CREATING A CONTINENTAL AGENDA FOR
Date
2011-05-31
Authors
Narrandes, Roshnee
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Abstract
One of the key objectives of the African Union (AU) is to promote
and ensure continental integration. For the AU to be an engine of
continental integration it needs a popular constituency at a national
level. Currently such a national constituency does not exist
as the AU policy and decision-making is a project of the Office of
the President and/or sections of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs.
The purpose of this research is to explore and document the challenges,
constraints and opportunities that civil society in Africa experiences
in actively engaging the African Union, so as to assume
the space of a popular constituency. A qualitative methodology of
research was used where five key Africans who work with, or on,
the African Union were interviewed.
The main finding of the research is that the African Union is still a
long way from being a people-driven process. While efforts are being
made by both civil society and the African Union to ensure the
inclusivity of the voices of ordinary Africans in continental processes,
the failure at state level to provide structures and mechanisms
to do so makes the process of collective continental integration
most unlikely.
Before an appropriate national model for integration can be established,
adopted and utilised, the African Union needs to ensure the
inclusion of the voices of the people of Africa into continental process
by putting in place structures and mechanisms at state level
that will create a truly people-driven process
Description
MM - P&DM
Keywords
African Union, Civil society