AU-Monitor: Issue 98, 2007

Tue Aug 7 17:51:29 BST 2007

AU Security Commissioner in Bujumbura

The Peace and Security Commissioner of the African Union (AU), Saïd  
Djinit, arrived in Bujumbura Monday afternoon on a three-day working  
visit, aimed at gathering information on the current political and  
security situation in the country, a diplomatic source said here.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/315/

AU Ministers Discuss Education

Education in Africa will come under the spotlight as education  
ministers from African Union countries meet for a five-day conference  
this week in Johannesburg South Africa.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/314/

Refugees Integrated into Nigeria

Some 7,292 refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia resident in Nigeria  
are to be integrated into the country under the terms of a multi- 
party agreement signed by ECOWAS, UN refugee agency UNHCR and the  
three countries, an ECOWAS statement said here Tuesday.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/313/

Remarks on ECOSOCC Credentials Report

The mammoth task of electing CSOs to the ECOSOCC substantive assembly  
can not be left to few individuals as heard in the Ghana  
‘credentials’ report. In a world where legitimacy, credibility,  
transparency, ownership and rights-based approaches are increasingly  
becoming buzz words and have taken center-stage it will be amiss for  
the African Union ECOSOCC elections to be done in an ‘instant coffee’  
and haphazard manner.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/312/

Protecting Health in the EPA

An Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) is being negotiated between  
east and southern African countries (ESA) and the European Union  
(EU). The final agreement is due to be signed in December 2007. The  
EPA is likely to impact on health, on public revenues for health and  
health care, including access to medicines, and to affect other  
inputs to health such as food security.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/311/

Climate Change Action Africa

African environmental experts meet in South Africa in August to  
strategise on a continental position to incorporate climate change  
adaptation programmes in national development policies.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/310/

SADC Ministers Endorse Gender Protocol

Ministers for gender and women’s affairs from southern Africa have  
endorsed the contents of a Gender Protocol that would make regional  
decisions on gender equality legally binding for the first time.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/309/

Intra-African Trade

Trade among African countries represent only 7% of the continent’s  
external trade, said Malian Habib Ouane, Director of the Division of  
Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Special Projects of the UN  
Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/308/

Farewell to Political Activism

Mukoma Wa Ngugi - We either value African life, understand a black  
life as equal to a white life, and the poor as equally deserving as  
the wealthy – or we do not. This reformulation of Frantz Fanon’s ‘a  
given society is either racist or not’; or better yet of Malcolm X’s  
‘If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three  
inches, that is not progress’ are reminders that there are no  
fractions when it comes to human dignities and freedoms. They either  
exist in full or they do not.  Africans, however, have been  
prescribed quarter-doses of health and education, one-sixteenth  
dignities, and piece-meal freedoms for so long that what would not be  
acceptable elsewhere is welcomed in Africa.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/307/

Situation in the Comoros

The Peace and Security Council of the African Union, at its 82nd  
meeting held on 23 July 2007, was briefed by the Commission,  
supplemented by the representative of South Africa, the country  
coordinating the regional efforts on the Comoros, on the outcome of  
the Meeting of the Ministerial Committee of the Countries of the  
Region on the Comoros, held in Pretoria, South Africa, on 8 and 9  
July 2007, and on the subsequent developments in the Comoros.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/306/

Preparing to Use the Darfur Road-Map

The joint African Union-United Nations ‘roadmap’ agreed on 8 June  
this year is supposed to guide the Darfur political process and the  
joint operations of these two international bodies in the region. If  
the current status of the peace process is anything to go by,  
however, they will find themselves navigating in a sandstorm.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/305/

Call for Borderless Communities

Costly delays at border posts, caused largely by a shortage of  
experienced staff and the manual clearance of goods, have resulted in  
SA’s rail utility, Transnet Freight Rail, formerly Spoornet, calling  
for the introduction of “borderless communities” or the creation of a  
single inspections standard for freight trains.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/304/

Leaders Failed Test of Unity

The Standard - The search for African unity is not only an emotional  
issue, but also a divisive subject.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/303/

Summit Failed Due to Lack of Methodology

Lome, Togo (PANA) - Togolese senior minister Edem Kodjo said Sunday  
the formation of an African unity government during the African Union  
(AU) summit in Accra, Ghana 1-3 July failed due to lack of a  
methodology.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/302/

Unification to Fulfill Historic Destiny

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - The Senegalese senior Minister of Foreign  
Affairs, Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, has said immediate unification is “the  
only way to set Africa once and for all on the right track to fulfil  
its historic destiny”.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/301/

Doubts AU Government Proposal

Conakry, Guinea (PANA) - Leader of the opposition Union of Democratic  
Forces in Guinea (UFDG), Mamadou Bah has expressed grave pessimism  
about the viability of the African Union government project.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/300/

Workshop on Land Policy

Within the context of developing a Land Policy framework in Africa,  
the consortium of the African Union Commission (AUC), Economic  
Commission for Africa (ECA) and African Development Bank (ADB), in  
collaboration with the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC),  
is planning to organise a regional consultative workshop on land  
policy in the Southern Africa region.  Scheduled to take place from  
August 29th to 31st, 2007, the regional consultative workshop would  
be hosted by the Government of Namibia in Windhoek, Namibia.

Read more:
www.aumonitor.org/comments/299/

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-----------------------------------------------------

Hakima Abbas
Policy Analyst, AU-Monitor
Fahamu - Networks for Social Justice
Email: hakima at fahamu.org
Skype: hakima_abbas
www.aumonitor.org
www.fahamu.org

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