Civil society pushes for greater say in AU

Representatives of civil society organisations from all over the African continent are lobbying for greater participation in decision-making processes in the African Union. This is the second African Union (AU) summit of African Governments and Heads of States, which is being held for the first time in Mozambique's capital, Maputo, from July 4 to 12. The hope is that the AU can bring greater peace and economic stability to the continent. How much say civil society will have, and manner in which they will make their voices heard, is still being worked out. "Before, we [members of the African Civil Society] were toyi-toyiing or dancing in the streets outside conference centres at such summits, but now we need to dialogue and to work from within the structures," Charles Mutasa, a representative of the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AfroDAD), told IRIN. Mutasa, who is from Zimbabwe, took part in a meeting of about 200 representatives of civil society organisations in Maputo during the week before the summit. The three-day meeting ended in a declaration of their goal to have a "people-centred African Union", which has been presented to the AU Summit. The civil society representatives in a written declaration said: "We have a vital role to play in the formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes for the advancement of development in Africa." The declaration denounced a range of issues, including human and economic right abuses, and named Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Burundi, Sudan, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Nigeria and Western Sahara, as examples. It also expressed concern about armed conflicts in the continent, the lack of collective and concrete actions to resolve the land issues in Africa, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and "the ballooning levels of internal and external debt". The International Monetary Fund and World Bank polices adopted by many African countries were rejected by the declaration because they "impoverished the African people". Elizabeth Eilor, a Ugandan civil rights activist from the African Women's Economic Policy Network, told IRIN that privatising basic social services, like water, health and education "disempowered people". Mutasa agreed, and said the way debt was handled and lending was carried out needed to be changed. "In the past it was the creditors who determined the processes. It must be remembered that there is illegitimate debt. It is not a way of exempting African governments from blame. However, there is debt caused not only be mismanagement by the government concerned, but also by poor lending practices," he said. He used the examples of huge loans to the late President Mobuto Sese Seko, of the former Zaire. "They [the lenders] knew the money was being pocketed." The civil society organisation is lobbying for a special court to deal with the problem of debt, which could be mandated by the United Nations. "We cannot solve poverty until the debt issue is dealt with. We need to ensure good economic policies are implemented - it is not just about cancelling debt," Mutasa stressed. The declaration urged the African leaders to interact with civil society as partners in implementing the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and to guarantee that it does not replicate structural adjustment programmes. African countries, in co-operation with the UN, need to take the leading role in stamping out corrupt regimes. The civil society representatives have called on leaders to ratify the AU peer review mechanism, whereby good governance will be checked. Only 18 countries have ratified the mechanism so far, and Mutasa conceded that "African countries have a tendency to defend each other". However, the declaration urged "the African Union to consult widely and ensure that the peer review is done in an objective and transparent manner". While few outsiders would disagree that civil society should have a major role in the decision-making process of the African Union, it is unclear how this would happen in practice, and there is scepticism about acceptance of the concept by some African leaders. The Mozambique News Agency reported: "It [the declaration] will not be at all welcome to some of the delegations - for it names several AU members as abusers of the rights of their peoples." Dorothy Brislin-Ntone, who participated in organising some of the cultural events for the AU summit, told IRIN: "The problem with many African countries, Mozambique included, is that there is no strong civil society to speak of. For this to happen, it is necessary to have a basic level of quality of education, which is desperately lacking in Mozambique." Almost half the school-aged children are not in school. "We need to question whether the civil society representation at the summit is really representative," she added. It was ironic, a mother of two school children commented, that at the last minute the Ministry of Education had ordered all schools to be shut down during this week of the summit to avoid traffic congestion. "The school children should be participating, not disadvantaged, during the summit."