AU Adopts Accra Declaration to Plan Integration

BuaNews (Tshwane) - Lavinia Mahlangu

Timelines and the method for Africa’s integration are to be set out according to the Accra Declaration, adopted late on Tuesday night by the 9th Ordinary Session of the African Union Heads of Summit.

“We emerged from the Grand Debate with a common vision,” AU Chair John Kuofor and President of Ghana said on Tuesday, minutes before midnight.

“We all have a shared vision for a united, vibrant continental union.”

“To this end, we agreed to strengthen capacity of the Commission and the organs of our union. This will be reassuring to Africans in the civil society and diaspora who have been calling on us to build synergy within these organs.”

The re-energising of the union would depend greatly on the will of the member nations, he explained.

Vice President of the AU Commission Patrick Mazimaka, read out the Accra Declaration which states the leaders are convinced that the ultimate objective of the African Union is the United States of Africa, with a Union Government as envisaged by the founding fathers of the Organisation of African Unity and, in particular, the visionary leader, Dr Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.

The summit also convinces, said Mr Mazimaka, “of the need for common responses to the major challenges of globalisation facing Africa and boosting regional integration processes through an effective continental mechanism.”

“We agree to accelerate the economic and political integration of the African continent, including the formation of a Union Government for Africa with the ultimate objective of creating the United States of Africa,” he said.

He also outlined the following steps to attaining the Union Government:

* to rationalise and strengthen the Regional Economic Communities, and harmonise their activities...with a reviewed and shorter timeframe to be agreed upon in order to accelerate the economic and, where possible, political integration;

* to conduct immediately, an Audit of the Executive Council;

* to establish a ministerial Committee to examine the following:

- identifying the contents of the Union Government concept and its relations with national governments;

- identifying the domains of competence and the impact of establishing the Union Government on the sovereignty of member states;

- defining the relationship between the Union Government and the Regional Economic Communities (RECs),

- elaborating the road map together with timeframes for establishing the Union Government; and

- identifying additional sources of financing the activities of the Union.

“The outcome of the audit and the work of the Ministerial Committee will be submitted to the Executive Council, to make appropriate recommendations to the next ordinary session of our Assembly in January,” Mr Mazimaka said.

“We agree on the importance of involving the African peoples, including Africans in the Diaspora, in the processes leading to the formation of the Union Government.”

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