Dorothy-Grace Guerrero and Firoze Manji (ed) (2008) China’s New Role in Africa and the South: A search for a new perspective. 
African Union Monitor
AU Monitor Weekly Roundup
Issue 128, 2008
2008-03-14http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/aumonitor/46662
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This week’s AU Monitor brings you analysis from John Palmer on the lessons from the European Union (EU) for the African Union. Providing a detailed background of the structures, membership criteria and values of the EU, he asks whether regional blocs will be able to manage globalisation without strengthening collective decision making and whether they will “have to move beyond cooperation and agree to at least some elements of sovereignty sharing and supranational integration” in order to do so. However, he concludes contentiously with the assertion that the purpose of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the EU and AU “is to foster regional economic integration” without providing analysis on how they will effectively achieve this. Indeed, civil society organisations called this week on the EU to align EPAs with Africa’s economic integration plans and “stop trying to re-colonise Africa”. While the EU remains Africa’s biggest trading partner, China’s role in Africa has become the subject of inquiry in a soon to be released report by the European Parliament Development Committee. Yet, Jonathan Holslag asserts that China is not a competitor to the EU in Africa, other than in the energy sector, and states that “transparency and good governance are the most important issues in which EU and China should act extensively and more concrete plan of action". Also vying for closer cooperation with Africa, Iran hosted a delegation from the African Union Commission to explore avenues for joint action in areas such as development, trade and industry.
In regional news, Rwanda and Burundi have launched public consultations on the East African federation to compile views from a cross section of stakeholders that can feed toward a common country position. In West Africa, the African Union will hold a land policy workshop in mid-April to, among other aims, reach consensus on “regional specificities, initiatives and lessons that should be included in the continental framework”. While in southern Africa, Southern African Development Community (Sadc) observers have arrived in Zimbabwe to observe the forthcoming presidential, parliamentary and council elections in the country. The Economic Community of Central African States is holding an extraordinary summit in the Democratic Republic of Congo on the situation in Chad, just as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has released its resolutions on the human rights situation in Kenya and Somalia. Also in peace and security news, Festus Aboagye provides analysis of current efforts to put the difficulties faced by the joint AU – UN peacekeeping force in Darfur on the United Nations Security Council agenda. He further challenges the international community to “exercise the moral courage necessary to review that course of action, rather than blindly adhere to one fraught with insurmountable challenges”.
In development news, the African Peer Review Mechanism has hailed Nigeria’s self-assessment report which covers up to twenty two thousand households, has been translated into local languages and is said to surpass “all other reports” received so far by the country review teams. Lastly, the African Development Bank has concluded a workshop on Diaspora led investments as “the role and impact of the Diaspora and their remittances as well as their potential positive contribution to development is becoming increasingly critical for policy and strategic considerations”.