AU Monitor: Issue 135, 2008

Wed May 7 16:56:20 BST 2008

AU Monitor: Issue 135, 2008
Headlines – Weekly Roundup – Read more

Headlines

1.          African Development Bank Annual Meetings 2008

2.          Parliamentarians Want Interim EPAs Revoked

3.          Effective Aid

4.          Zimbabwe Crisis Talks

5.          NGO Forum Resolution on Zimbabwe

6.          ECOWAS - Cuba Energy Partnership

7.          Energy Trading in Southern Africa

8.          ECOWAS - China Cooperation

9.          EPA Nullification Call

10.       PAP Session Programme

11.       New AU Leadership

12.       Unity by Technology

Weekly Roundup

While a number of African countries signed interim Economic  
Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union late last year,  
African policy makers are coming under increasing pressure from a  
variety of stakeholders to revoke and annul the interim framework  
agreements.  At the continental level, the International Trade Union  
Confederation-Africa called “for the nullification of the interim  
EPAs and for appropriate time to be given for negotiating new trade  
relations between Africa and Europe that take account of Africa’s  
genuine needs for development and regional integration”.  Similarly,  
the East African Community (EAC) signed, without parliamentary  
debate, an interim agreement “ostensibly to avoid disruption of  
exports to the latter bloc [the EU] following the World Trade  
Organisation-mandated expiry of the Cotonou pact”.  Parliamentarians  
called this week on Uganda to revoke the partial EPA, said to  
entrench “unfair treatment” of the five-member EAC which Uganda  
currently chairs.  The ninth ordinary session of the Pan-African  
Parliament (PAP) is being held from May 5 - 16, 2008 in South Africa.  
Included in the programme will be a debate on the EPAs and their  
impact on integration in Africa as well as a broader debate on the EU- 
Africa Strategy and the report of the Second EU-Africa Summit.

Meanwhile the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have  
signed an agreement to establish markets in China and ECOWAS aimed at  
enhancing trade and investment activities between respective business  
sectors as the first step towards promoting economic and trade  
cooperation envisioned under the ECOWAS-China Economic and Trade  
Forum scheduled for September, 2008.  Also in September, the Ghana  
High Level Forum on aid effectiveness will be held in Accra.  A  
preparatory meeting was held in Kigali, Rwanda, this week, with the  
aim of creating a unified African “negotiating position to firmly  
abide with during the upcoming Ghana aid effectiveness summit”.   
Participants at the workshop in Kigali called on donors to commit to  
providing aid according to the national priorities of recipient  
countries.

Cuba and the ECOWAS Commission have agreed to implement a regional  
programme on renewable energy that will promote energy efficiency.   
“The programme involves the donation of one million compact  
fluorescent lamps to match the purchase of a similar number by ECOWAS  
under a two-phased pilot project”.  Further, Cuba is providing an  
energy consultant to provide technical support and training for the  
project.  In Southern Africa, "energy trading" initiatives between  
Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states have been  
established in order to offer more secure and adequate power supplies  
throughout the region.  “This form of trading in energy supplies  
allows countries to buy and sell surplus power through an ever- 
widening network of electrical lines and relay substations”, writes  
Richard Nyamanhindi.  “However, if energy trading is going to  
continue benefiting the region, there is need for a follow-up on  
international pledges made to finance regional infrastructure  
projects under the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)”.

The African Development Bank will hold its annual meeting seminars  
under the theme of “Fostering shared Growth: Urbanization,  
Inequalities and Poverty in Africa” in Mozambique on May 14-15,  
2008.  The seminars will explore the opportunity provided by  
urbanization to foster economic growth and to achieve national  
development.  In addition to the ministerial roundtable and the high- 
level seminars, a seminar will be held on May 12th to exchange  
experiences of rural finance reform and financial innovation between  
China and African countries and discuss the role of finance in rural  
economic development.  Meanwhile, as the “Imagining the Future of  
East Africa” scenarios report is launched in Kigali, Charles Onyango- 
Obbo determines that unity of the region will be driven in part by  
new technologies, underscoring two important developments over the  
last year: the first being the announcement that Rwanda would no  
longer require work permits for EAC professionals; and the second  
being the decision by Kenya’s Safaricom to open its initial public  
offering of stocks to all east Africans.

As the new leadership is sworn in at the African Union Commission  
(AUC), the Pan-African Parliament will this week debate the report of  
the audit of the African Union concluded in January 2008, within  
which many of the recommendations focus on the AUC and are intended  
to rationalise, strengthen and improve continental integration.  The  
PAP will also consider the reports of its election observer missions  
to Kenya and Zimbabwe.  As the crisis in Zimbabwe continues, civil  
society participants at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’  
Rights (ACHPR) issued a resolution calling on the Commission to send  
a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe to investigate alleged abuses of  
human and peoples’ rights as well as to issue a statement on the  
“impact of the delay by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) in  
announcing the results of the presidential election”.  The resolution  
further elaborates minimum requirements that must be adhered to in  
the event that the two contesting parties agree to hold a second  
election so as “to contribute to a credible, free and fair  
election”.  Meanwhile a SADC delegation held crisis talks in Harare  
this week, while foreign ministers from the African Union (AU)  
discussed the Zimbabwe situation in Arusha, Tanzania.  In addition,  
the new AU chairman Jean Ping met Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean  
Electoral Commission and South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is  
mediating between the parties under the auspices of SADC this  
weekend.  Prime Minister Raila Odinga of Kenya has stated that “we  
are going to ask the African Union to be more proactive when dealing  
with this issue. The fact that elections can be held in an  
independent country and it takes more than a month for the results to  
be announced is sad. That is not really how you want to run a  
democracy. The rest of Africa is silent and this is not good for  
democracy. We must speak when an injustice is being done”.

Read More

African Development Bank Annual Meetings 2008

The 2008 Annual Meeting Seminars (AMS) are crafted around the theme:  
“Fostering shared Growth: Urbanization, Inequalities and Poverty in  
Africa". They are set around the challenges posed by rapid growth of  
the urban population in Africa, and divided into four specific topics  
to be examined in more detail during the Seminars, and emphasize the  
importance of economic growth as a development strategy.

Read more: www.aumonitor.org/comments/1227/

Parliamentarians Want Interim EPAs Revoked

Charles Kazooba (the EastAfrican) -- Parliamentarians are  
pressurising Uganda to revoke the interim trade agreement signed  
between the European Union and the East African Community.

Read more: www.aumonitor.org/comments/1226/

Effective Aid

Bosco Hitimana (East African Business Week) -- Although Africa  
receives inadequate aid, the recipients want it used effectively  
without donor pressure on how to spend it. This call was made last  
week in Kigali during a consultative workshop in preparation for the  
Accra, Ghana High Level Forum on aid effectiveness, to be held from  
September 2-4.

Read more: www.aumonitor.org/comments/1225/

Zimbabwe Crisis Talks

Tichaona Sibanda (SW Radio Africa) -- A delegation from the Southern  
African Development Community left Luanda, Angola for Harare to hold  
crisis talks with the regime and follow up the current situation in  
the country.

Read more: www.aumonitor.org/comments/1224

NGO Forum Resolution on Zimbabwe

We the participants gathered at the Forum on the Participation in the  
43rd Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples'  
Rights, held in Ezulwini, Kingdom of Swaziland, from 3-5 May 2008:

Read more: www.aumonitor.org/comments/1223/

ECOWAS - Cuba Energy Partnership

Press Release -- Cuba and the ECOWAS Commission have signed a  
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to implement a regional programme  
on renewable energy that will also promote energy efficiency in the  
15 Member States. The President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr Mohamed  
Ibn Chambas and the visiting Cuban Minister of Basic Industry  
(MINBAS), Mrs. Yadira Garcia Vera, signed the MOU within the  
framework of south-south cooperation.

Read more: www.aumonitor.org/comments/1222

Energy Trading in Southern Africa

Richard Nyamanhindi (SANF) -- "Energy trading" is a new initiative  
that offers more secure and adequate power supplies for business and  
residential electricity in southern Africa.

Read more: www.aumonitor.org/comments/1221/

ECOWAS - China Cooperation

Press Release -- China and the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and  
Development (EBID) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to  
establish Markets in China and the ECOWAS Region that will enable  
their citizens to exploit trade and investment opportunities in their  
two areas.

Read more: www.aumonitor.org/comments/1220/

EPA Nullification Call

Leigh Phillips (EU Observer) -- Africa's trade unions called on their  
governments to nullify the interim trade agreements they have signed  
with the European Union, saying they leave African nations "weak"  
within the global market.

Read more: www.aumonitor.org/comments/1219/

PAP Session Programme

Ninth ordinary session of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) will be  
held from May 05 - 16, 2008 in South Africa. The draft programme  
includes debates on:

Read more: www.aumonitor.org/comments/1218/

New AU Leadership

Rose Athumani (The Citizen) -- The African Union Commission yesterday  
acquired a new leadership following the official handing over of  
authority under the new AU chairman, President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete,  
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Read more: www.aumonitor.org/comments/1217

Unity by Technology

Charles Onyango-Obbo (The EastAfrican) -- This Tuesday quite a few  
East African policy wonks will don their thinking caps and head to  
the Rwandan capital for the launch of the most ambitious attempt to  
predict the likely collective fortunes and misfortunes of the region  
some 40 years from now.

Read more: www.aumonitor.org/comments/1216/

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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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