This week’s AU Monitor brings you analysis of South Africa’s role in Darfur from the Darfur Relief and Documentation Centre. Abdelbagi Jibril argues that by South Africa “providing unconditional political and diplomatic support to the government of Sudan in its attempts to cover up the crimes it has wilfully committed in Darfur amounts to certain complicity in the commission of these crimes”.

In news and analysis from Pan-African civil society, Nanjakululu Wasai urges the East African Community to use TRIPS flexibilities as enshrined in the WTO 2001 Doha declaration to ease access to HIV treatment in the region. Further, a network of Freedom of Information advocates has launched a regional centre in Nigeria to galvanize the campaign for the adoption of access to information laws on the continent. The International Civil Society Steering Group for the Accra High Level Forum launches a policy paper aimed at providing the basis for further discussions about the aid effectiveness agenda towards regional and national consultations planned for September-November 2007. It is hoped that these discussions will help to develop and prioritise the positions and recommendations of CSOs on aid effectiveness. The South African Institute for International Affairs also launches downloadable resources on the African Peer Review Mechanism for civil society to effectively engage the process. With two weeks until the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, mobilization against poverty and inequality and in support of the Millennium Development Goals is geared to take place in almost 90 countries. Lastly, the Coalition for an Effective African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights provides an update from the sixth session of the Court which was held in Arusha on the 17-28th of September.

At the conclusion of the “Mobilizing Aid for Trade: Focus on Africa” conference convened by the African Development Bank in Dar es Salaam, delegates called on African countries to include trade in their national development plans. Also in official AU news, the draft agenda for the eighth ordinary session of the Pan-African Parliament to be held in Midrand, South Africa between October 15 and 26th, 2007 is now available for download. While the ECOSOCC credentials committee has launched an urgent call for applications from African civil society groups in twenty-three African countries from the Central, Northern and Southern regions for elections to the ECOSOCC Assembly.