for Africa can employ an Australian communications company to market the Africa Mining Vision, it beggars belief that the AU cannot source Pan-African volunteers to help them sell the image of the AU.

This message-selling cannot be divorced from the strategies I referred to last week, as, in my view, when an institution like the AU cannot sell its vision and its plan to the people of Africa, it constitutes a big problem. Inevitably, what one gets are many policy processes taking place on the blind-side of both citizens and the media, ineluctably making it imperative for “African integration watchers” everywhere to fight the good fight of promoting what the AU normally should.

The Strategies…

Even if we forget the AU has had Strategic Action Plans since the establishment and operationalisation of the AU in 2002, we surely cannot think that the AU has been working as slaves to a donor construct. While it is true that this-same construct has both helped and hindered Africa’s progress, it is not for a want of trying to break free – as Africa has done back in 2001 with the Lusaka Appeal, when it admitted that much of the funding offered by donors was slow and unrealistic. Even before the explosive events of Cote d’Ivoire in 2011 and the demise of Qaddafi, the AU had been discussing – by way of a committee – alternative sources of financing. 

Indeed, one of the major outputs of the Fourth Conference of African Ministers of Integration (COMAI IV) was on innovative financing that would lend a great deal of independence to the AU to finance its integration. This development must surely be seen as a boon to the efforts of African integration policymakers. If it fails to whet one’s appetite, how about this for size: the fact that the AU has no less than four sector-specific architectures in place for the radical transformation of the AU.

Let’s not even get to the fact that since 1994, the AU has been operating under the framework of the Abuja Treaty that has set continental integration for 2034. And these are even things I have not mentioned in detail. But, seriously, the things I will elaborate on are important. They concern peace and security; agriculture/food security’ governance and international trade, with a view to the establishment of an African Common Market—as envisaged by policymakers back in December 1976, when they proclaimed it as the Kinshasa Declaration—and one that is also consistent with the sixth stage of the Africa Economic Community.

Where’s the AU’s Strategic Plan?

Although we can freely and justifiably criticize the AU for a number of non-adhered-to policies, we must give them the credit for posting a considerable number of their material on their website. It is true the website on www.au.int might be incomparable to the EU’s on europa.eu.int, but at the end of the day, it is serious work in progress – as is the AU’s Strategic Action Plan of 2009-2012. Unbeknownst to many Africans, this can easily be found in a Google search [if Africans knew at all it had a strategic plan is moot!] and downloaded for perusal. At 46 pages, it does not make bedtime reading, and can be read within a few days.

Some of the sections include the “vision” of the African Union; “mission and values of the African Union Commission”; even a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses; Opportunities; and Threats) analysis; and a “comparative strategic analysis”. There are elaborations on “peace and security” (pillar 1); “development, integration and cooperation” (pillar 2); “shared values” (pillar 3); and “institution and capacity-building” (pillar 4). Finally, there is an implementation strategy, followed by a “monitoring and evaluation system.”

Pillar One – peace and security

It is fair to say that since its inception, the AU has been preoccupied by peace and security. Given the unpredictable nature of conflicts on the continent, the Peace and Security Council—voted the most powerful organ of  the AU in 2011 and arguably the most visible manifestation of the AU’s efforts resolving continental conflict—has been meeting on average around five times a month since 2006. This has inevitably added a burden on the 15-member Peace and Security Council—especially those with skeletal staff at their embassies.  

The PSC is meant to serve as the collective security and early warning instrument for “timely and efficient response” to both existing and emerging conflict crises and situations on the continent. It is supported by the AU commission; a Panel of  the Wise; a Continental Early Warning System (CEWS); an African Standby Force(ASF); and a Special Fund (including an AU situation room located in the Peace and Security Directorate of the AU). Collectively, this is what is known as the AU Peace and Security Architecture. It is to promote peace, security, and stability in Africa. Inevitably, given this structure, it remains imperative that peace and security be strategic issues for the AU. By close of 2012—as per the strategic plan—the Commission expects, inter alia, to have a fully functioning APSA; significantly reduced conflicts on the continent; promoted the development and stablisation of security, political and economic systems; and promoted a policy on combating transnational organized crime.

Pillar Two – Development; Integration and Cooperation

Critical to the AU Commission’s work is the identification of key challenges to social and human development, such as poor health and education systems; lack of social welfare and protection of vulnerable groups…, gender inequalities..., creative industries and sports development. The AU intends to achieve sustainable economic development through accelerating infrastructure development to boost interconnectivity, reliability and cost-effectiveness; promoting the growth of intra-African trade and investments, and through integrating Africa into the global market. This includes the development of an African private sector and informal economy; as well as the promotion of agricultural development and food security through the Comprehensive Agricultural Africa Development Programme (CAADP).

By the end of 2012, the AU Commission expects to have achieved some of the following results: promoted agricultural development and food security; promoted the development of an African private sector and informal economy (note how widespread this is on the continent); and implement programmes for youth development.

In my next piece, I will be elaborating a bit more on the two other parts of the second pillar, and expatiate on the third pillar. Further I will offer an analysis of what we can learn from the SWOT analysis that came out of brainstorming by the AU’s staff and senior management meetings of the 2004-2007 Strategic Action Plan.  Suffice-to-say, it is eye-opening in a way that takes us away from being slaves to the traditional donor construct the AU has been so used to!

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.

Forget Pax Nigeriana, Enter Pax Aufricana!

“The Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”:

Forget Pax Nigeriana, Enter Pax Aufricana!

By E.K.Bensah Jr

Don't get me wrong at all: I am all for regional economic communities. The REC tag, which they have been made an acronym of, and sound like an unfortunate epitome of African development, does nothing to dispel the idea behind what they are and will become: economic communities of peace with sector-specific imperatives defining what they are. So that ECOWAS becomes the point-REC on peace and security; East African Community shows the way on mobilising resources for infrastructural development and IGAD becomes a paragon of virtue for the way it can juggle peace and security and economic development in a very volatile region that comprises Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia.

When I look right of the continent to Asia, they are struggling with the development of an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. Policy-makers and observers of the ASEAN region believes this is what will spark the take-off of the 10-member group that was established at the height of the Cold War in 1967. Unique to ASEAN—and possibly a terrible weakness—has been the putative hegemons of Japan , China, and South Korea that have never been members of ASEAN, but flirted with the idea, resulting in clumsy formations like ASEAN+3 (comprising these latter three countries).

According to a Senior Visiting Fellow of LSE IDEAS Southeast Asia International Affairs Programme Dr.Munir Majid, when intra-European trade stood at 60 percent, it is only when ASEAN+3 states listed above are taken into account that the figure of 50percent for ASEAN becomes “more satisfactory”. The academic bemoans that “wider regional integration, even as ASEAN plays catch-up with its own economic integration process, has not been sufficiently thought and worked through by the regional grouping.”

This kind of phenomenon is alien to the African continent, where the mix-up is more of belonging to two or three strong and structured regional groupings or, in rare occasions, one. So you will never see a Nigeria being an observer to a regional grouping—it is either in it or not at all. Same can be said with South Africa, where you will find it only in SADC, or Ethiopia, where it can be found in both COMESA and IGAD.

Barring the recent overtures by Central African and ECCAS member state Chad with ECOWAS (it became an observer of the West African sub-regional grouping in 2011) and South Sudan being encouraged to join the EAC, it is rare to find member states outside the continent wanting to join RECs or the AU. It is therefore interesting to read that no less than earthquake-ravaged Haiti has applied for membership of the AU!

AU Chairmanship elections– so what?

It is no longer news that Gabonese Jean Ping failed to make the vote; neither is it news that Dlamini-Zuma failed. What, probably, is newsworthy is the fact that the former COMESA boss and incumbent AU Commission Chairman Erastus Mwencha retained his position unopposed. Strike that—for you probably knew that already; it's the fact that the deputy-turned-provisional-AU-Chairman has a website, which can be found on http://www.erastusmwencha.org. Though in its early stages, I daresay had Ping had a website, he might have been able to make the grade for AU Chairmanship once more!

On a more serious note, before the 7^th Ordinary Session of the AU conference of Trade Ministers took place in Accra in December, resulting in Africa—through Mwencha—stating emphatically that EPAs are “not a priority for Africa”, I knew very little about the AU Commission deputy. Since then, I have been tracking him and his statements, and in my view, these are those of someone who deserves to be speaking for the continent. I would like to recommend that for the detractors of the AU, a careful reading of an interview conducted by the Geneva-based International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD)--entitled “An interview with H.E. Mr Erastus Mwencha, Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission” – merits serious reading. Mwencha's responses are of those of someone who appears to know the issues on EPAs, how far the AUC can best support the Regional Economic Communities and the pan-African integration process; and what the AUC has, thus far, been able to achieve.

It's really not about Pax Nigeriana or South Africana, it's More

If 2011 is anything to go by, there's no Pax Nigeriana; the country failed both at the UN Security Council and the AU's Peace and Security Council to deliver for Africa. I wrote it back in August 2011 after the fatal bombing of the UN building in Abuja-and I will write it again.

Nigeria should have read between the lines, reflected also on the 17 June 2011 bombing, considered the many meetings of the INTERPOL-supported West African Police Chiefs Committee Organisation (WAPCCO) between June and August last year, and decided to get serious on encouraging and lobbying fellow West African countries to ratify the 2005 protocol establishing the Criminal Investigative Intelligence Bureau(CIIB). That Guinea-Conakry is the only country thus far to have established an Office du Renseignement et des investigations criminelles (ORIC)/CIIB along the lines proposed by ECOWAS in 2005 is a sad indictment of leadership by a Nigeria that ought to know better.

As for South Africa, the inchoate Pax South Africana that seemed to be emerging from the Libyan crisis was probably just a sleight-of-hand by one of Africa's most prosperous economies to give an impression of super-power status without trying too hard. It thought it had adequately paved the way towards a foregone conclusion of AU Chairmanship. That the country was being backed by no less than the EU's Baroness Ashton can only speak to the mendacity of South Africa's motives.

All is not lost, however, for if one can accept the fact that a building comes alive thanks to the vision of an architect, then one can also probably appreciate that any formulation of a rising Africa can only find expression in a continent that is ready to be bold and take risks about its future. So the African Union should have strategies, which include being ready to explore more innovative ways of financing its integration. The Lusaka Appeal of 2001 is great, but African policy-makers must be more bold and choose to adopt the ECOWAS, ECCAS, UEMOA or CEMAC financing structure—and quickly.

The AU must also begin to get tough on those who fail to buy in to the Appeal, and take emphatic steps to encourage those who do. We already know of the hegemons of Nigeria in West Africa; South Africa in the SADC region; Ethiopia –and possibly Kenya? – in the East? These hegemons, or larger economies, must be encouraged to be more responsible to the extent that they encourage their smaller neighbours, and do away with any kind of beggar-thy-neighbour policies and/or aspirations.

Add political will to the mix and you got yourself an African continent—and by extension an African Union--that has not just been shaken and stirred by structural adjustment and Breton Woods prescriptions of liberalization; privatisation; and deregulation, but one that is fast-rising and more. It is about a continent that can speak of Casablanca and not feel ashamed to ask “Uncle Sam” to “play it again”, and certainly about a continent that is getting its house in order on sector-specific issues of peace and security; food security; governance; and international trade.

The AU’s Africa Peace and Security Architecture (APSA); Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development (CAADP); African Governance Architecture (AGA); and more recently Continental Free Trade Area Architecture (CAFTA) are processes of the aforementioned themes that are not to be sneezed at. All of us—including journalists, civil society and citizens—should rally behind AU policy-makers and compel them to accordingly be accountable to the people of the continent for the programmes they create.

I dream of a day when the re-election of each AU member state’s head of state is tied to the progress they make in their sub-region, such that here in Ghana, for example, we can demand of the incumbent government what concrete contributions they have made to the facilitation of ECOWAS programmes, and how much they generated for the ECOWAS Levy. Going forward, citizens and journalists alike must begin to feel comfortable asking these kinds of questions, so that the shiny, new building built for us by our Chinese compatriots does not become an empty shell.

As for the building blocks I referred to earlier, they are more than chimerical aspirations; they represent the dreams of a continent replete with infinite hope and a tremendous capacity for resilience. Forget the Arab Spring, doff your hat to Fortress Europe; welcome the Chinese Dragon, but make way for Pax Aufricana!

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.