Audit of the African Union

Professor Adebayo Adedeji, CFR, Chairperson High Level Panel—The initiative to undertake the audit of the African Union is one of great historic significance. That the African Heads of State agreed that their revered organisation and their African Union policies, programmes and projects should be subjected to a wide-ranging and comprehensive audit review marks a turning point in the history of pan-Africanism.

It is remarkable how closely connected with the arrival of what historians call the “turning point” in the history of a nation is the internalisation of the process of the recovery of self-confidence in identifying, defining and solving problems of substance and relevance to political and socio-economic development. And this self-confidence is a function of mobilising talents and capabilities and creating the right type of environment and motivation for unleashing inventive and innovative abilities. Therefore, more than a symbolic gesture, the commissioning of the audit is, that the continent of Africa is determined to move closer its own turning point. Our expectation is that this bold audit initiative will lead to the acceleration of the overarching objective of achieving Africa’s political and economic integration. Throughout all the many interactions in which the High Level Panel was engaged during the course of the Audit, there was consensus about the imperative of the African Union moving fast on its transformational journey so that, in due course, the establishment of the Union Government in accordance with the Accra Declaration of the Assembly can become feasible and self-sustaining. Actually, in the Accra Declaration, and parallel to the Audit, African Leaders had also set up a Ministerial Committee to examine such issues as the "identification of domains of competence and the impact of the establishment of the Union Government on the sovereignty of member states; (the) definition of the relationship between the Union Government and the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), (the) elaboration of the road map together with the time frames for establishing the Union Government; and (the) identification of additional sources of financing the activities of the Union.". In other respect, it should be recalled that the Terms of Reference of the Audit review specifically called for "concrete recommendations on the policiesi, strategic orientations, institutions and structures, programmes, roadmaps, and possible scenarios required to accelerate the economic and political integration process". The process of the Audit review was therefore conducted in such a way that the recommendations aim at accelerating the integration process so as to facilitate a decision on the establishment of a Union Govrment. In this regard, not onlyrecommendations with respect to the various organs of the Union and to the RECs are meant to revamp them and make them more result oriented in terms of political and economic integration, but there are additional recommendations that directly address the issue of accelerating the integration process and the setting up of a Union Government. The unanimity of views about the urgent need to accelerate the transformation process is not surprising. The alternatives to unity and integration are too frightening to contemplate at a time when irredentist forces around the world are openly threatening a new form of colonialism. However, political and socio-economic transformation will not be achieved by chance nor by rhetorics nor by fiat but by sustained actions backed by a determination to take and implement very difficult but fundamental decisions. Indeed, several declarations, protocols and treaties have been issued by the Assembly committing Member States of the AU to an accelerated programme of integration and unity that would culminate in a Union Government. But as the audit has shown quite clearly, we are not yet there and the movement is rather slow. Issuing declarations seems to be the easier part of the challenge facing us. Thus, in conducting the audit of the Union, the RECs and their inter relationships, and in order to move forward, the ensuing recommendations aim at making African countries to develop the culture of putting their money where theirmouth is and work assiduously to achieve breakthroughs in the following complicated but unavoidable arenas: • Ensuring that they remain committed to the development and implementation of detailed roadmaps; and, • Ensuring that such roadmaps address i. the structure of a possible political union; ii. the economic integration that would underpin the political union; iii. the degree of sovereignty to be ceded by member states of the AU at different stages of the process; iv. the effective and efficient functioning of the various Organs of the AU, streamlining their operations for the achievement of greater synergies; v. revamping the Commission with a view to enabling it to function effectively as the principal hub around which the movements towards unity and integration are organised; vi. the turning of RECS into a tower of strength and as true building blocks for pan-African development; vii. free movement of people across borders and national frontiers; viii. the development of transcontinental and interregional infrastructure ix. the setting up of multinational African firms as accelerators of the transformation and integration process; x. the early establishment of continental financial and monetary institutions; xi. finally, the development of the culture of full domestication and implementation, at national and regional levels, of all the Decisions taken at continental levels. For example, with respect to the Commission, a major recommendation is that the Chairperson of the Commission, not only assign portfolios to the Commissioners and to the Deputy Chairperson, but also, in consultation with the Chairperson of the Union, he is fully responsible for determining the nature and content of such portfolios, provided they are consistent t with the priorities of the Union. In other words, such Portfolios may be areas in which Member States consent to cede partial or total sovereignty, thus establishing the the embryo of a Union Government. Also, in recommending that the Assembly, after reviewing the implementation of previous decisions, should, during each session, focus exclusively on a theme to be previously agreed upon, such a theme relate to an area which is under the exclusive or partial responsibility of the Commission, acting as the Union Government. Similarly, in recommending that the Executive Council be renamed as Council of Ministers, the clear intention is to involve or sectoral ministries in the activities of the Union, including those that would form the Portfolios of the Commission as exclusive or partial areas of competence. Finally, in addition to the direct representation of Member States in the Pan African Parliament (PAP) and the completion of the COSOCC process, the establishment of National Commissions for Union Affairs, as recommended in the Audit review, would make the African Union a true union of African people and, as in Member states, and the Commission would be directly accountable to the African people in those areas within its portfolios. Africa at the Crossroads From these ELEVEN-MUST-BE-ADDRESSED sets of actions, it is clear that Africa is at the crossroads. These ELEVEN constitute the conditio sine qua non which must be tackled simultaneously and with singular determination, deliberate and calculated haste. Although, the tasks are many, they are not insurmountable, provided that the peoples of Africa and their leaders are prepared to seize the moment. Indeed, if the African Union that we seek is to become a sustainable reality, it must be a Union of the Peoples of Africa, and not just a Union of African States and Governments. The peoples of Africa must be fully mobilised and engaged. By so doing, pan-Africanism will be securely based on the fulcrum of collective self-reliance and self-sustainment. And, most importantly, self-reliant processes, will under the law of cumulative causation, result in the transformation of the people themselves – their cultures, their attitudes to work, their skills and their social systems, during the course of which shared values will be more broad-based as the self-transformation of the people becomes deep and widespread. No one can deny that establishing and deepening shared values is a much needed way of promoting solidarity and the acceptance of the oneness of the African humanity – an imperative, given the current diversity and the multiple layers of the African societies. Africa is, therefore, called upon to choose between progress and backwardness. The Constitutive Act 2000, while not a perfect instrument, gives enough scope for promoting Africa’s continental unity, economic integration and transformation. Indeed, the Sirte Declaration of 1999 and the adoption of the Constitutive Act constitute the fourth defining moment in Africa’s post-colonial history. The first being the creation of the OAU in 1963; the second, the adoption of the Lagos Plan of Action and the Final Act of Lagos in 1980; and, the third, the signing of the Abuja Treaty in 1991. Each of these moments has been characterised by the crystallisation of a set of common challenges to which collective responses were both required and attempted. Unfortunately, in responding to the challenges that have arisen, Africa has not always acquitted itself with credit. Given the dire consequences of failure to respond with vision, vigour, determination and dedication to the three defining moments, we need to muster all our energies so that the same does not become the fate of Africa’s fourth defining moment. Eight Benchmarks: Radars of Hope and Barometers of Progress To assure progress, there is need for constant and regular monitoring. Accordingly, eight broad benchmarks have been proposed. It is on these that the project of African unity, integration and transformation will stand or fall over the long-run. The benchmarks will therefore serve both as radars of hope and the barometers of progress. And they also create room for flexibility. If they are fast-tracked in implementation, the peoples and their governments will move faster in their transformational journey and reach their destination very quickly. The first benchmark is institutional revamping. The decisive role of institutions cannot be overemphasised. Indeed, the Audit acknowledges generously that institutions do play a decisive role in the destiny of nations and intergovernmental organisations. The organs and institutions of the AU, therefore, have a strategic role to play in the unification project. If their capacity is very high and they are proactive, they will accelerate the process. Not only will they prompt pro-pan-African policies, programmes and projects, they will also implement them diligently and fully. It is not surprising therefore that eight out of the fourteen chapters of the Audit Report have focused exclusively on the audit of the AU’s organs. Nearly 160 recommendations arising from the audit have been put forward. The overall finding is one of internal institutional incoherence and disarray. There is also a disconnect between these organs and other institutional mechanisms such as the RECs. All the recommendations – 40 per cent of which are on the AU Commission – are designed to rationalise, strengthen and improve the coordination among them. Institutional development constitutes a priority field of action and the report offers pointers to steps that should be taken by the Assembly at its 10th ordinary session of January/February 2008. These recommendations, if approved and fully implemented, will enable the AU to provide a higher level of service and thus pave the way for the achievement of the political and economic integration in the shortest time possible. There is, therefore, an urgent need to ensure that all players at different levels – national, regional and continental – work in tandem. To ensure that this happens, it is important to clarify who does what; provide a timeframe for different actions, and keep the process of implementation under close monitoring and scrutiny. It has, accordingly, been proposed that all the Organs and Institutions be involved, individually or in clusters – depending on the nature of each recommendation – in preparing, during the next 4 to 6 weeks, roadmaps and plans of action, once the Assembly at this its 10th ordinary session has approved the recommendations. These roadmaps and plans of action should be submitted to an Ad Hoc Committee to be set up. Such a committee will ascertain that the roadmaps constitute adequate responses to the challenges posed by the recommendations. This Ad Hoc Committee of not more than six members will receive all the roadmaps for analysis and authentication. In addition, the Ad Hoc Committee will collate all roadmaps and plans of action; provide an overall picture of the cost of implementing them; and, identify costs which can be met from existing budgeted resources and those requiring new resources and the estimate of such requirements. There are, however, recommendations that can and should be implemented immediately and without delay, once decisions have been made by the Assembly at its current session. These are identified in Paragraphs 449 to 457 of the Report. But this list is far from being exhaustive. The Assembly should feel free to add to it. I would like, in this regard, to draw attention to recommendations contained in paragraphs 454 ( a, c, d, and e) with respect the portfolios and the impending elections. Their adoption, which the Panel strongly recommends, would require a transitory period (i.e. January to July 2008) during which portfolios would need to be redesigned and profiles of Commissioners properly defined to to focus on core competences so that they can manage any portfolio that would be assigned to them.. It the Panel view that this could be best done by the current Chairperson of the Commission in consultation with the Chairperson who will be elected at the present session, together with the Deputy Chairperson as suggested by the Panel to be elected at the present session and effectively assume duty in July 2008. As also recommended, the election of new commissioners will take place in July 2008 without any pre-assigned portfolio. This would represent a major departure from the present system and a gigantic step towards the embryo of a Union Government as called for in the Accra Declaration. The implementation of all the recommendations must be closely monitored by the Assembly. The Panel is of the view that by the year 2011, all the recommendations should have been fully implemented. In addition to annual reports on implementation to be submitted in 2009, 2010 and 2011 by the Commission, the Assembly should receive a final, overall and comprehensive report on implementation at its 14th ordinary session in 2012 – which is also the year of the 10th anniversary of the AU. The Panel has also proposed that comprehensive audit reviews should be undertaken every five years beginning from 2012. The second benchmark is internalising the Values of Pan-Africanism which requires that the gulf between avowed objectives which have been espoused by succeeding generations of leaders and the concrete steps taken to arrive at the objectives – which has been a very wide one – should be narrowed, if not completely eliminated. The time has come to address this situation through the deliberate promotion of a new pan-African consciousness that takes, as its point of departure, the values which are enshrined in Article 3 of the Constitutive Act. A multi-prong approach is called for. This includes (a) the structuring and orientation of the institutions of government, (Paragraph 93); ((b) the political socialisation of the citizenry (Paragraph 209); and, (c) expanding educational curriculum at all levels – primary, secondary and tertiary – to encompass these values and the setting up of the AU network of universities and research institutes to undertake research on developing the Union and on the integration process as well as provide analysis on the progress in implementation. The role of the media in this task is very crucial. Also critically important is the need to monitor impact at the national, inter-country and regional levels. The third benchmark is the engagement of the people. The audit review has emphasised the need for a conscious effort to move away from a project of unification and integration that is driven from above by political leaders into one that is infused with energies from below and which is provided by the generality of the people – a kind of Public-Peoples-Partnership Paradigm. In this context, the Panel’s recommendation that a National Commission on African Union Affairs (NCAUA) be established in every member state should be implemented in earnest. Each NCAUA should be composed of representatives of Government, Parliament, the Private Sector, Trade Unions and Employers’ Organisations and Civil Society Organisations. Its task will be to ensure the domestication and popularisation of the Assembly decisions and produce gap analysis reports between AU instruments and national laws. Properly developed, the NCAUA will give a peoples’ face to the pan-Africanist project. NCAUA and ECOSOCC will both promote dialogue and partnership between governments and their peoples and among the peoples themselves and thus make the AU a true Union of the People. May I also draw your special attention to Paragraph 80 which contains specific recommendations on the Assembly. One of them proposes that each Head of State and Government should endeavour to report on the proceedings of significant issues relating to the political and economic integration of Africa to their populace including their parliaments and other deliberative institutions after every Summit meeting. The fourth benchmark, the free movement of the people, has the pull effect of making the African peoples not only pro-pan-African, but also proudly so, as it will restore, very quickly, the dignity of Africa while strengthening people-to-people solidarity and cultural exchanges. It is indeed very important that this benchmark must be fast-tracked if the people are to take the project seriously. Therefore, and given the fact that the year 2010 marks the golden jubilee of the independence of many of the countries of Africa, the year 2010 will be the symbolic occasion to commemorate the dismantling of all the restrictions on the free movement of the African citizens on the continent, and, in so doing, erase some of the more odious legacies of the Berlin Conference of 1884/85. A timetable for the stage-by-stage removal of the restrictions on the free movement of peoples should therefore be introduced immediately so as to culminate in the complete removal of all restrictions by 2010 and, possibly, the introduction of a Union Passport. The Assembly may wish to set up a Committee of Heads of State and Government to be mandated to take all measures to ensure the achievement of this objective by 2010. The fifth benchmark is the rationalisation, strengthening and dynamisation of the RECs. Chapter 9 of the Audit Report has showed that the RECs are far from being the bedrock of the economic integration of Africa. The slow progress registered to-date makes benchmarking urgent and imperative as a barometer for viewing the implementation of all the recommendations put forward at the end of the chapter and summarised in Table 19. The steps required for strengthening, rationalising and dynamising the existing eight RECs and for achieving synergy among the RECs and between them and AU Commission are measurable and, therefore, easily monitorable. To ensure effective monitoring, the RECs should prepare their roadmaps and submit them to the proposed Ad Hoc Committee so as to ensure that the synergy, which is required to frog-leap the building block process, exists. And it is only in such circumstances that the continent can move towards the African Common Market and the African Economic Community, which is the sixth principal benchmark. The RECs by themselves were expected to achieve the Common Market under the auspices of the Community in a period of 34 years beginning from 1994 when the Abuja Treaty came into force and in six stages. What has been achieved is a far cry from this lofty objective. None of the RECs has gone beyond the second stage. If the AEC and the ACM are ever to become a reality, there must be: • an effective harmonisation of the integration process throughout the continent; • the incorporation of integration strategies into national and regional programmes, policies and institutions; • the full implementation of the treaties, the protocols and the procedures covering the relationships between the AU and the RECs; among the RECs; AU and, between AU and the AfDB; and, • the elimination of all existing incoherences and inconsistencies in the relationships between AUC, the RECs, external partners, UNECA, and the UN system and other inter-governmental organisations. The seventh benchmark is the acceleration of measures towards the establishment of continental, financial and monetary institutions. This has been on Africa’s agenda since 1963 when the OAU was established. The Lagos Plan of Action, the Abuja Treaty, the Sirte Declaration and the Constitutive Act have all called for the establishment of these institutions. Yet virtually no progress has been made beyond feasibility studies. There is a strong impression that those who have been expected to be gamekeepers have been behaving like game poachers! The Panel has accordingly proposed that the Assembly at this its 10th ordinary session should kick-start a forward movement by mandating an Ad Hoc Committee of Experts to submit a roadmap within three months to the mechanism proposed for the implementation of all the recommendations (Paragraph 485). The suggested composition of this Ad Hoc Committee of Experts covers all interests but their mandate is to prepare a roadmap for the way forward and not to keep harping at difficulties which are imagined to be insurmountable. This tactic has been used for too long as an excuse for inaction and hence lack of progress for 45 years. The eight and final benchmark is the mobilisation of African entrepreneurs to become engaged in investing in transcontinental and inter-regional infrastructure and pan-African enterprises. In other words, through the private sector and in collaboration with the public sector, accelerators must be injected into the integration and transformation process to propel it forward and speed it up. Through such multinational African firms and enterprises, there will develop, over the years, huge multiplier impact that will advance not only the pace of the transformation process but also the transformation of the national political economy and the creation of a dynamic truly pan-African middle class. And, by challenging the budding pan-African entrepreneurial class and by providing them with favourable and enabling environment for initiative and enterprise, Africa will free itself from the capital shortage illusion which cultivated a culture of dependence on foreign capital and foreign aid. Chapter 13 of the Audit Report is all about the imperative of injecting accelerators to the integration and transformation process. This is so vital to the future of Africa. It deserves another Committee of Heads of State and Government to take charge of and operationalise this extremely promising proposal immediately. The proposal that pan-African entrepreneurial class be created and large quantum of investible resources be made available, albeit on a commercial basis, for investment in pan-African productive enterprises and trans-continental and inter-regional infrastructure is an idea whose time has come. As we have noted with delight in our report, a pan-African Infrastructure Development Fund was launched at the Accra Summit of the AU last July. Two months ago, the 2007 Africa Investor Award – a kind of Investment Oscars Winners – took place in Lagos, Nigeria. We should make haste while the iron is hot. The proposed Committee of Heads of State should immediately engage the entrepreneurial class and in full collaboration with them set to work, so that 5 to 7 years from now, several investment companies would have achieved some breakthrough in building pan-African productive enterprises. Concluding Remarks Let me end this statement by reiterating the Panel’s firm conviction that if the Assembly approves the Audit Report and its recommendations and if earnest efforts are made to embark on their implementation immediately and there is total commitment to implement them fully and efficiently, the peoples of Africa, their governments and their organisations will at last resume poste haste their journey along the political and economic transformation road which they have begun years ago. On this occasion, Africa will steadily but surely journey towards the most crucial “turning point” in its chequered history. But this will come to pass not by fixing dates and deadlines arbitrarily but by working hard and resolutely to bring the transformational journey to a climatic end. What we are working for is not an event but a transformational process. And unlike instant coffee, there is no instant transformation. This means that we must set our sights high. We must double or even quadruple our effort by the day, by the hour and even by the minute. The world is changing very fast and the gap between Africa and the rest of the world is becoming wider by the day. We have no alternative but to face the huge challenge of transforming our continent by working assiduously to achieve our objectives. As we journey along our charted roadmaps, we must always aim at perfection. To be perfect is not to have achieved all but to be resolute in the pursuit of stated goals, and to back that determination with actions and take no rest until the task has been accomplished. This means that we must put no limits on our capability, draw no horizon as to what is possible and never say thus far and no further.

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