A Decade of NEPAD - Economic Commission for Africa - uneca

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62 A Decade of NEPAD: Deepening African Private Sector and Civil Society Ownership and Partnership The Council of Ministers also encouraged the Secretary- General to intensify efforts aimed at furthering civil society involvement in the work of the OAU. This process was accelerated by the introduction of the CSSDCA programme into the work programme of the OAU in December 2001 when the CSSDCA was given the responsibility of bringing civil society into the mainstream affairs of the organization. In June 2002, pursuant to recommendations made at the 1 st OAU-CSO Conference, a civil society officer was appointed to serve within the CSSDCA Unit. From June 11-14, 2002 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a second OAU- CSO conference was held under the theme “Developing Partnership between the OAU and African Civil Society Organizations”. Out of the conference came the OAU-Civil Society Provisional Working Group which established a regionally representative cadre of CSOs as a body to work closely with the planned African Union Commission for a period of two years – in between the meetings of the larger Assembly. An additional conference outcome was an agreement to transform the working Group into a formal steering Committee at its next meeting. The role of CSOs in the work of the African governing body was further entrenched by the provisions of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, which was established in July 2002 as the AU’s successor and called for the establishment of an Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) to serve as an advisory organ. ECOSOCC was to be composed of different social and civic organizations from within the Member States of the Union. The Provisional Working Group was in fact ECOSOCC’s precursor. Following the 2002 meeting, two further meetings were held, the first in Accra, Ghana in October 2002, and the second in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in May 2003. At the first meeting, the Provisional CSO Working Group prepared proposals for the Criteria for Accreditation and Observer Status to the AU and deliberated on a Draft Code of Conduct and Ethics for African CSOS accredited to the AU. The second meeting of the Group reviewed proposals for the Draft Statute of the new Economic, Social and Cultural Council. The Draft Statutes of ECOSOCC were submitted to the Executive Council of the African Union in Maputo in July 2003. In the Decision that followed, the AU Executive Council mandated the Commission to broaden consultation on the draft statute to a wider body of African civil society organizations. The Commission thereafter, working in close partnership with the AU-Civil Society Provisional Working Group, initiated a broad consultative process, including national and regional consultative forums, to gather inputs from the African CSO community. In addition to the ECOSOCC development process, the CSSDCA Unit, working in close concert with relevant AU Commission Directorates, instituted a process of convening parallel civil society forums alongside official Ministerial meetings. The results of these deliberations provided input for the AGOA and Minister of Trade meetings held in 2002 and 2003, respectively. Also creating a wider voice for CSO input in the work of the AU Commission was the AU Assembly decree made at the Second Ordinary Session held in Maputo, Mozambique in 2003 that two more desk officers would be added to the staff in the CSSDCA Unit to handle civil society affairs. In 2003, the AU also began a concerted effort to reach out to civil society and stakeholders in Africa’s development from among the “African Diaspora”. From December 17- 19, 2003 the 1rst African Union – Western Hemisphere Diaspora Forum was held in Washington, DC. A Progress Report of activities that had been implemented towards the development of the AU Diaspora Initiative was submitted to the 34 th Extraordinary Session of Council of Ministers, which took place in Sun City, South Africa, in May 2004. 76 Also a new chapter in the relationship between the African peoples of the Caribbean and the continent of Africa was opened on the 12th of September 2004, with the creation in Bridgetown, Barbados of an African Diaspora Civil Society Network of the Caribbean. The meeting culminated with the formal establishment of a Caribbean Pan-African network comprised of some 23 organisations from 15 different Caribbean states. The Secretariat of the Network was established at the offices of the Emancipation Support Committee in Trinidad & Tobago and was initially managed by a 10 member interim Executive Committee. 77 This newly established Pan-Caribbean network of Pan- Africanist organisations was intended to be the critical and indispensable mechanism that allowed the Caribbean 76 Involving Civil Society in the Building of the African Union, Brainstorming Session on Building an African Union for the Twenty-First Century, October 25-28, 2003, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, pp. 2-6 77 Press Release – Birth Of The African Diaspora Civil Society Network Of The Caribbean, Emancipation Support Committee, Trinidad and Tobago, 2004
people and their civil society organizations to participate in the institutional structures of the African Union. In 2005, in furtherance of the effort to institutionalize CSO input into the infrastructure of the AU, an interim ECOSOCC structure was developed and ten Sectoral Committees were established to serve as the key operational mechanisms that would be used under ECOSOCC to develop opinions and provide contributions to the policy and programme development processes of the African Union. The ten clusters were: political affairs, peace and security, infrastructure and energy, social affairs and health, human resources, science and technology, trade and industry, rural economy and agriculture, economic affairs, women and gender, and cross cutting programmes 78 . In 2007, elections were held in 23 countries to replace the interim structures and the formal launch of the ECOSOCC General Assembly was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on September 9, 2008. Today, 150 CSOs make up ECOSOCC. Two CSOs represent each AU member state. Ten CSOs operating regionally and eight operating continentally are also represented within ECOSOCC. A further 20 CSOs represent the various continents of the world where the African Diaspora reside, and six ex-officio CSOs have been nominated by the AU Commission in consultation with Member States and serve based upon special considerations and criteria. The organizations that make up ECOSOCC’s membership represent women, youth, children, persons with disabilities, the elderly, associations of artists, engineers, health practitioners, social workers, media, teachers, legal professionals, social scientists, academia and various business associations, sport associations, national chambers of commerce, industry and agriculture as well as private se tor interest groups. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community based organizations (CBOs), voluntary organizations, cultural organizations and associations as well as social and professional bodies from the Diaspora are also represented. The eight core functions that ECOSOCC was established to undertake are: 78 The Role of the Private Sector and Civil Society: Review of NEPAD After 8 years, UNECA, NRID, 2009 pp. 22-23 5. NEPAD and the African Civil Society Today A Decade of NEPAD ӹ To contribute, through the provision of advice, to the effective translation of the objectives, principles and policies of the African Union into concrete programmes, as well as to assist in the evaluation of these programmes; ӹ To undertake studies that are recommended or deemed necessary by other organs of the African Union; ӹ To carry out other studies deemed necessary and submit recommendations as appropriate; ӹ To contribute to the promotion and popularization of popular participation, best practice and expertise sharing, and the realization of the vision and objectives of the African Union; ӹ To contribute to the promotion of rule of law, human rights, good governance, democratic principles, children’s rights and gender equality; ӹ To promote and support the efforts of organizations engaged in the development of strategies and programmes related to Africa’s future development and to forge pan-African values that help enhance an African social model and way of life; ӹ To foster and consolidate partnership between the African Union and CSOs through effective public enlightenment, mobilization, and the provision of feedback on the activities of the Union; and ӹ To assume other roles and functions, and renders other tasks, as assigned or requested by the African Union. In its early days of construct, ECOSOCC has been challenged by various funding and related operational constraints that have prevented it from fully fulfilling the significant mandate and charge that the organ has been given. Yet, the organ has significant promise and its establishment has been a significant step toward the evolution of the AU becoming a more people centred institution. Also, because of the inherent exclusivity of ECOSOCC relative to its constitutive act which requires representative election from member states, two additional outcomes of the process of establishing ECOSOCC have been that: 1) a number of international CSO organizations that have been active in supporting African development have not met the “African or Diaspora CSO criteria” and have been excluded from representation within the body, and b) the relative weakness of national and regional CSO umbrella organs across Africa has meant that there are African CSOs that did not participate in the national and regional 63
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