[AU-Monitor] AU Launches Consultation Website and More...

[Hakima Abbas]

AU Launches Consultation Website on the Union Government

The AU Commission has just launch a public consultation on the  
upcoming ‘’Grand Debate on an African Union Government’’ to be held  
in Accra by Heads of States.  The Consultation is open to  
individuals, organizations and institutions “to undertake in-depth  
discussions on the nature of the continent’s integration agenda in  
order to determine where we are, where we are going, when and how to  
get there.”  You can participate in the consultation through the AU  
website: www.africa-union.org/augovernment.htm.


Pan-African Youth Leadership Forum
Democracy in Africa: Renewing the Vision - Accra, Ghana. June 18 –  
25, 2005

African countries are confronted by countless obstacles to  
development. Governments and civil society organizations toil to  
combat poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and underemployment,  
conflicts and displacement, and the HIV/AIDS crisis. The socio- 
economic problems faced by African nations have deeply rooted  
historical antecedents.  Disturbingly, African youth are largely  
excluded from the policy debates and the identification of solutions  
to these key challenges. Nevertheless, it is young Africans who bear  
the burdens of Africa’s underdevelopment, widespread poverty, and  
health crises. Yet, despite their constituting a majority demographic  
in many African nations, they have few opportunities to contribute to  
dialogue on development alternatives. Friends of Africa International  
(FAI) believes that young Africans must be part of the development  
debate. As the continent’s future politicians, professionals and  
community leaders, African youth must be incorporated into such  
integrated development planning.

Read more:
www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/index.php/AUMONITOR/comments/ 
pan_african_youth_leadership_forum/


Black Africans Must Tread Carefully Over the US Africa Project
By Basil Okafor, from the Ghanaian Chronicle - 19 April 2007

In the past nearly five decades since the formation of the  
Organisation of African Unity (OAU), many Africans have consistently  
called for closer ties between the nation-states that make up the  
continent.

After 38 years and feeling it had attained its main goal of African  
liberation, the 53-nation OAU transformed into an African Union,  
(AU), on October 15, 2001, to ostensibly give the body political and  
economic teeth, as a first step to greater continental integration  
and unity.

In furtherance of this ideal, there is a new suggestion to use the  
forthcoming July 2007 AU summit, to raise the stakes even higher. At  
the Accra gathering, proponents of the new African continental  
enterprise are to push for a United States of Africa. In the new  
arrangement, the entire continent, if the purveyors of this concept  
have their way, would fuse into one sprawling nation, with one army,  
one currency (much like the European Union) and free movement of  
people and goods, with no international borders, as they presently  
exist.

Read more:
www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/index.php/AUMONITOR/comments/ 
ghanian_chronicle_article_on_us_africa_project/


African Ministers Agree on a Set of Actions to Achieve the MDGs
ECA Press Release No. 06/2007 - Addis Ababa, 4 April 2007

The 2007 Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and  
Economic Development ended Tuesday April 3, with the adoption of  
resolutions calling for action to ensure that the Millennium  
Development Goals (MDGs) are achieved in African countries.

The two-day meeting, hosted by the United Nations Economic Commission  
for Africa (ECA), was convened on the theme: “Accelerating Africa’s  
Growth and Development to Meet the MDGs: Emerging Challenges and the  
Way Forward.”

Read more:
www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/index.php/AUMONITOR/comments/ 
african_ministers_mdg_actions/


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