Civil society and the Joint EU-Africa strategy: perspectives from the closing session

In the final panel of the conference, the key messages and requests that emerged from the two-day discussions were presented by civil society representatives to political leaders of European and African institutions.

Joseph Ssuuna - PLENUM Association
'This conference has been a great opportunity for people to start talking in order to change things, on the basis of trust and mutual respect. We need to rethink institutions for civil society participation, creating more mechanisms to allow this. Moreover, we need to create a stable platform for dialogue between the two continents, engaging with other stakeholders in Africa. At the same time, we ask Europe to change its way of dealing and working with Africa'.

Prof. Dr. h.c. Christa Randzio-Plath - VENRO
'European development cooperation needs to forget its paternalistic approach, negotiating with Africa on equal footing and delivering on the commitments undertaken'.

Roselynn Musa - FEMNET, on behalf of the Accra Steering Committee
'We need to move from consultation to involvement. The strategy must be owned in order to be endorsed. In this sense, the process this Joint Strategy has been developing leaves lot of questions open'.

Thomas Albert - Federal Ministry for Development, Germany
'The EU's attitude is changing. Europe, in terms of Commission and Member States is recognizing that aid as such is not the answer. At the same time, we need to free African internal forces and investing in its own initiatives. In this, Europe needs to assist, instead of pushing things. The German Presidency is moving in this direction. This is not business as usual'.

H.E. Mr. Mahamet Annadif - Ambassador of the African Union
'It is true: the German Presidency is doing a lot. There's a new spirit, a new vision that guides collaboration between the two continents: for the first time, Africa is seen as one single entity and the rules of the game are changing. We need to recognize the role of civil society, also in Africa, as an engine to move things forward'.

Prof. Dr. Joâo Gomes Carvinho - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Portugal
'Listening is always useful, so it is really important to be here today. I agree with the great majority of what has been said and I recognize that so far the dialogue with civil society has not been enough. In this sense, the Lisbon Summit is meant to create a new platform for political dialogue with Africa, putting on the table mutual commitments that go beyond the classic donor – recipient scheme. Lisbon is a milestone in a process that will assure permanent dialogue with civil society, so to integrate feedback and ideas in the political debate and into concrete policies. At the same time, the dialogue between civil society actors in Africa and Europe needs also to be permanent and structured'.

Klaus Rudischhauser - Director for General Affairs, DG Development
'The seminar was held to listen to CSOs. The process is not over, but it just started. The added value of this process lies in the new quality of the dialogue. For sure, the involvement of CSOs will stay, as we recognize its importance'.

Koen Vervaeke - Head of the Africa Task Force, Council Secretariat
'The overall objective of the Joint Strategy is to deliver better to Africa, improving the coherence between different cooperation instruments so to increase their effectiveness. Globalisation processes increase the interdepence between the two continents; we need Africa to become an actor of international relations. This process is already creating an added value at the moment that Europe and Africa sit together and discuss on an equal basis. The starting point for this is African ownership, with Europe supporting and creating African capacities'.

For more information, see europafrica.org and Euforic dossiers on Africa.

Story contributed by Pier Andrea Pirani.

"African CSOs: raising our voices and improving our networks"

In the two-day conference conference 'Civil Society and the Joint EU-Africa Strategy', Ben Abdallah Taoufik , from ENDA, has been one of the most vocal participants, advocating for the crucial role of African civil society in the consultation process, and more in general in the development of the African continent. A coffee-break gave us the opportunity to capture some of his ideas.

"The participation of African civil society organizations in the development of the continent needs to be larger and more effective; with this I mean that we need to have on board a higher number of different organizations and actors, able to contribute in a significant way with informed voices. This conference is a good opportunity in this sense. In my view, we can have a stronger voice only if we network. And African civil society has capacities to do so, to organize itself and mobilize its knowledge and ideas: see what happened just a few months ago with the social Forum organized in Nairobi. We can do things. Of course we need support, but we need to choose ourselves what type of support we want. More important, this needs to go along with the guarantee that our demands will be heard and listened to, not only by the EU and the AU, but also, and equally important, by our own governments. Too many times civil society positions have been ignored, it's happening all the time and the EPAs negotiations are a clear example of this. In this sense, how can a new strategy be trustworthy if it doesn't respond to what the people want?"

For more information, see europafrica.org and Euforic dossier on Africa.

Story contributed by Pier Andrea Pirani.

African Union cooperation with Regional Economic Communities and the role of the European Union

While policy makers talk about the African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) as building blocks of the AU, coordination and harmonization between them has barely begun, according to two reports dealing with the state of regional integration in Africa.

Obstacles to speed up integration are manifold, as stated in the conference report from the South African Centre for Conflict Resolution, "Building an African Union for the 21st century". Multiple membership of African states leads to a cumbersome and inefficient situation where even a low level of policy harmonization is difficult. Tanzania for example is member of the SADC, COMESA and the EAC.

Economic integration is mainly carried by the pan-African NEPAD - and it is sometimes criticized to be largely driven by political leaders. Its policies, such as market liberalization and good governance, are supported from external donors, like the European Union, but miss ownership at grassroots level. Furthermore trade barriers and bad infrastructure hamper economic growth of the African continent.

Recently civil society organisations from Europe and Africa expressed their fear that the EPA negotiations with single RECs will create more divisions on the African continent.

The current framework of AU-REC relations is defined in the AU Commission Strategy Plan 2004-2007. According to these documents the AU should harmonize and coordinate the activities of RECs to guarantee consistence with own objectives and principles. The plan aims to achieve a minimum level of integration until 2007.

A new plan needs to be discussed at the summer summit of the African Union. The future framework of EU-AU cooperation, including the issue of regional integration is the topic of a public consultation currently run by both organisations.

Read more about the African Union, its policy and the cooperation with European Union on the Euforic Africa dossier.

Story by Martin Behrens

Civil society participation in the African Union

The preamble of the African Union's constitution states to "build a partnership between governments and all segments of civil society" and aims to make Africans actors and beneficiaries of the continental development. However the vision of the young all-African organisation lags behind its current achievements.

The study, "Towards a people-driven African Union: Current obstacles and new opportunities", published by the African Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), the Open Society Institute Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP) and Oxfam analyzes the current state of civil society involvement in the AU.

Focal points of the study are the AU 2006 summit preparations. It assesses member state actors, the AU Commission and the Economic, Social and Cultural Council regarding their ability to collate, analyse and distribute information for qualified decision making.

The authors conclude that "inadequate institutional capacity and inappropriate policies and procedures have hindered the realisation of the vision".

The report recommends fostering a change of attitude of AU member state government officials, who so far do not consider civil society as relevant contributors to policy development of the African Union. Furthermore the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) of the African Union should become an independent voice of the civil society with a strong legal basis.

Visit the europafrica.org to participate in public consultations on a new EU-Africa joint strategy.

See also the Euforic dossier on Africa.

Story contributed by Martin Behrens.

From the EU strategy for Africa to a joint EU-Africa strategy

From: EU NEWS - Issue 1, February 2007 (APRODEV, CIDSE, Caritas Europa).

A first and unique European Union – Africa Summit took place in Cairo in 2000. A second summit was planned to take place in 2003 but was postponed indefinitely because of difficulties arising from the presence of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe.

In December 2005, the 25 Heads of State and Government of the EU adopted a new Strategy for Africa, with the title "The EU and Africa: Towards a Strategic partnership" with the ambitious purpose of giving the EU a comprehensive, integrated and long-term framework for its relations with the African continent... It is based on a communication of the European Commission published two months before. The adoption of the Africa strategy was very rapid and the debates were confined to the Council meeting room. The European Parliament produced a report on its own initiative but had no real influence. There was no consultation of European or African civil society representatives. The African Union (AU) and other African regional organizations were consulted during the drafting phase by the EC but with no proper dialogue and input.

Such a precipitate and non-inclusive process is particularly regrettable when we consider that this strategy is presented by the Commission as an important policy platform for implementing European development aid to Africa in the coming years. The programming of the 10th EDF that is currently taking place is the best illustration of the way the Africa strategy is guiding EC aid to Africa.

In particular, three new funding mechanisms have been established to implement the strategy: the African Peace Facility (€ 600 million committed so far), the Governance Incentive Fund (€ 3 billion) and the EU Infrastructure Trust Fund to be managed by the European Investment Bank. All three initiatives are funded with EDF resources. Another example is provided by the programming of the Regional Indicative Programmes that is focused on regional economic integration and trade in view of the signature of Economic Partnership Agreements by 2008.

Only limited progress has been made in binding the various Africa programmes of the EU Member States into some form of common programme to back up this Strategy and turn them into a genuine 'strategy for the whole of Europe' . So far, only half a dozen EU Member States have specific policies for their support to Africa and there is virtually no discussion about rationalising the geographic coverage of EU bi-lateral aid to Africa.

A debate on complementarity of aid between the EC and the 27 Member States is due to take place in 2007 starting with the publication by the Commission of a code of conduct on division of labour.

It is not surprising in these conditions that the EU institutions finally recognised that the process had not been inclusive enough and that the idea of preparing a joint AU and EU strategy was proposed and adopted at the joint ministerial AU-EU troïka meeting in Bamako and confirmed in the joint troika declaration of Vienna where Ministers agreed to work on a proposal for an outline of a Joint EU-Africa Strategy, ideally to be adopted at the 2nd EU-Africa Summit.

The intention of the EU is to organise the second EU-Africa Summit in November 2007 in Lisbon under the Portuguese presidency of the Union.

Considering the fact that no progress was made in the preparation of a joint strategy until the end of 2006, the time period for drafting and discussing such a joint strategy and for consulting interested parties (Member states, civil society and economic and social actors on both sides) is really short. However, the exact form the outline of a Joint strategy will have in November 2007 is still uncertain, some people start talking about a joint political declaration instead of a strategy. Will Lisbon be the end or the start of the process?

The wishes of the EC and the EU Member States are relatively clear and contained in the EU Strategy for Africa. The EC doesn't seem interested to re-open the discussion on EU side. However, no such preparatory work and debate has taken place in Africa and it is to be hoped that the Member states of the AU will have opportunities to identify and defend their vision of the future EU-Africa relationship and cooperation.

The views of African leaders on the cooperation with Europe might be quite different from one region to the other and especially between North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa which have different relationships and different cooperation and trade agreements with the EU. In Sub-Saharan Africa in particular, AU members will have to cautiously assess the impact a joint strategy could have on the ACP-EU relations and in particular on the way EDF is utilised and on the EPA negotiations.

Building common views at continental level needs time and resources and a joint strategy with Europe is certainly not the primary challenge the recently established institutions of the AU have to face. The EU should refrain from putting pressure on the African Union to adopt a far-reaching strategy that would not be fully owned and supported by its members. The risk is that the whole process will be seen as a way for the EU to legitimize its own strategy and economic interests in the African continent without responding to the real needs and aspirations of the Africans.

In recognition of the fact that the process so far has not been inclusive enough, the European Commission contracted ECDPM to organise a consultation of civil society actors both in Europe and Africa. The consultation process should be brief and will start with the launch of an electronic consultation on 1st February. Five issues papers have been drafted by ECDPM and if the budget allows, a joint EU-Africa civil society seminar could be organised in Germany at the end of April. ECDPM will also cooperate with the AU Commission to organise the consultation in Africa.

Not surprisingly, many civil society actors are quite sceptical on that process and judge that it is far from being sufficient, especially on the side of African civil society. It is the reason why, several European civil society organisations are willing to join efforts in securing a real and strong African input that goes beyond this limited consultation exercise. The primary principle for such a process is that the proposals which are drawn up in Brussels should not serve as a straightjacket for an African input. African counterparts should be able to reflect freely on how they
would like to see future relations between the EU and Africa.

The Portuguese platform of NGOs, member of CONCORD, the European confederation of
development and relief organisations, plans to organise an Africa-EU Civil Society Forum in the margins of the AU-EU Summit in Lisbon. Other preparatory events could be envisaged if needs appear and any opportunity should be seized to debate the issue and encourage African partners to make their voices heard.

Finally, we are happy to close this article with good news from the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa where the Ghanaian President John Kufuor was elected by consensus to become the AU's chair for the next year.

Source: EU NEWS - Issue 1, February 2007 (APRODEV, CIDSE, Caritas Europa).

You are invited to participate in the consultation at www.europafrica.org.

For more information, please contact europafrica@ecdpm.org.

See also the Euforic dossier on Africa.