AU, WB to Foster Africa’s Reintegration

(PANA)--The African Union (AU) and the World Bank have recommitted to deepening their collaboration to foster Africa’s reintegration, sustainable development and the fight against poverty.

According to a statement made available to PANA here Tuesday, the two institutions have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at deepening collaboration in the areas of regional integration, governance, post-conflict countries, relations with the Diaspora, and HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases.

Praising the transformation from the former Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to the current AU, World Bank president Robert Zoellick said: ‘We want to understand how to complement the AU’s work and we need to keep our vision big, even though we also need a mixture of activities including some smaller projects’.

He added that the World Bank was ready to help in ‘building the legitimacy of the African Union in various countries by working with the AU to promote and support real progress.’ The MoU provides an overall framework for collaboration over an initial five-year period in each of these areas, which are priorities for both the World Bank and the AU.

Meanwhile, AU Commission (AUC) Chairperson Jean Ping has said that the AU does lots of work on peace and security, with results to show. ‘We have made tremendous efforts to bring peace to the continent and have made great progress in democratisation.

‘But in development work generally, AU continues to hold seminars without follow-up and needs to move from rhetoric to action,’ Ping said, adding that ‘two weeks ago, we also launched a free trade zone in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) - a 170 million population.’

The MOU, signed in Washington at the weekend, provides that specific arrangements for individual activities in each substantive area will be set out in jointly formulated work plans.

Collaboration is intended to be results-focused, with the World Bank’s technical expertise complementing the African Union’s political leadership. The two institutions will periodically assess the effectiveness of the collaboration.

The Bank’s Managing Director, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, emphasised the growth opportunity that Africa presents saying, ‘The consistent theme is that Africa presents growth opportunities and the actors—African people—are waiting and ready to play their part.’

According to the statement, the MOU also commits the two organisations to share information on matters of mutual interest, including through annual consultations between senior management of the AU and the World Bank.

Senior officials from the AUC will take part, under observer status, in the Annual Meetings of the World Bank, and senior officials from the World Bank will be granted observer status in the ordinary sessions of the AU Assembly, Executive Council and Permanent Representatives Committee.

Giving an update on the status of two initial projects at the centre of the AU and the World Bank’s collaboration, the World Bank’s Vice President for Africa, Obiageli Ezekwesili, said: ‘The projects have been selected and we are in the process of putting things in place from the Bank’s side, which is expected to take a couple of months.

‘Then we will be ready to work towards tangible progress on the ground. This collaboration between the World Bank and the AUC is results-oriented.’

In July 2008, the AUC and the World Bank signed an agreement under which the Bank provided $487,000 in grant funding for strengthening the African Diaspora Programme of the AU.

The grant aims at enhancing the capacity of the AU Mission to the United Sates in Washington, DC, to carry out one of its core functions of developing and maintaining productive relationships with the African Diaspora in the North America, the Caribbean and Latin America. The AU has categorised the African Diaspora as the ‘sixth region’ of Africa.

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