Member States from the East African Community (EAC), Southern African Development Community (SADC), and Common Markets of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) met in Uganda to discuss the merger of the three economic blocs and the current financial crisis. Leaders of the three communities signed an agreement defining the roadmap for the project that seeks to create Africa’s largest trading bloc with a combined population of over 527 million people and a combined gross domestic product of $624 billion. The plan will be implemented with the signing of a comprehensive accord within six months. Within a year, the three regional communities will develop a legal framework and measures to facilitate the movement of business people, will have a single airspace and an inter-regional broadband Internet network, and will coordinate regional transportation and energy.

Meanwhile, military and defense officials from the EAC member states attended a seminar in Rwanda, the fourth of the five regional series, to discuss strategies on managing defense and sustainable peace in a democratic society and to formulate the East African defense protocol to further the political integration agenda. Meanwhile, climate experts and ministers of the Economic Community of West African States have committed to coordinate their national efforts to combat climate change as a new report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that ‘warming global temperatures can cut West African agricultural production by up to 50 percent by the year 2020’. SADC, one of many regional and sub-regional organisations invited by Zambia to observe this month’s presidential elections, has sent its electoral observer mission to ensure the promotion of common political values and to observe the management and conduct of the elections.

African ministers responsible for mineral resources met to discuss how African mineral exporting countries can gain optimum benefits from increasing exports and the price boom. They have adopted the ‘Africa Mining Vision 2050’, a document prepared by the African Union (AU) to provide a credible scheme for addressing the various challenges crippling the mining sector. The AU Commission chairperson, while addressing the 9th meeting of the Regional Consultation Mechanisms of the United Nations agencies and organisations working in Africa on food crisis and climate change, called for an urgent review of African agricultural policies to prioritise and better integrate them in national budgets and development interventions. In addition, the department of trade and industry of the AU Commission in collaboration with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation and the government of South Africa organised the Conference of African Ministers of Industry (CAMI-18) under the theme ‘the Acceleration of Industrial Development of Africa - the need for Value Addition and Industrial Transformation’.

The African Development Bank in partnership with the AU Commission will organise a conference of Africa’s finance ministers and central bank governors to examine the effects of the global financial crisis on African economies and how to mobilise a common response to the crisis. African ministers in charge of public service, at their sixth conference, adopted, among other resolutions, the draft of the African Public Service charter with the amendments for presentation to the assembly of heads of state and government of the AU. African heads of state and government who are members of the African Peer Review Mechanism attended their first extraordinary summit in Benin to further look at the review report on the Federal Republic of Nigeria and to begin examining the report on Burkina Faso. In his introductory statement, the president of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe, recognising that the land issue ‘represents a harsh manifestation of the colonial legacy and the gross historical injustices that shape land ownership patterns in Africa today’, addressed the topic in the context of resource control and management.

Meanwhile, the European Union Commission has expressed their willingness to work with China to develop African infrastructure and to ensure that its natural resources are well managed while identifying and addressing other areas for trilateral cooperation. African Development Bank Group President, Donald Kaberuka, while meeting with non governmental organisations, focused on the impact of Bank operations on the lives of small-scale farmers and rural populations in accessing drinking water, sanitation and electricity.

In peace and security related news, the AU Panel of the Wise welcomed resolutions adopted by the Peace and Security Council of the AU to balance the fight against impunity and the promotion of reconciliation in the Sudanese region of Darfur. The Panel further called on Sudanese parties to extend their full cooperation to the AU, the United Nations and the League of Arab States efforts to restore lasting peace in the region. The organ Troika of SADC heads of State and government met in the Kingdom of Swaziland in an extra-ordinary summit to review and consult on the political and security situation in Zimbabwe, the Kingdom of Lesotho and in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. In the meantime, SADC postponed a crisis meeting on the political instability in Zimbabwe after the government refused to renew the passport of Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai for him to travel to Swaziland. However, crisis talks continued in Zimbabwe in a bid to save the Kenya-style power-sharing deal in danger of collapse over cabinet-sharing disagreements between President Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai. A spokesperson for Somali insurgents admitted responsibility for attacks on AU forces, telling local media that they have killed at least seven soldiers, but, the Somali military deny the claim. During a round table discussion of the AU-UN panel on the support of regional peacekeeping operations, the AU was urged to find sustainable mechanisms to support Africa’s mediation, peacemaking and peacekeeping efforts.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights will hold the 44th ordinary session in Abuja, Nigeria from November 10-24, and the Forum on the Participation of NGOs in the Ordinary Sessions of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights will be held from the 7-9 of November. In other news, former president Festus Gontebanye Mogae of Botswana is the winner of the 2008 Mo Ibrahim Prize for good governance in Africa. The annual award is given to former sub-Sahara African heads of state or government who were democratically elected and demonstrated good governance.

Finally, a report presented to the second session of the conference of African ministers of culture announced that the great museum of Africa will be built in Algeria and must express the present and the future of Africa’s freedom from colonialism and racism as well as the characteristics that realise African unity.