Institutionalization of the Pan-African vision of African unity

By: Keith Gottschalk

University of the Western Cape

Globalization pressures precipitated an energetic series of South African-Nigerian initiatives, which pushed the Pan-African project of African unity to critical mass and take-off. The re-invention of the OAU as the AU includes its democratization through the Pan-African Parliament, African Court of Human Rights and People's Rights, and ECOSOCC.

This occurs in an innovative broader matrix of drawing in civil society, ranging from NGOs to the hundreds of corporations of the NEPAD Business Groups. These had no equivalents in the old OAU. One intellectual consequence of this is to challenge the Western conceptual partition of Africa into "sub-Saharan Africa" versus "north Africa & the Middle East ". A thickening mesh of continental institutions and continental programs render this concept an eroding anachronism with lessening heuristic value. Similarly, the DRC, conventionally regarded as part of the central African region and its institutions, is effectively shifting into the SADC ambit. The AU has also revived the Abuja-born AEC treaty.

The AEC had no secretariat after 1991, until it became a responsibility of the AU Commission in 2002, along with its cognate NEPAD secretariat. The qualitative jump between the old OAU and the new AU and its associated projects is best problematised not through discourse analysis, but focus on the allocation of resources and operationalization.

The creative off-book financing of the PAP costs by the host country, plus the PSC's success in attracting far more EU and other donor funding for peace-keeping than its OAU and ECOWAS precedents, is mitigating the failure of many AU member governments to pay their annual fees. Huge challenges ahead include that the AU so far still remains an elite project.

1. Historical Introduction:

From Nkrumah to Gaddafi

Back in 1963, President Kwame Nkrumah of had advocated that the newly independent states should reverse the balkanization of Africa by surrendering their sovereign independence to become states within a federal United States of Africa.

(1) All other governments except President Julius Nyerere of rejected this proposal. All they would agree to was forming the Organization of African Union. This, in both name and substance, was modeled on the older Organization of American States. It was effectively little more than a multilateral conference for heads of states and governments, meeting several times per year.

But as the Cold War wound down in Africa the OAU started elaborating new institutions and programs, many of which were proposed in the 1991 Treaty of Abuja. Intellectuals' scepticism followed the failures of Muammar Gaddafi proposing a federation of with and in 1970, of with and in 1971, of with in 1974, of and in 1988, and of and morocco in 1989.

In 1999 Muammar Gaddafi revived the essence of Nkrumah's vision of a federal United States of Africa with one unified military force. Before this Pan-African proposal could suffer the same fate, President Thabo Mbeki and his staff leapt into lobbying the continent's governments. As a compromise on a USA-style federation, Mbeki advanced the EU model of incremental progress towards an eventual confederation - on paper this had already been agreed to in 1991 by the signatories to the Treaty of Abuja. The Sirte Declaration of 9 September 1999 agreed to symbolize this qualitative change by renaming the OAU the African Union. The governments adopted the elaborate Constitutive Act of the African Union at the Lome Summit on 11 July 2000, which achieved enough ratifications to enter into force on 7 May 2001.

 The African Union was inaugurated in Durban on 8 July 2002.

(2) With the active support of Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo (), Abdulaziz Bouteflika (), Hosni Mubarak (), and President Abdoulaye Wade (), the constitutive act grafted onto the OAU's existing institutions a UN-style Peace and Security Council, (PSC) which would have a small military staff and an African Stand-by Force; plus an Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC).

Possibly most important of all in the long term, the AU started to implement the EU-inspired AEC Treaty of Abuja to found a Pan-African Parliament (PAP), situated at Midrand ( ); plus a Court of Human Rights and People's Rights. The AU adopts the African Economic Community as one of its major aims, and intends to found an African Development Bank, African Monetary Fund, and an African Central Bank to aim at an eventual single currency.

One Oxford Centre for African Studies seminar concluded: (Nigeria and South Africa have undoubtedly played an indispensable role in the construction of the African Union and NEP AD without the leadership role of South Africa and Nigeria, the creation of the AU and NEPAD would have been more difficult, if not impossible ... Over the past four years, it is clear that the level of activity, discourse and diplomacy between presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Thabo Mbeki, as well as their governments and respective diplomatic corps, means that it is accurate to speak of an evolving strategic alliance between Nigeria and South Africa, the fulcrum of which have been their efforts to build the African Union and promote NEPAD.

1.     One should not underestimate the personal dimensions of the roles of presidents Mbeki and Obasanjo in the construction of the AU and NEPAD, nor the importance of their own bilateral relationship

2.     The impact of the personalities of the leaders of both countries will be important to the survival of these initiatives.

3.     and have taken the lead in each appointing a Minister for African Affairs.

4.     Substantial and speedy progress may well necessitate all other member states appointing a Minister or Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Africa , with a civil service Director who has specific responsibility to drive harmonization and implementation. So far, 's only preparations for the post-Mbeki years are to institutionalize a Parliamentary Working Group on the AU, which has also set on an Africa Desk with a team leader and international relations officer.

5.     A variety of scholars concur that Pan-African unity can only succeed if it is politically driven by governments.

6.     As was the case for the EU. Business support for this process is useful at all levels from investment to seconding corporate personnel.

African Union : Constitution and Institutions

All independent African states (bar those ruled by settler minorities) joined the OAU in 1963, with one exception: the Moroccan Government refused to join in protest over the OAU not recognizing its claim to annex . All independent African states joined the AU in 2002, with one exception. The Moroccan Government refused to join in protest over the OAU not recognizing its claim to annex the Sahara Arab Democratic Republic. The OAU's organs remain, with significant new ones added.

2.1 Continental Executive:

This heading is provocative. The institutions summarized below, unlike the Eurocrats of Brussels, lack supranational power, and are inter-governmental organs. But both the 1991 AEC Treaty and the 2000 AU Constitutive Act obligate their members to incrementally evolve from delegating authority to derogating authority to the AU. The inaugural Chairperson of the AU was 's President Thabo Mbeki, reflecting his major role.

2.1.1 Commission

The OAU's secretariat is re-titled EU-style as the Commission of the AU, takes responsibility for implementing the AEC, and remains based in Addis Ababa . Its inaugural Chairperson, Alpha Oumar Konare, brings to the post the added weight of having been a head of state. It now has eight portfolio commissioners, and fourteen directorates. Of the ten portfolio directorates, two of them, Women, Gender and Development, and Afro-Arab [affairs], share commissioners with other portfolios. There has not yet been any removal of deadwood from the OAU-vintage personnel.

2.1.2 Assembly

The Assembly of Heads of State and Government remains the premier organ of the AU, as it had been for the OAU.

2.1.3 Executive Council

The OAU's Council of Ministers is pointedly re-titled the Executive Council. For more urgent and frequent meetings, it comprises the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the member countries. It is responsible to the Assembly. The Executive Council is supported by a Permanent Representatives' Committee. It can also delegate work to Specialized Technical Committees (STCs) comprising either the relevant ministers or senior official.

(8) These STC seven portfolios overlap with, but are identical to neither the seven commissioners, nor the ten portfolio directorates, of the Commission. Future revisions would be sensible to harmonize these, as the constitutive act permits.

 2.1.4 Peace & Security Council (PSC)

The OAU had set up in 1993 a Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, management and Resolution. This had sent peace-keeping troops into a Chadian civil war. ECOWAS had similarly sent peace-keepers to civil wars in and . Building on these precedents, on the second day of its formal existence, the AU inaugural meeting in Durban voted on 10 July 2002 to establish the Peace and Security Council, the name implying its duties are modeled on those of the UN Security Council. The PSC is authorized to act against genocide and crimes against humanity.

(9) Situated in Addis Ababa , the PSC first seeks conciliation and mediation through an Early Warning System, and can draw on a Panel of the Wise. When these fail, it has a. Military Staff Committee heading the Stand-By Force. The PSC meets more frequently than most other AU organs.

2.1.5 African Stand-By Force

The OAU's Charter provided for a Defence Commission (10), which remained effectively stillborn for thirty-nine years. Gaddafi's 1999 proposal for a United States of Africa emphasized the need for a united continental army. The embryonic start of this, organized on the lines of NATO members' commitments, is the Stand-By Force. This gives teeth to the PSC on issues where there is the political will. It requires commitment by each of the AU's five regions to contribute a minimum brigade-level number of military personnel, plus police personnel. The EU has granted it donor funding for its current operations in Darfur . A realistic appraisal of ground truth indicates that the situations in each of the , and the , both urgently need peacekeeping forces totaling a strength in divisions.

2.2 Continental Legislature Pan-African Parliament (PAP)

The 1991 Treaty of Abuja (11) bound the signatories to creating a Pan-African Parliament in its sixth stage, i.e. between 2025-29. More than two decades ahead of schedule, the Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the AEC Relating to the Pan-African Parliament was signed at Sirte, , on 2 March 2001. It acquired enough ratifications to come into force on 14 December 2003 and the PAP moved "temporarily" to Midrand, between Pretoria and Johannesburg, . Since the Midrand municipality and property developers earlier fought hard for a failed bid to get 's own two capitals relocated to them, they will presumably strenuously lobby to ensure that this "temporary" becomes permanent.

The PAP initially has five Afro-MPs per state, who must not all be from the ruling party, and must be at least 20% women. After five years, the AU is scheduled to agree to the PAP moving to direct elections. Should it achieve this, it would be dramatically less than the twenty-two years the EU took for the analogous evolution of the European Assembly. The most cost-effective way would be to simply add an extra ballot paper onto each of the member states' general elections.

Separate elections might result, judging by euro-apathy, in far lower percentage polls. One Pan-African Parliament task will be to lobby hard for national governments to devolve to it the "full legislative powers" promised by article 2(3) of the Abuja Treaty. Article 11 (1) and (4) specify that this must come to include "human rights, the consolidation of democratic institutions and the culture of democracy, as well as the promotion of good governance and the rule of law." The PAP must also promote the coordination and harmonization of laws, policies, measures and programs and the Regional Economic Communities. The PAP's six.

Portfolio committees overlap with, but are identical to neither the Commission's directorates, nor the Executive Council's Specialized Technical Committees. The PAP's ability to start oversight of the executive will be optimized by aligning its portfolio committees with those in Addis. Acquiring power will immediately raise the issue of the evolution of electoral arrangements. Currently, equal representation between and the , results in a more than 1000:1 democratic inequality in the value of a vote. The requirement of a two-thirds majority to pass any bill or recommendation is an alternative way of protecting the interests of smaller countries.

 The requirement that at least one of each country's MPs must be a woman is a more progressive measure than in any other international organization. Analysts note that the PAP's first sessions did not assert oversight of the AU executive, but conformed to it. They abstained from criticism of the government, but sent observer missions to , DRC and Sudan.(12)

2.3 Continental Court of Human Rights and Peoples' Rights, and Court of Justice

The African Court of Human Rights and People's Rights had its protocol adopted on 10 June 1998. That it took over five years, until 15 January 2004, to accumulate the minimum number of fifteen ratifications to come into force, indicates African Governments are aware of its ultimate potential to rule against torture, censorship, and other security police abuses. The Court will comprise eleven judges, not more than one per country, chosen with "due consideration" for "adequate gender representation" for a six year term of office. Its judges are part-time, except for its President. Like the European Court of Human Rights between 1959-1998, the Court is initially limited to only accepting human rights cases brought by governments, NGOs approved of by governments, and AU organs.

Individual governments may empower the Court to hear cases brought by individuals from their own country, the first such government being . (13) The South African and a few other governments have nominated their candidates towards this continent's bench. Since the Congolese (OR) and Ugandan governments have already referred human rights crimes to the International Criminal Court,(14) they would clearly also use the AU courts when these are functioning. The OAU Charter envisaged a Commission of Mediation, Conciliation and Arbitration for disputes between states.

 The Treaty of Abuja elevated this role to a Court of Justice.(15) Focused on disputes between states, and disputes concerning the interpretation of the AU treaties and subsidiary legislation, it will have eleven judges, of whom at least two must come from each region, and half of who must be women -a record for any international institution.(16) Financial realities made the AU subsequently decide to merge these two courts.

2.4 Cultural Organ Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC)

Inspired by the UN's ECOSOC and UNESCO, the 1991 Treaty of Abuja called for an Economic and Social Council, which could include representatives of NGOs as observers.(17) The AU broadened this to found an Economic, Social and Cultural Council of 106 state delegates, plus 24 representatives from trans-national organizations.

It also adds on to the AU and AEC's standard five geographic regions, a "Sixth Region" of 20 representatives from NGOs for the African diaspora. The significance of this is reflected on in a later section. A taste of the future is that already, the AU facilitated a Conference of Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora (CIAO) in Dakar . The cultural section of this chapter is also the appropriate place to note official language policy and practice. Both the AU's Constitutive Act (18) and the AEC's Treaty of Abuja (19) specify in identical wording that the working languages of all these institutions shall be "if possible, African languages and Arabic, English, French, and Portuguese."

 Since then, the AU has adopted Swahili as its fifth official language - on condition that the Swahili-speaking countries pay themselves for the relevant translations(20) But to date, the practice is that the official AU and NEPAD websites not only have no Swahili, but are also unable to afford Arabic and Portuguese translations. They offer only English and French texts.

African Renaissance

The African Renaissance is a theme or ideological construct that President Mbeki raised in 1998 speeches in Africa and Asia .

The deliberate choice of "African" rather than "black" is designed to be inclusive towards the continent's Arab, Indian and White minorities. This inspirational concept (21) is a useful popularization of Pan-Africanism. Intellectuals seek funding, with varying success or failure, by setting up units with names such as African Renaissance Institute, Centre for African Renaissance Studies, and others.

Arguably, the first actual achievement under this has been NEPAD's "first cultural project", which is to re-house, and make digital copies of all surviving books formerly in the library of the medieval University of Timbuktu . One dimension of this is the contestation between the continental concept, versus the covert racial concept of dismembering Africa, (unlike Europe) into "Sub-Saharan Africa" and "north Africa and the Middle East",(22) in statistics, and in academic, governmental, international, and media circles. This obscures realities such as that the majority of Muslims in Africa live in "sub-Saharan Africa ". After liberation, the South African Government reorganized its Department of Foreign Affairs, to transfer the desks on countries from to from its Middle East division, to its African division. This continental concept is strengthened by reference works such as the Africa Contemporary Record versus "Sub-Saharan" publications and presentations of statistics, plus a host of continental learned societies and other NGOs such as the African Association of Political Science (AAPS) and the Council for Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA). From the Africa Institute in Pretoria, to the Institutes of African Studies in Cairo, and in Moscow, many research organizations also strengthen the continental rather than racial concept of Africa . The AU could also strengthen its institutional depth by nurturing existing and future continental associations of NGOs, from academics to publishers' associations.

 The cultural dimension offers many opportunities to popularize the Pan-African concept to mass audiences, from televised continental sports competitions and pop music, to print and electronic media linkages. Most important is mass popularization of the continental concept. From to , working class mobs have on occasion launched xenophobic riots killing some foreign Africans, burning down their shanties, and looting their possessions.

 2.5 Financial Institutions

2.5.1 African Investment Bank

This concept has two predecessors, one of whom may well be expanded to embrace this new role. The African Development Bank founded on paper in 1964, started operations in 1967. This long gestation emphasizes the requirement of realism in finding the resources to operationalize an African treaty. Its headquarters were in Abidjan, until the Ivorian civil war made the AIB temporarily relocate to Tunis . It slowly grew from a founding capital of US$ 750 million to its current capital of US$32.5 billion.(23) The African Export-Import Bank, constituted by a treaty in Abuja in October 1993, was up and running by September 1994, with headquarters in Cairo.

 2.5.2 African Monetary Fund

Since the abolition of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rates in the 1970s, the IMF ought to have merged with the IBRD's bureaucracy, but has so far maintained a separate and increasingly overlapping existence. What need the AU has for an AMF, separate from an AIB, is unclear, or how both their budgets will be raised. The merger of the two courts contemplated in the Constitutive Act of the African Union might well be followed by re-think on this or other organs.

2.5.3 African Central Bank

The Treaty of Abuja aims at a continental common market by 2021, and Tito Mboweni, Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, has nominally proposed 2021 as the goal for a single currency for the continent.

As with the AEC, the only monetary activity to date has been within the regional economic communities (RECs). Within the SADC, four countries already have, in all but name, a single regional currency. The Common Monetary Area of Lesotho, , and involves convertibility and a fixed exchange rate, obscured by national issue of banknotes and coins.

This means that the South African Reserve Bank effectively operates much as a regional reserve bank. It is certainly feasible that several more countries have stable currencies that could join this CMA over the years. Also, as far back as 1992, individual Zimbabweans were eager to hoard South African banknotes, the ZAR. This implies that an informal rand-ization of one or more countries may be under way, at least until 's economy recovers. ECOWAS shows serious planning to reduce the present number of national currencies into a regional single currency. The Association of West African Bankers is lobbying for this.

This could also help end some of the costs that the CFA franc zone imposes upon its African members. (24) Currently, the Banque Centra le des Etats de l'Afrique l'Ouest (BCEAO I CBWAS) acts as a central bank for eight Francophone states that comprise the West African Monetary Union. Likewise, within ECCAS, six states belong to the Central African Monetary Union. In COMESA, the PTA Bank, owned by fifteen of its member states, issues bonds providing a regional investment instrument.(25) Within COMESA, the East African Community of 1927-77 was revived in 1999, including convertibility of currencies, and harmonization of VAT. (26) It is converging towards a common currency. If the CMA, ECOWAS, ECCAS, and the EAC, fast-track regional development banks, bonds, and currencies, such regional financial instruments will help merge national currencies into regional currencies.

This will facilitate bringing closer to the realm of practical policy, future negotiations towards a continental currency.

3. Programs

The African Economic Community never got the general secretariat of its own which the Treaty of Abuja called for.(27) A decade later, the AEC was taken up as a program rather than as an institution of the AU. In effect, as the EEC was re-titled the EU, the analogous re-naming had the AEC of 1991 become the AU in 2002. Its five official forerunners do have tiny, understaffed secretariats, but exist mostly as programmes.

3.1 Cornerstones of the African Economic Community:

The Five Regional Economic Communities

The AU, AEC and NEPAD treaties officially recognize five out of the fourteen known regional economic communities. Summarizing these in chronological order of founding ECOWAS. The Economic Community of West African States was formed in 1975 with headquarters in Abuja . 's economy dominates this REC. There are a considerable number of regional NGOs and business associations, sometimes following Anglophone or Francophone lines. SADC The Southern African Development Coordinating Conference was founded in 1980, and strengthened into the Southern African Development Community in 1992, with headquarters in Gaberone.

It was dramatically enlarged to take in the relatively huge resources of 's admission to membership, whose GDP is more than all other members combined, plus the long-term potential of the accession of the . The SADC reorganized 21 decentralized sectors to four centralized directorates in an effort to become more effective.(28) It contains within it the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and the Common Monetary Area (CMA).

 These date de facto from Lord Milner calling an inter-colonial Customs Conference in 1903 after the British conquest of all of today's . The aims of the SADC are in effect that the relations between the SACU and CMA countries should expand to embrace the more than dozen countries in the SADC. In 1995 a majority of the SADC set up the Southern African Power Pool. COMESA The Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) has its headquarters in Lusaka .

It started as the Preferential Trade Area of Eastern and Southern Africa in 1981. Next it raised its aims in 1993 to become COMESA, and sought to implement a free trade area between members on as many commodities as possible. joined, with an economy vastly larger than any other member. While it is attempting to end tariffs between its members, and move towards common external tariffs, , and have fast-tracked a customs union by reviving the East African Community.

ECCAS The Economic Community of Central African States was set up in 1983, with headquarters in Libreville . ~on-payment of membership fees resulted in it only becoming active after 1999.-As mentioned above, six of its members form the Central African Monetary Union. AMU The Arab Maghreb Union (UMA in French) was formed in 1989, with headquarters in Rabat . The dispute between and and most other African states, over independence for the Sahara Arab Democratic Republic has badly limited cooperative achievements.

Nevertheless, while the Moroccan Government refuses to join either the AU or AEC, both it and the UMA participate in NEPAD projects.

3.2 AEC

The Treaty of Abuja was signed in 3 June 1991, and slowly won sufficient ratifications to come into force in 1994. The Treaty of Abuja of 1991 proposed constructing an African Economic Community on precisely the EU's thirty-four year evolution following the 1957 Treaty of Rome.(29) All African Governments signed it, except the Moroccan Government.

Working from it coming into force in 1994, its chapter 11 Article 6 (a) specifies a six-stage schedule: 1995-1999: strengthening the RECs. 2000-2007: within RECs, removing tariffs and non-tariff barriers (NTBs); strengthening sectoral integration. 2008-2018: each REC becomes a Free trade Area (FT A). 2019-2020: coordination and harmonization of REC tariffs. 2021-2024: harmonize monetary, financial and fiscal policies. 2025-2029: consolidate African common market. Create PAP, Court of Justice, Central Bank and single currency. So far, the AU and AEC are on schedule.

Unusually, the member governments are a quarter-century ahead of schedule with the founding of the PAP and Court of Justice. COMESA, EOCWAS, and the SADC appear to aim at achieving FTA status during the first half of the 2008-2018 stage. All but two SADC member reserve banks and ministries have already started harmonization of monetary, financial and fiscal policies. Ongoing issues include: are the REC. administrations, as intended in the Abuja Treaty, being strengthened prior to their ultimate merger in AEC. an Or are they being bypassed by smaller nuclei within the larger RECs? Is there any evidence of member states increasing funding and other resources to the RECs since the founding of the AU? The AU, AEC and NEPAD plans include rationalizing the fourteen existing RECs into five, based around the AMU, COMESA, ECCAS, ECOWAS, and SADC. Except for the near-dormant AMU, all these have overlapping memberships. Eight out of thirteen SADC members are also COMESA members, which also applies to eight of the twenty COMESA states.30 Out of 53 African countries, only seven belong to one regional economic community, 27 are members of two, 18 are members of three, and the DRC a member of four. 31 While Malgetlaneng advocates that the SADC and COMESA should merge, 32 to date untangling rather than merging has been dominant.

 The has resigned from the SADC in favor of COMESA, while , and have withdrawn from COMESA in favor of the SADC. On the other hand, both COMESA and the SADC give high priority to harmonizing their customs forms and categories, well ahead of the AEC schedule. A cost-benefit analysis of the RECs overlapping indicates mixed consequences. Fast-tracking by smaller nuclei within an REC may act as a stimulus to other REC countries to speed up economic integration.

Overlapping between RECs may speed up harmonization of the RECs into an AEC. But there is one significant cost. Each REC is already so lacking in staff posts for its secretariat, and other resources, that many processes are held up. Proliferation of RECs prevents mergers that might create a critical mass of personnel, funds and resources to drive unification faster. The huge overlap between the SADC, COMESA and ECCAS I CEEAC requires harmonization. Currently, South African peacekeepers and electoral officials are deployed in the DRC, while South African parastatals manage its capital's electricity supply and expansion, assist with its railways, and central bank. Operationally, the ORC is primarily part of the SADC. If the remaining population of the ECCAS joined the Francophone members of ECOWAS, it would enable the ECCAS posts to be added to the ECOWAS headquarters, reinforcing its capacity. There is a case for a disentanglement, or merger, of the SADC and COMESA countries.

3.3 NEPAD, several antecedents led to NEPAD.

The UN Program of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development 1986-90 (UN-PMERD) focused on democratization, and debt cancellation, as integral components of development. After becoming President, Thabo Mbeki popularized the idea of an "African Renaissance" that would ensure the twenty-first century shall become the African Century. To UN development proposals, he added a Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Program (MAP) which advanced both macro-economic guidelines for development, plus specific projects. With energetic travel and lobbying, he obtained the support of Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo (), Abdulaziz Bouteflika (), and Hosni Mubarak ( ). Simultaneously, President Abdoulaye Wade () had advanced his OMEGA Plan for Africa .

Mbeki negotiated the merging of their plans as the New African Initiative (NAI). This was re-named the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and launched on 23 October 2001 in Abuja - a decade after the Treaty of Abuja had committed the same governments to the aim of an African Economic Community by 2021. The Lusaka Summit of 2001 adopted NEPAD as a program of the AU. Further, while is a member of neither the AU nor the AEC, it and the Rabat-based UMA so far appear to participate in the NEPAD programs on, for example, the electricity inter-connector between the Maghreb countries. NEPAD's lengthy framework document sets out conditions for development such as peace, security, democracy including good political, economic and corporate governance; regional cooperation and integration; and capacity building. It recommends policy reforms ranging from agriculture through ICT to transport to achieve an economic growth rate of 7% per year for fifteen years. It also has a wish list of many hundreds of infrastructure and other projects, and urges the mobilization of domestic savings, plus foreign investment of $64 billion per year.

So far the World Bank has financed nine African regional projects, and the African Development Bank 12 projects.(34) To date it is not private capital, but many African parastatals which have shown enthusiasm for NEPAD projects. NEPAD has prioritized as its first economic project Grand Inga. This proposes to build on the Congo River the world's largest hydro-power station, generating at least 34 GW to feed a continental electricity grid.(35) It is Westcorp, a consortium of the five electricity parastatals of Angola, Botswana, DRC, Namibia, South Africa, each owning 20% shares, that will provide $5bn for 3 500 MW Inga 3, to be completed by 2011.

This is an initial stage of Grand Inga. Kalema Losona, the DRC Minister of Minerals & Energy, can so far only hope to attract private investors to build simultaneously with Inga 3 the rest of Grand Inga.(36) While. Western donors have held back until they can witness action taken against Mugabe's repression and lawlessness, Asian donors are taking the gap to increase their influence and potential market share. The BJP-Ied coalition Government in Delhi started a new India-Africa fund with $200m. The Japanese Government includes Africa within the mandate of its Ticad fund, endowed with one billion dollars.

This resonates with Mbeki's attempts to diversify trade and investment from dependence on the West. Another new innovation is the NEPAD Business Groups, discussed in a later section. 3.4 AFRICAN PEER REVIEW MECHANISM (APRM) Western donor governments' interest was mostly on NEPAD's proposal for an African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). This is practiced by the OECD and some other international organizations. A team of eminent African personages will review progress towards the conditions for development in countries that volunteered for such a review. Needless to say, these were the most democratic half-dozen African countries. The APRM will assess a country that invites a review on democracy and political governance; economic governance and management; corporate governance; and socio-economic development.(37) NEPAD organizes the review of economic governance, while the AU manages the political hot potato of reviewing human rights and other state governance.

The first APRM reviews will be of , , , , , , , and . 4. FUNDING AND OTHER RESOURCES One unchanged key issue is resources. A decade ago Colin Legum singled out the OAU's "one major failure: the continuing refusal by member states to pay their dues, a major reason for the often limping performance of the organization...(38) The EU has around eleven thousand Eurocrats in Brussels, plus nine thousand translators and interpreters. Additional staff serves the European Assembly and Court in Strasbourg.(39) The contrast in funding limited the OAU to about 250 civil servants,(40) taken over by the AU.

 The SADC with 60 posts was probably the largest of the RECs. It is scheduled to get 77 funded posts, and expects 120 by 2005.(41) Faced with the current reality that the AU had received only $12 million out of the $43 million that member states should have paid it in fees over the past financial year, (42) the AU Commission then proposed an annual budget of $570 The organization of African Unity. Reactivating an Almost Moribund organization: Africa Contemporary Record. vol. 231990-92. A126. million.(43) Currently, four out of fifty-three countries - South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria and Libya - already pay 40% of the AU's actually received annual budget.(44) The AU planners seek revenue-increases to establish 749 posts, requiring a budget rise from the current $31 million to $53 million. Clearly, the extent that the AU's latest plans do not remain fantasy will depend entirely on its most enthusiastic backers drastically increasing their payments above their mandatory minimums. Since the inauguration of the AU, a NEPAD secretariat of 49 posts has started up in Midrand,(45) and will be relocated to AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa .

 The NEPAD Business Group has seconded corporate staff to its secretariat.(46) The RECs are now being firmed up. With the reasonable assumption that the other four major REC secretariats each have around forty posts, and will ultimately merge with the AU staff also based at Addis Ababa, this will still only total funding a Commission of not more than one thousand posts. South Africa, for example, currently pays R78 million per year for its UN fees, R16 million to the AU, plus R4 million to the SADC.(47) Its combined AU and SADC membership costs it only around one-quarter of UN membership. It will be feasible for it, and the other middle-income AU members, to incrementally raise these fees to parity with their UN fees.

The 2004 budget in fact doubled South Africa's AU contribution to thirty million rand, raised its subsidy to NEPAD from nineteen million to twenty-five million rand, and provided for R 427 million to increase diplomatic representation in other countries.(48) The South African Government converted the remnants of an old apartheid-epoch covert fund for destabilization and foreign bribery, into the African Renaissance and International Co-operation Fund. Its statutory mandate clearly could include help to fund the AU and PAP.(49) During 2004, it was allocated fifty million rand.(50) Five sources of revenue have so far emerged. First, by far the largest, member states pay annual fees to the AU.

 A significantly large proportion of member governments have only paid their fees partly, late, or not at all. Throughout the period under review, and beyond, the AU collected only one quarter of its membership fees. This required it to leave many posts unfilled, to postpone some scheduled programs, and to scale-down some projects it did in fact start. The second revenue source to be tapped is the host countries of the more prestigious organs of the AU. The arrangements for the Pan-African Parliament are, for example, that as the host country paid (with two exceptions) all the capital and running costs of the PAP: the R18m. five-year lease, IT protocol, residence for the PAP President Gertrude Mongella, and shuttling Afro MPs to and from the airport. (51) All told, the PAP will cost SA R61m in 2005. (52) The first exception was that the Afro-MPs costs were paid by their home countries' parliaments. The second was that the AU was obligated to pay solely $1.7 million for the translators between four of its official languages. (53) Even with only that responsibility, the funds ran out halfway, and the PAP's second ordinary session, its first in Midrand, had to be ended one week into the scheduled fortnight.

 It is increasingly clear that the governments successful in winning a bid to host the remaining AU institutions will have to similarly pay most of the costs. The protocol establishing the African Court of Human and People's Rights does not look feasible in specifying that the OAU (now AU) will pay the judges' emoluments and the budget of the registry. More realistic is the protocol establishing the Peace and Security Council. First, it specifies that a criterion for membership is that government's contribution to the special peace-keeping fund, and commitment to honor financial obligations to the AU. Second, while formally laying down that the AU refunds costs, it also asks peace-keeping states to pay their own costs for at least the first six months, plus it establishes a Peace Fund and revolving Trust Fund which seek foreign aid and philanthropic donations.

(55) It would seem wise for the PAP and other AU organs to adopt this wording in their own protocols. The third source of revenue is directly from all member countries, in addition to their annual fees to the AU. In the Pan-African Parliament, the national parliaments are required to pay the salaries, airfares and accommodation costs of the Afro-MPs. Judging by the AU's budget, this arrangement will clearly have to continue after the PAP moves to direct elections. The fourth source of funds the AU has obtained is foreign aid. So far, donor governments and agencies such as the EU have been most ready to subsidize the costs of AU peacekeeping forces, as in the 's Darfur province.

 The fifth source of funds has been companies. The leading members of the NEPAD Business Groups have seconded executives to the NEPAD Secretariat, currently situated at Midrand. In conclusion, it is unconvincing for AU advocates to lobby for extra taxes to be collected by inefficient national tax departments. Priority needs to rather go to building the capacity of the state revenue services to crack down on corruption, and hire accountants able to challenge corporate tax avoidance and evasion. This could become a priority for foreign aid. Even a mere 1% increase in member states efficiency in collecting all existing taxes would enable all AU members to pay their annual dues in full and on time. 5. QUANGOs In 1963 when the OAU started, there were virtually no continental QUANGOs, bar postal and telegraph unions, to buttress the under-resourced political institutions in Addis Ababa. Only one example is given here of the accelerating proliferation of continental quasi-non-governmental organizations, because it symbolizes the focus on improving telecommunications and ICT, such as the circum-Africa fibre optic cable for telecommunications.

 The Regional African Satellite Communications Organization (RASCOM) was founded in 1992 to coordinate the launch of communication satellites whose footprint covers the continent and adjacent island members. (56) It is based in Abidjan . 6. CIVIL SOCIETY 6.1 BUSINESS AND LABOUR NEPAD precipitated another qualitative advance on the Abuja Treaty. A top businessman and an NGO, the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), started "an initiative around NEPAD" in November 2001, got the backing of Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu of the NEPAD Secretariat, and approached other companies. By December these founders had drawn in the South African Departments of Foreign Affairs, and Trade and Industries; parastatals such as the Development Bank of Southern Africa, and Eskom; and listed companies including the Anglo-American Corporation, BHP Billiton, BP, Old Mutual, SA Breweries, and Standard Bank. They started organizing what was then called "NEPAD meeting Private Sector"(57) This launched in April 2002 a continental NEPAD Business Group, with support from 150 companies. (58) Apparently over the next eighteen months, this NEPAD Business Group grew to 300 companies.(59) In September 2003 the Kenyan Government facilitated launching their branch of the NEPAD Business Group, including business, civil society leaders and academia.

 Chaired by the African Business Round Table, the Sandton December 2003 NEPAD Business Group conference included 150 business executives from ten countries: , , , , , , , , and . Coming from four of the RECs, the NBG aims to extend its activities to the fifth region.(60) (NBG conference summary:2003) Relentless combating of corruption is another prerequisite of future success. The end of the Cold War, the OECD protocol, and Transparency International and other NGOs have helped make the post-Cold War international climate more hostile to corruption in both the public and private sectors. Companies such as Unilever and Eskom have ceased operations in a country rather than agree to bribes and corruption.(61) The NEPAD Business Group, discussed below, adopted in June 2002 a Covenant on Elimination of Corruption and Bribery, and a Declaration on Accounting and Audit Practices. A year later, the AU adopted a Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption.(62) A historian familiar with the and would not hold his breath.

Not one African government fully complies with its twenty-eight pages of statutory and administrative requirements. But in the right political context, such aspirational conventions, protocols and treaties enhance pressure upon kleptocracies and oligarchies. The spread of Generally-Accepted Accounting principles (GAAP), plus anti-corruption trials against powerful celebrities from to , indicate that more and more Third World countries now prosecute and convict for corruption with unprecedented vigor. Left critiques of NEPAD oppose an increased role for the market and private sector companies.(63) But contrary to the left critique of NEPAD over privatization, in practice it is not private companies, but parastatals that have taken the lead, such as Eskom, which now carries on business in thirty-three of the fifty-three African countries.(64) Spoor net has contracts with the national railways in 17 countries on the continent. (65) State-owned enterprises from , , and : have started to increase operations in the Horn of Africa. The more politically astute parastatals have in fact eagerly re-labeled many of their pre-NEPAD projects as either African Renaissance or NEPAD, in order to get political buy-in, and funding.

The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), initially national in scope, was extended to cover the SADC, and today the continent. The Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) broadened its mandate from the apartheid Bantustans to first the whole of , then the SADC, and now to the entire continent. It also houses the offices of the NEPAD Secretariat. (66) Business increasingly organizes at the continental level. 1986 saw the start of the Pan-African Employers' Confederation, with thirty-nine national employers' chambers. This was joined in 1990 by the African Business Round Table. The African Stock Exchange Association, founded in 1993, covers eighteen bourses in seventeen countries(67) It exchanges information, seeks to harmonize listing regulations and technology, and is debating merger of one or more African bourses.

The cold war polarization was represented by the All-African Trade Union Federation founded in 1961, versus the African Trade Union Confederation, founded in 1962. They negotiated merger in 1973 as the Organization of African Trade Union Unity. President Mbeki urged that South African trade unions "must act with other solidarity workers across the continent and spread the national democratic revolution. NEHAWU must look closely at its responsibility to the rest of Africa . (68) There is a gradual formation of African regional trade secretariats: the Southern African Trade Union Coordinating Committee is another variant over a decade old.

6.2 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

Relevant examples of continental NGOs include the African Association of Political Science (AAPS), and the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA), both founded in 1973, with sustained foreign donor support. Today, there is a thickening alphabet soup of continental NGOs covering more and more professions, scientific research.(69) They range from the Association of African Airlines to the Association of African University Librarians.

Examples pertinent to a reference work include the African Publishers Network (APNET), with 45 national publishers associations, which is in touch with the Pan-African Writers Association. Conservation and religious organizations have also increasingly formed continental institutions. These range from the largest Christian denominations, to the tiny African Jewish Congress, and the Pan-African Association of Zoological, Aquaria, and Botanical Gardens. 6.3 AFRICAN DIASPORA Pan-African ism conferences started with African diaspora intellectuals in 1900. The ECOSOCC initiates formal links between Africa and the African Diaspora. There are at least four historical precedents to build upon.

 First, the Zionist movement demonstrated strategies starting in a diaspora which controversially constructed a state. The World Zionist Organization builds and utilizes religious, cultural and economic links in the Jewish diaspora for political and other support of the State of Israel. Second, like , also has a "right of return" law for all foreigners of German ethnic origin. Third, started in 2004 visa and grants concessions for persons of Indian origin (PlO) and inaugurated annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, conferences for world leaders of the Indian diaspora. Fourth, some continental NGOs such as the African Association of Political Science already make specific provision for diaspora membership. The Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) has instituted a "sixth region" to accommodate major African diaspora NGOs and community organizations. The Republic of Cape Verde , for example, has over half its citizens living in the diaspora in and the . Mills has repeatedly drawn attention to Africa exporting its investors, entrepreneurs and professionals to the USA and Australia.(70) There are today more African engineers and scientists living in the USA than in Africa, with a further 20 000 professionals emigrating each year?1 Africans abroad remit close to $400 million per year.

The Ugandan diaspora remits more home than 's earnings from its main export, coffee. 2 The African diaspora is the politically optimal starting-point to import them from, and to repatriate emigrants. The most organized of these are the African-Americans; Black Britons, and African-Canadians. There are far smaller black organizations of Afro Brazilians, and in the Caribbean and a few mainland European countries. generaly, there will be competition, lobbying and political gate-keeping amongst diaspora organizations to gain admission. In his speech to the Conference of Intellectuals of Africa and the Diaspora, Mbeki argued for a provocatively inclusive concept. He noted that South Africa had more whites than New Zealand, and argued that the African diaspora should be thought of as including both Bob Marley and white African film stars such as Charlize Theron.(73) 7. CONCLUSIONS (74) Four decades after Chinua Achebe's famous novel, things fall together. The re-invention of the OAU as the AU marks a qualitative break with earlier attempts at African unity. Compared to 1963, the situation at the dawn of 2003 was much more favorable to continental unification. Many African leaders show commitment to democracy and development. A stronger civil society in many countries, the ICT revolution, continental corporations and NGOs, all deepen integration beyond inter –govemmental links between countries. , the continent's strongest economy, is now a democratic leader. , the largest nation, is today a co-driver of continental unity. Unlike all the other regional economic communities in Asia and the Americas, the AU aims at EU-Ievel institutionalization of integration, including a continental parliament, court, central bank, common market, plus a peace-keeping military and police force. This is the most ambitious project of its kind in the world outside the EU.

 Treaties obligate it to culminate in a single market of 800 million people. The greatest challenge is political will and democratic lobbying. The political will to increase the tax-collecting capacity to fund continental obligations of treaties and protocols. The political will to enforce the state and corporate conventions against corruption. The shifting balance of power between heterogeneous members, ranging from democratic states to authoritarian regimes, will sometimes result in diplomatic fudges such as , but more often in pressure and peace-keepers, as in the . Gaddafi and Mugabe are the sole remaining African rulers who command the measure of deference that derives from being their countries original liberators. Their successors will not enjoy comparable impunity. No other regional community of the developing world sought to strengthen and democratise itself by founding continental legislatures and courts of human rights. If the AU succeeds, it will be the second in the world after the EU, and immensely accelerate democracy and development in Africa .

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