Introduction - Juniata College



Assessing the “African Renaissance”

Abstract

In 2001 the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was replaced by the African Union. The emergence of the AU, alongside the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), represented a shift away from the OAU’s strict adherence to the doctrine of nonintervention and toward the promotion of human rights. Several African leaders have celebrated these pan-African reforms as an “African renaissance.” This essay reviews the history of pan-Africanism and the OAU, and assesses the emergence of the AU and NEPAD. After summarizing various pessimistic critiques of the African renaissance, the author argues that the new emphasis on human rights is more than mere donor language and should be taken seriously as a promising new paradigm of African politics.

On April 7, 2004 the African Union (AU) hosted a commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. There was a common theme in the speeches at the ceremony: Africans must identify and deal with the causes of ethnic conflicts and intervene in the internal affairs of African states where extreme human rights abuses occur. Julia Dolly Joiner, AU Commissioner of Political Affairs, asserted, “The AU charter provides unmistakable support for humanitarian intervention. The protocol of the AU security council gives the 53 member states the right to address the factors that lead to genocide.” Even more forcefully, Abdul Mohammed, Chairman of the InterAfrica Group, declared, “Africans must bear the responsibility for the crimes of African governments. It is no longer acceptable for governments to hide behind sovereignty. Defending civil liberties and civil society is the surest safeguard against genocide.”[i] One of the aims of this ceremony at the AU headquarters was to demonstrate to the gathered representatives of the 53 member states, and to the rest of the world, that human rights violations would no longer be ignored by the pan-African body. The message to all was that the apathy of the former Organization of African Unity (OAU) had been replaced by the advocacy of human rights and the renunciation of the concept of nonintervention.

Over the past decade African leaders have undertaken a series of initiatives aimed at reforming the domestic structures of African states and breaking Africa out of its downward spiral of underdevelopment. Most prominently, the OAU has been replaced by the AU. Why did the African states undertake a bold new multilateral approach to human rights and economic development? Do the recent reforms represent a renaissance or is the AU simply a more sophisticated version of the empty rhetoric that characterized the OAU? In simplest terms, there are two ways to explain the new pan-African emphasis on human rights and good governance. The first explanation is that the international donor community was moving rapidly in the direction of making development aid conditional upon significant reforms in Africa, and, as a pragmatic response, African leaders recognized that, in order to keep the aid flowing, they needed to alter their rhetoric dramatically to pretend that they were committed to reforms. A different, and more hopeful, perspective on the bold new initiatives of the AU, the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) is that a significant number of dedicated African leaders, officials and intellectuals succeeded in getting all 53 members of the former OAU formally to acknowledge the necessary link between human rights and development in Africa. This essay reviews the recent shift away from the OAU and toward the AU, NEPAD and APRM, with special attention paid to the promotion of human rights that permeates these pan-African reforms. This study concludes that, despite the troubling inconsistencies between the commitments and actions of African leaders, this new direction is too promising to be dismissed as an insincere adoption of new “donor language.”

Pan-Africanism took form as a coherent concept through six conferences that were held between 1900 and 1945. These meetings were inspired by West Indians and W.E.B. DuBois. DuBois, who dedicated his final years to fighting imperialism, was elected the president of the Pan-African Congress in 1945. A large number of Africans took part for the first time at the 1945 Pan-African conference in England. At this conference Kwame Nkrumah, who became the first president of independent Ghana in 1957, asserted his belief in the necessity of African unity as the means to achieve African independence. Nkrumah’s ten years in the US contributed to his belief that self government and political unity were interlinked. He saw the liberation and unification of the thirteen colonies as an important model for Africa. Speaking in 1959 Nkrumah pronounced:

I am firmly persuaded that unless we work towards a close

organic identification within some form of constitutional union

of Africa, our continent will remain what it is today, a

balkanized mass of small individual units, used as a political

and economic power by those external forces which seek to keep

us divided and backward.[ii]

Between 1947 and 1957 the goal of pan-African unity was far less important to Africa’s emerging leaders than the immediate objective of establishing self government and independence. Because it was a movement that was conceived in America and that later took hold in West Africa, pan-Africanism has been described as a “delayed boomerang from the era of slavery.”[iii]

After the 1963 Addis Ababa conference the Organization of African Unity became the primary forum for achieving African unity. The OAU replaced other moves toward African unity, most notably the Union of African States (also known as the Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union). In contrast to the ambitious move toward real political integration that the Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union represented, the OAU merely called upon member states to “coordinate and harmonize their general policies.” However, the OAU subsumed the Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union because the OAU represented a continent wide effort, and not merely a regional attempt at integration. According to Claude Welch, “The Addis Ababa meeting accepted the lowest common denominator acceptable to the more than thirty heads of state who participated. … Nkrumah made an earnest appeal for political unification at Addis Ababa – his Africa Must Unite was published shortly before the conference opened – but he was in a minority of one.”[iv]

The Charter of the OAU made it clear that the organization’s orientation was outward not inward. According to the charter, the purposes of the OAU were to promote African unity and solidarity, to defend the sovereignty of African states and to eradicate all forms of colonialism in Africa. The charter also spelled out the principles that were to guide the OAU’s pursuit of these purposes:

The sovereign equality of all member states. Noninterference in the internal affairs of States. Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each state and for its inalienable right to independent existence. Peaceful settlement of disputes by negotiation. Mediation, conciliation or arbitration. Unreserved condemnation, in all its forms, of political assassination as well as of subversive activities on the part of neighboring states or any other states. Absolute dedication to the total emancipation of the African territories which are still dependent. Affirmation of a policy of nonalignment with regard to all blocs.[v]

The only reference to the behavior of OAU states within their own borders was the assertion that all members should show “due regard to the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”[vi] The OAU set no criteria for membership: “Each independent sovereign African state shall be entitled to become a member of the organization.”[vii]

Wafula Okumu, an analyst of African affairs, describes the OAU as a “big men’s club” whose devotion to the principles of noninterference and nonintervention was essentially a policy of “blind solidarity.” Not only did the OAU protect criminal regimes from criticism, Okumu points out that the OAU undermined its legitimacy even more severely by choosing several of the world’s worst dictators (such as Amin, Mengistu and Mobutu) to preside over the OAU.[viii]

Evidence of the organization’s distance from Nkrumah’s call for political integration is the fact that the OAU charter did not include a pan-African executive. All power in the OAU sat in the assembly of heads of state and government. One of the most important differences between the former OAU and the current African Union is the creation of a commission. Although the AU Commission has no formal power over the member states, the commission has become the voice of and energy behind the political reform efforts.

In his analysis of the OAU’s failures to promote human rights in Africa, Claude Welch writes, “The name of the game [in the OAU] is preservation of autonomy in domestic affairs.”[ix] The OAU viewed human rights in its most basic guise, namely that of self determination for Africans. But even in this guise, self determination meant only “ending alien or settler rule.” In short, “hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil typified the views of most OAU summiteers.”[x]

In 1986 the OAU adopted the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the Banjul Charter). The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights was created as the instrument for ensuring that the member states observed the Banjul Charter. Following the tradition of noninterference, however, this new commission was subordinated to the OAU Assembly of Heads of State. The commission’s mandate was limited to a “promotional” role in the realm of human rights.[xi]

The OAU was far more concerned about focusing on pan-African steps toward resolving the continent’s many economic problems. The growing debt crisis was at the top of the list. In 1987 the third extraordinary summit of the OAU was devoted entirely to the topic of Africa’s external debt, which had reached $200 billion. The summit adopted a seven point “common declaration” that requested debt rescheduling, an increase in the price of raw materials, and a relaxation of the repayment conditionalities.

In 1991 the Abuja Treaty created the African Economic Community. The aim was to set up a mechanism for the African states to move toward economic integration over a thirty-year period. The Abuja Treaty represented the acknowledgement among African leaders that global factors had changed and that it was time to focus on economic development and regional integration.[xii] The OAU was a political organization, so the new emphasis on economic issues required the creation of a new organization. Between 1991 and 2002 (when the AU replaced the OAU), the OAU operated on the basis of two legal instruments: the OAU and the African Economic Community. Through the 1990s, momentum built to jump start the ideals of the AEC by grounding them in concrete institutions.[xiii]

Adding to this drive was the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa (CSSDCA). This meeting of African scholars and politicians was inspired by Olusegun Obasanjo in 1989, and in 1991 the CSSDCA generated the Kampala Movement. The Kampala Principles, which Deng and Zartman describe as “one of the most important works of statesmanship of the postwar era,” were grounded in two assumptions.[xiv] First, the OAU had failed the people of Africa. Second, Africa would be marginalized in the post-Cold War era if it did not put its house in order. The most revolutionary aspect of the Kampala Principles was the call for a focus on the internal affairs of African states.

Nelson Mandela addressed the OAU summit in 1994 with the same message: “We must face the matter squarely that where there is something wrong in how we govern ourselves, it must be said that the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are ill-governed. We must say that there is no obstacle big enough to stop us from bringing about an African renaissance.”

On the invitation of Muhammar Ghadafi, an extraordinary summit of the OAU was held in 1999 in Sirte, Libya. The theme of the summit was: “Strengthening OAU capacity to enable it to meet the challenges of the new millennium.” The result of this summit was the Sirte Declaration which called for: “Addressing the new social, political and economic realities in Africa and the world” and “Revitalizing the continental organization to play a more active role in addressing the needs of the people.” To achieve these aims, the Sirte summit decided to: “Establish an African Union in conformity with the ultimate objectives of the charter of our continental organization and the provisions of the treaty establishing the African Economic Community.”[xv]

The constitutive act of the African Union was adopted at the Lome summit in 2000. The 2001 Lusaka summit was the last meeting of the OAU. The 2002 Durban summit marked the first meeting of the AU. In contrast to the limited, externally oriented aims of the OAU, the constitutive act of the AU spelled out a new set of internally directed goals: “Promote democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance; Promote and protect human peoples’ rights in accordance with the African charter on human and peoples’ rights and other relevant human rights instruments.”[xvi]

The institutional structure of the AU differed dramatically from the OAU. Whereas the OAU was comprised of little more than the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, the AU consists of a full array of institutions. The Pan-African Parliament, the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC), the Peace and Security Council and the Court of Justice (which is in the Constitutive Act, but has not yet been created) are all organs of the AU that did not exist in the OAU.

In an attempt to replicate the success of the EU in fostering the process of regional integration and the promotion of human rights and minority group rights, the architects of the AU tried to mirror much of the organizational structure of the EU. Most importantly, as a counterbalance to the Assembly of the Heads of State and Government (which was carried over into the AU), the AU is led by the commission, which closely resembles the EU Commission in its mandate to serve the interests of the Union. As the “guardian of the treaties” the EU Commission consists of commissioners who serve the pan-European interests of the organization. One measure of the success of European integration is the degree to which the EU Commission has been able to wield independent power over the governments of the member states in order to force European leaders to honor their agreements.

According to Winston Meso of the Africa Institute of South Africa, “The charter of the OAU [held] sacrosanct the principle of nonintervention in neighboring countries” affairs. In the African Union configuration, that clause is no longer there. The commitment to democracy presupposes that countries in the region are now empowered to directly intervene in the affairs of neighboring countries.”[xvii] The language of human rights, rule of law and good governance runs through the charter and AU declarations. As Baimu and Sturman point out, the AU is the first international organization that formally recognizes the right to intervene for humanitarian purposes.[xviii]

At the same time that the AU was replacing the OAU, NEPAD emerged as the AU’s socioeconomic development program. The 1999 OAU extraordinary summit in Sirte mandated South African president Mbeki and Algerian president Bouteflika to push Africa’s creditors to cancel all of Africa’s external debt. This mandate was renewed at the 2000 OAU summit in Togo, and Nigerian president Obasanjo was chosen as the third of the “three presidents” who were instructed to develop a new partnership with the north for the development of Africa. This was the beginning of work on developing NEPAD. The 2001 OAU summit in Sirte integrated all of the African development initiatives, including the “new global compact with Africa” that came out of the UN economic commission for Africa. The result was NEPAD, announced in 2001 at the OAU summit in Lusaka, Zambia. NEPAD was unanimously adopted as “Africa’s principle agenda for development, providing a holistic, comprehensive integrated strategic framework for the socioeconomic development of the continent, within the institutional framework of the African Union.”[xix]

From its inception, NEPAD represents a “vision,” a “strategic framework” and a “pledge,” rather than a formal organization. As a mandated initiative of the AU, the NEPAD heads of state and government implementation committee (HSGIC) reports annually to the summit of the AU. The HSGIC consists of fifteen members – three from each of the five designated regions of Africa. The whole structure of the NEPAD consists of the HSGIC, the steering committee (comprised of the personal representatives of the NEPAD heads of state and government) and the secretariat. The aims of NEPAD are comprehensive and ambitious: “To eradicate poverty; To place African countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development; To halt the marginalization of Africa in the globalization process and enhance its full and beneficial integration into the global economy; To accelerate the empowerment of women.”[xx]

The framers of NEPAD asserted an impressive set of principles as the means to achieving these aims: “Good governance as a basic requirement for peace, security and sustainable political and socioeconomic development; African ownership and leadership, as well as broad and deep participation by all sectors of society.”[xxi]

In order to get a flavor for the overall orientation of NEPAD, it is important to cite a few of the many passages from the NEPAD full text that stress the necessity of human rights for African development:

Paragraph 7: Across the continent, Africans declare that we will no longer allow ourselves to be conditioned by circumstance. We will determine our own destiny and call on the rest of the world to complement our efforts. There are already signs of progress and hope. Democratic regimes that are committed to the protection of human rights, people centered development and market oriented economies are on the increase. African peoples have begun to demonstrate their refusal to accept poor economic and political leadership.”

Paragraph 43: “Democracy and state legitimacy have been redefined to include accountable government, a culture of human rights and popular participation as central elements.

Paragraph 49: To achieve these objectives, African leaders will take joint responsibility for… Promoting and protecting democracy and human rights in their respective countries and regions, by developing clear standards of accountability, transparency and participatory governance at the national and subnational levels.

Paragraph 79: “It is now generally acknowledged that development is impossible in the absence of true democracy, respect for human rights, peace and good governance.

Paragraph 83: In order to strengthen political governance and build capacity to meet these commitments, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development leadership will undertake a process of targeted capacity building initiatives. These institutional reforms will focus on: Administrative and civil services; Strengthening parliamentary oversight; Promoting participatory decision making; Adopting effective measures to combat corruption and embezzlement; Undertaking judicial reforms.

The most interesting aspect of NEPAD is the APRM. The aim of this “African self-monitoring mechanism” is to foster the adoption of the principles spelled out in NEPAD’s “declaration on democracy, political, economic and corporate governance.” Participation in the APRM is voluntary and, at the start of 2006, 24 of the 53 AU member states agreed to participate.[xxii]

The APRM process consists of four stages. First, a study of the country’s political, economic and corporate governance and development environment is conducted. Second, the APRM review team visits the country to consult with government officials and representatives of civil society organizations (including the media, academia, trade unions, business and professional bodies). Third, the team’s report is prepared by the APRM secretariat and measured against the relevant political, economic and corporate governance commitments. Fourth, the team’s report is submitted to the heads of state and government through the APRM secretariat and, if the report is unfavorable, the country is encouraged to make the appropriate reforms.

K.Y. Amoako, the executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), spoke on the topic that has become a common assertion across Africa in recent years, namely, the blunt recognition of the need for Africans to get their own houses in order. He stated: “We in Africa do not believe our challenge is to manage failed states; we believe that our challenge is to create capable states. This requires sound macroeconomic management, institutional reform, and investment in human resources development. Sustained poverty reduction results when growth is equitable. And the best way to achieve that is by building strong forms of democratic governance at all levels.”[xxiii]

In 2004 the UNECA released the first major continent wide study to assess “Progress towards Good Governance in Africa.”[xxiv] This study entailed extensive surveys and field research in 28 African countries. The UNECA identifies some areas of governance that indicated progress in Africa and ten other specific “priority areas for action in building capable and accountable states.” The report concludes that the keys to African development are, first, moving toward greater accountability of African governments, and, second, getting the external donors to “live up to commitments to provide more aid to Africa – as part of the Monterrey pledges.” The study notes that tapping the potential of young Africans is crucial for good governance in Africa. In this spirit, the UNDP has advanced the proposal to create an “African Governance Institute” to provide resources for capacity building in the realm of good governance.

Among the factors that caused the African leaders to replace the OAU was the growing realization that Africa, like post-1945 Europe, required a shift from narrow national policies toward multilateralism in order to solve its problems.[xxv] Furthermore, African elites recognized that African unity could not be built merely on geography. EU integration provided evidence of the importance of developing common values as the “rules of the game” that united the member states. The hope was that an organization like the AU could play a “catalytic role” in fostering this kind of unity across Africa.[xxvi]

South African president Thabo Mbeki coined the term “African renaissance” in the 1990s to describe a new spirit of reform and optimism that he believed was sweeping the continent. This term became the mantra of Africa’s new elite, even though, as R.W. Johnson writes, nobody knew what the term meant.[xxvii] A cynical view of the African renaissance is that the AU and NEPAD are primarily a rational response to important shifts that were taking place in the donor community. According to this argument, in order to keep the aid flowing, the African leaders needed to speak the new “donor language.”

In the 1990s it was clear that the international aid providers were no longer willing to provide the same level of assistance unless they could see that African leaders were taking serious steps in the direction of political reforms. The end of the Cold War meant that Africa was no longer dominated by the US and Soviet global struggle to win allies. “Donor fatigue” is a common topic of discussion in African policy circles. In the decade of the 1990s, official development assistance to Africa fell from an average of $28.6 billion to $16.4 billion. The growing dependency on aid has made the African states increasingly sensitive to changes in the donor environment. By the end of the 1990s, over half of African governments relied on foreign aid to fund fifty percent of their national budget.[xxviii]

In her study on foreign aid, Sabine Zanger finds that good governance did not play a prominent role in the dispersion of the official development assistance of Germany, France, the United Kingdom (UK), and the EC/EU between 1980 and 1995.[xxix] After 1995, however, Carlos Santiso shows that the EU adopted the approach of suspending aid in cases where the democratic process was interrupted. Santiso argues that throughout the 1990s the strengthening of good governance and the promotion of democracy became both objectives and conditions of the EU’s development aid.[xxx]

Ndiva Kofele Kale writes that by the late 1990s the UK’s Overseas Development Agency, the OECD, the World Bank and the IMF had adopted the approach that “bad governance is a pathology to be avoided.”[xxxi] In its 1996 “interim committee declaration on partnership for sustainable global growth” the IMF announced that one of its priorities was “promoting good governance in all its aspects, including ensuring the rule of law, improving the efficiency and accountability of the public sector, and tackling corruption.” In 1997 the IMF Executive Board issued its strongest statement ever on the link between state policies and funding decisions. In “The Role of the IMF in Governance Issues: Guidance Note” the IMF announced: “Financial assistance from the IMF in the context of completion of a review under a program or approval of a new IMF arrangement could be suspended or delayed on account of poor governance.” In his 1998 annual report on the UN Kofi Annan wrote: “Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development.”[xxxii]

In May 2001, Peter Eicher, Deputy Director of the OSCE’s Office for Democratization and Human Rights, declared, “The international community should use the tools at its disposal to promote good governance. Perhaps it’s time for the OSCE to take a position on this and to recognize conditionality as a constructive, positive tool in promoting good governance… There’s never enough money to go around; what there is should go where it’s most likely to make a difference and have a positive impact – to states that practice good governance and have good elections.”[xxxiii]

In March 2001 the World Bank published a report that urged donors to abandon the conditionality approach to aid and to move instead toward an aid strategy of rewarding countries that have demonstrated a strong record of good governance. This new “selectivity” approach meant targeting aid at a few countries that showed promise of real reforms.[xxxiv] The UN’s Millennium Development Goals, President Bush’s Millennium Challenge Account and Prime Minister Blair’s Commission for Africa are the most famous examples of the new approach of the aid providers.

It is hard to deny that this new international donor environment played a role in moving African leaders from the OAU’s doctrine of noninterference to the AU’s and NEPAD’s principle of nonindifference. The “New Global Partnership” of NEPAD states explicitly: “The objective will be to rationalize these partnerships and to ensure that real benefits to Africa flow from them.”[xxxv] Bond writes, “NEPAD surfaced only after extensive consultations with the World Bank president and IMF managing director, major transnational corporate executives and associated government leaders, G8 rulers, and the European Union president and individual northern heads of state.”[xxxvi]

The track record of most African governments supports the numerous cynical interpretations of the “African renaissance.” According to John Akokpari, the dominance of neopatrimonialism in African politics, combined with the tendency of African leaders to condone and support, rather than condemn and oppose misgovernance, mitigate hopes of a serious push for human rights.[xxxvii] Similarly, Jennifer Windsor argues that Africa’s new emphasis on democracy “could rapidly become a charade” when we consider that Muammar el Qaddafi and Daniel Arap Moi were part of the NEPAD steering committee.[xxxviii] Although Sudanese president Mar al Bashir has allowed a large AU peacekeeping force in Darfur, the legitimacy of the AU’s role in this crisis has been undermined by the decision to allow the government of Sudan to host the January 2006 AU summit. The AU avoided further embarrassment when Bashir agreed to postpone until 2007 his term as president of the organization.

Tanonoka Whande points to the lack of meaningful criticism of Zimbabwe’s 2002 electoral fraud as “the first salvo fired in salute of the birth of the African renaissance. It was a luminous flare in the African skies to inform all and sundry that no African president will fault another.”[xxxix] Robert Guest, the Africa editor of The Economist asserts, “Mugabe is as likely to heed constructive criticism as he is to take a walk in Harare without bodyguards.”[xl]

Robert Mugabe’s human rights violations have been strongly condemned by the international community, but the AU and African leaders have refused to criticize Zimbabwe’s “internal affairs.” Thabo Mbeki’s reputation as one of the fathers of the African renaissance has been damaged by his unwillingness to apply the new standards of this reform movement to Mugabe’s government. A spokesperson for the AU defended the organization’s silence concerning Zimbabwe: “I do not think it is proper for the AU commission to start running the internal affairs of member states.”[xli] Kofi Annan has condemned the refusal to intervene in Zimbabwe as a betrayal of the AU’s core principle: “What is important – and what is lacking on the continent – is [a willingness] to comment on wrong policies in a neighboring country.”[xlii]

From a different direction, there has been much criticism from scholars who argue that the framers of NEPAD and the AU have adopted the neoimperialist logic of the developed world. Kunle Amuwo is frustrated that NEPAD reflects an inability or unwillingness to acknowledge the contribution of colonialism and structural adjustment programs to Africa’s current condition of underdevelopment.[xliii] Pretorius and Patel decry the lack of a “working class perspective” in NEPAD. They call for national campaigns across Africa to advance alternative perspectives of development: “In this manner the ‘partnerships’ of the rich being built through NEPAD can be undermined by the solidarity and struggle of the poor throughout Africa.”[xliv]

The criticisms of the African renaissance as hypocritical or misdirected are difficult to refute. AU officials understand that, for the most part, their work has been either ignored or mocked by the international community. Nonetheless, several factors demand that we balance the numerous cynical conclusions with some optimism that we are witnessing the beginning of a new era of respect for human rights in Africa. There are four counterarguments against the widespread cynicism.

First, a new postcolonial generation of African politicians and intellectuals has emerged and they demand fundamental changes in African politics. The two leaders whom officials in Addis Ababa most commonly refer to as the positive energy behind the transformation of the OAU into something that will promote human rights are AU commission chairman, Alpha Konare and South African president, Thabo Mbeki. It is not a coincidence that these two men, along with several other African heads of state who have been key advocates of this transformation, fought personally against oppressive regimes in their own countries.

Patrice Vahard of the UN High Commission on Human Rights serves as Konare’s human rights advisor. Prior to coming to the AU Vahard was head of Amnesty International’s Africa Regional Office. He explains that, as recently as 1998, he was not allowed into the compound of the OAU. He arrived at the AU with a great deal of cynicism, but discovered that Konare’s commission was sincerely dedicated to giving meaning to the human rights rhetoric. Vahard believes that the “post independence generation long ago stopped believing the promises of benevolent dictatorship and will no longer tolerate being left behind.” He states that Konare’s aim has been to build on this new spirit across Africa to “push the unwilling leaders into a corner.”[xlv]

According to Wolfram Vetter, Second Secretary for Political Affairs at the Delegation of the European Commission in Ethiopia, “it is impossible to address the debate about good governance without properly considering the constructive role of South Africa in the African renaissance.”[xlvi] Post-Apartheid South Africa is Africa’s most credible advocate for principles of democratic accountability and responsible governance. According to New York Times reporter Sharon LaFraniere, “[Mbeki] has thrown himself into pan-African organizations to counter what he sees as Africa’s image as a futile, conflict ridden continent run by kleptocrats.”[xlvii] LaFraniere cites Steven Friedman of the center for policy studies in Johannesburg, “If [Mbeki] has a mission in life that is it. He wants to be the leader who is going to prove white racism wrong.”[xlviii]

Second, just because the ideals of human rights and good governance are extremely, and perhaps impossibly, ambitious at this point, we must appreciate the significance of the far reaching efforts of the AU to construct the “enabling mechanisms” that will allow all Africans to hold their own national leaders accountable. From this perspective, a major success of the AU and NEPAD has been to weave human rights obligations through every new multilateral agreement. Even if the leaders have no intention to carry out these commitments, their behavior can be judged according to a clear set of norms that have been widely publicized (and, for anyone with access to the internet, are easily accessible on the AU webpage). Vahard explains,

The aim of all these declarations on human rights and good governance is to marginalize the dictators. Even if this is all just “donor language” for some leaders, getting them to speak this language is an important step forward. Many African intellectuals have told me that they love the AU, because it gives them a new weapon in their struggle for change. I tell EU officials that we are creating a culture of accountability not to the international aid donors, but to the people of Africa.[xlix]

The EU office in Addis Ababa authorized an extensive study of the AU with the aim of determining how to use most effectively the funds that have been earmarked by the EU commission to assist with the AU’s institutional development. The study describes the emergence of the AU as an “historic window of opportunity” and reports that the AU “can act as a “change agent” by setting standards for governance and by monitoring the effective implementation of agreed policies. The constitutive act creates new opportunities for such a proactive approach (including the right to intervene in grave circumstances).”[l] The study also concludes that, because the AU was set up so quickly, the organization lacks the capacity to carry out effective implementation. According to Vetter, Konare’s commission has earned the respect of EU officials, and the right structures and principles are in place to provide a foundation for an effective push toward accountability. Although the hopes for implementation depend heavily upon the performance of the AU Commission, the commission has very few resources and the commissioners have no power over the governments of the member states. This is why Vetter believes that a move toward subsidiarity is one of the keys for Konare to close the gap between the promises and practices concerning political reforms.[li]

Max Bankole Jarrett, Communication Officer at the UNECA, was skeptical about the AU, but the organization’s initial steps have made him hopeful. Even though the AU lacks capacity, he commends the AU for its symbolic changes, such as the decision to give the presidency of the Pan-African Parliament and half of the commission’s directorships to women. Jarrett explains, “In politics, perceptions and symbols are important. Following the EU path, the AU might be able to set out the ideals, get the leaders to sign on, and then hope that the people will come along later.”[lii]

Third, it is widely accepted among AU officials and supporters of the AU that the organization must foster popular participation and build up civil society in order to have allies to work within each country against member governments that refuse to honor their promises. If these commitments are mere donor language, we would expect the states to resist these efforts to strengthen the links between the AU and civil society, but the opposite has been the case. The national leaders could have simply signed their names and issued a few empty promises. Instead, they adopted a set of institutions that are aimed specifically at increasing the accountability of the member states.

According to Ben Turok, a member of the South African Parliament, “There is an inbuilt assumption that there are adequate social forces on the continent ready to unite in a common development programme. Clearly, without popular support the AU will simply atrophy as did the OAU.”[liii] Omotayo Olaniyan points out that Africa, unlike Europe, does not have the pressure for integration coming from the private sector: “In Europe the private sector has been the engine behind integration, but this is not the case in Africa. The Pan-African Parliament was created for the purpose of broadening participation and moving away from the exclusively state centered structure of the OAU.”[liv] The “democratic deficit” is a term commonly used in Europe to criticize the lack of direct public involvement in the affairs of the EU, but in Africa the “democratic deficit” typically refers to the distance between African governments and their peoples. The aim of the AU’s ECOSOCC is to bridge this distance by promoting greater popular political participation at the international level, because it is so often denied at the national level.[lv]

As Senior Coordinator and Head of the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa (CSSDCA), Jinmi Adissa’s mission at the AU is to “mobilize African society, build civil society organizations, foster links between these organizations and the AU Commission and get Africans to take advantage of the newly created ECOSOCC, which is their permanent civil society parliament.”[lvi] Adissa explains that when the OAU was created in 1963, the leaders of the national governments stood atop what was supposed to be civil society: “There is much pride and energy behind the creation of the AU and we must exploit this to push for strong civil society organizations as the only way to hold the leaders accountable to their promises. It is like we are riding a tiger.”[lvii]

Fourth, it is hard to dismiss all these initiatives as mere donor language, especially when many national governments have volunteered to have their countries scrutinized and graded according to new standards of human rights and good governance. In 2004 the UNECA published the results of the most comprehensive external review of African governments that had ever been conducted. The 2005 UNECA African Governance Report rates the performance of twenty eight countries on 24 indicators of transparency, tolerance, accountability, etc. In addition, sixteen countries signed up as the first group of states to be evaluated on 91 indicators by the APRM. Ms Lalla Ben Barka, the Deputy Executive Director of the UNECA, defends the sincerity of the African renaissance: “The donor language argument is not serious. This is a way of running away from the development debate. There is a maturity in the current political leadership in Africa and most of them are not afraid to be reviewed. We are serious about this and we are not going to wait for anyone to tell us what to do.”[lviii]

Many officials at the AU are frustrated that their bold undertaking has received less attention in the US and Europe than it deserves, especially since there is evidence of real progress over the past decade. The number of “free democracies” in Africa increased from four in 1995 to eleven in 2005. More than fifty percent of the remaining countries are in transition toward becoming “free democracies.”[lix] Although these have been small steps, the AU sanctioned Togo and Mauritania for election fraud and there are AU peacekeeping operations in Darfur and Burundi.

Nonetheless, it is understandable that Americans and Europeans have not shown significant interest in the transformation of the OAU into the AU. It took the Europeans decades until they were willing to cede real authority to the EU. Likewise, the EU needed several decades before it evolved from a trading bloc into a “community of values” grounded in principles of human rights. By contrast, the AU is trying to construct a framework of multilateral institutions and principles of human rights with one stroke.

On the other hand, the Africans’ frustration with the lack of interest in the African renaissance is outweighed by the fear among many Africans that the international donors will become too enthusiastic about the AU, NEPAD and the APRM and find a way to link these institutions to conditionality for future aid programs. James Nxumalo, Director of the Development Management Division of the UNECA, expressed an opinion that reflects the view of many AU and UNECA officials and African heads of government, namely: “A crucial part of all these initiatives is that this remains an African process. It cannot be used by others for their own purposes. If any of these reforms are tied to conditionality it will be the kiss of death.”[lx]

In his study on the international factors that contribute to democratization on the national level, Jon Pevehouse concludes that “regional organizations can influence the domestic political process in the realm of elite behavior.” He identifies three causal mechanisms by which international organizations influence political liberalization: “pressure from the international institution, assuaging fears of national elites, or socializing a group of national elites.”[lxi] Although national policies over the past few years have not reflected the ideals of the African renaissance, there are at least a few reasons to be hopeful that the AU and the many specific multilateral agreements can influence national politics across Africa.

Finally, the lesson of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975 provides a hopeful historical example. In Helsinki the governments of the socialist regimes of East Europe pledged to respect a full array of human rights. After signing these agreements the leaders returned home and ignored the commitments spelled out in the Final Act. This hypocrisy made the Helsinki process a target of ridicule for many Americans and west Europeans. It was taken as evidence that such commitments are meaningless, or worse, that they make a mockery of efforts to promote human rights. But many east European dissidents, in particular, Sakharov, Havel, Sharansky and Walesa, have emphasized the vital role that the final act played in legitimizing their human rights campaigns. Although they were still harassed and jailed, these human rights activists used the Helsinki process to educate and mobilize their fellow citizens and to embarrass their respective governments.

It is the hope of African human rights activists that the formal commitments of the African renaissance will play the same role. The language of human rights and humanitarian intervention that runs through almost all of the recent multilateral initiatives provides a powerful enabling mechanism for civil society movements. This, coupled with the growing awareness among African leaders that the donor community is growing increasingly intolerant of human rights abuses and corruption, means that it is not naïve to take the African renaissance seriously.

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[i] Quotes derived from the author’s contemporaneous notes from the ceremony.

[ii] Claude Welch, Dream of Unity: Pan-Africanism and Political Unification in West Africa (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1966), 17,294,295.

[iii] Paul-Marc Henry, “Pan-Africanism: A Dream Comte True,” in Philip W. Quigg (ed.), Africa: A Foreign Affairs Reader (New York: Council on Foreign Relations 1964) 163.

[iv] Welch, 333,334.

[v] Article III, Charter of the Organization of African Unity (1963)

[vi] Ibid, Article II.

[vii] Ibid, Article IV.

[viii] Wafula Okumu, “The New African Union and the Integration of Africa,” in Festus Eribo and Charles Okigb (eds.), Development and Communication in Africa (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield 2004), 195,196.

[ix] Claude Welch, Jr., “The Organization of African Unity and the Promotion of Human Rights,” Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 4 (1991), 535.

[x] Ibid, 537,538.

[xi] Ibid, 538-540.

[xii] Interview with Professor Omotayo Olaniyan, Permanent Observer Mission of the AU to the UN. (March 8, 2004).

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] Francis M. Deng and I. William Zartman, A Strategic Vision for Africa: The Kampala Movement (Washington D.C: Brookings Institution Press, 2002), 139.

[xv] Sirte Declaration (1999)

[xvi] Constitutive Act of the African Union (2000)

[xvii] “African Leaders Launch Ambitious Union, “ Radio Netherlands (9 July 2001); “The Architecture and Capacity of the African Union” Issues Paper for the AU Symposium (InterAfrica Group/Justice Africa) 2002.

[xviii] Evarist Baimu and Kathryn Sturman, “Amendment to the African Union’s Right to Intervene”, African Security Review, (2003), 2.

[xix] “Background on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)” Webpage of the African Union ().

[xx] “What are the NEPAD Primary Objectives?” NEPAD in Brief: Website of NEPAD (inbrief.html).

[xxi] “What are the Principles of NEPAD?” NEPAD in Brief: Website of NEPAD (inbrief.html).

[xxii] The first four countries scheduled to be reviewed are: Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Mauritius.

[xxiii] K.Y. Amoako, “Governance and Development in Africa: the Critical Nexus”, Speech in Washington D.C. (18 February 2004).

[xxiv] Executive Summary of the 2005 UNECA African Governance Report ().

[xxv] O. Badarinde, “A Neo-functional Examination of the African Economic Community: Lessons from the Experience of the African Union”, cited in Jean Bossuyt and James Mackie “Towards a Reinforced Partnership: The African Union and The European Union” Final Report of an Identification Study for a Support Programme: European Centre for Development Policy Management (June 2003).

[xxvi] Bossuyt and Mackie

[xxvii] R.W. Johnson, South Africa: The First Man, The Last Nation (London: Winfield & Nicolson 2004), xiii.

[xxviii] Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa (New York: Public Affairs, 2005), 683.

[xxix] Sabine Zanger, “Good Governance and European Aid: The Impact of Political Conditionality”, European Union Politics, (2000), 1.

[xxx] Carlos Santiso, “Reforming European Union Development Cooperation: Good Governance, Political Conditionality and the Convention of Contonou”, American Consortium on European Studies Working Paper (August 2002).

[xxxi] Ndiva Kofele Kale, “Good Governance as Political Conditionality”, in Democracy and Good Governance (ICASSRT: Ethno-net Africa Publications 1999).

[xxxii] Kofi Annan, 1998 Annual Report on the Work of the United Nations, (United Nations, New York), 39.

[xxxiii] Peter Eicher, “Democratic Elections, Rule of Law, and Good Governance”, remarks to Human Dimension Seminar on Election Processes, (Warsaw, 30 May 2001).

[xxxiv] Alan Beattie and Anthony Goldman “Aid Donors Advised to Reward Good Governance”, The Financial Times (28 March 2001); For an extensive analysis of the shift toward “selectivity” in ODA decision making in the late 1990s, see: J. Aubut “The Good Governance Agenda: Who Wins and Who Loses. Some Empirical Evidence for 2001”, Working Paper Series: London School of Economics and Political Science, (2004).

[xxxv] “NEPAD’s “New Global Partnership”, (2002), Section 6, Point 68.

[xxxvi] Peter Bond, “Can NEPAD Survive its Proponents, Sponsors, Clients and Peers?”, cited in: John K. Akokpari, “The AU, NEPAD and the Promotion of Good Governance in Africa”, Nordic Journal of African Studies, (2004), 3.

[xxxvii] Akokpari

[xxxviii] Jennifer L. Windsor, “Better Development Through Democracy”, The New York Times, (19 July 2002).

[xxxix] Tanonoka Whande, “African Brotherhood: An Excuse for Despots to Rule”, The Daily News (4 March 2003); See also: Njungu Mulikitha, “NEPAD and Globalisation”, Conflict Trends, (2003).

[xl] Robert Guest, “Poverty Retains its Grip on African Nations”, The Financial Times, (6 July 2004).

[xli] “African Union defends Mugabe” Mail and Guardian (South Africa) (25 June 2005)

[xlii] “Annan warns on danger of Zimbabwe” The Financial Times (7 July 2005)

[xliii] Kunle Amuwo, “Globalization, NEPAD and the Governance Question in Africa”, Africa Studies Quarterly, (2002), 6.

[xliv] Leon Pretorius and Saliem Patel, “The New Partnership for Africa’s Development: A critical Review”, Labour Research Service (South Africa), Number 86/02993/08 (2002).

[xlv] Interview with Patrice Vahard, Regional Advisor at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in Addis Ababa (14 April 2004).

[xlvi] Interview with Wolfram Vetter in Addis Ababa (16 April 2004).

[xlvii] Sharon LaFraniere, “After Reconciliation, Steering South Africa to a Reckoning”, The New York Times (27 April 2004).

[xlviii] Ibid.

[xlix] Interview with Vahard.

[l] Bossuyt and Mackie.

[li] Interview with Vetter.

[lii] Interview with Max Jarrett in Addis Ababa (13 April 2004).

[liii] Ben Turok, “Socio-economic integration in Africa”, Presentation to the Southern Africa Research Poverty Network and Center for Civil Society Workshop (4 July 2002).

[liv] Interview with Olaniyan.

[lv] Jackie Cilliers and Kathryn Sturman, “ECOSOCC: Bringing People’s Power to the African Union?”, African Security Review, (2003), 12.

[lvi] Interview with Jinmi Adissa in Addis Ababa (20 April 2004).

[lvii] Ibid.

[lviii] Interview with Lalla Ben Barka in Addis Ababa (19 April 2004).

[lix] USAID 2005 Annual Report on Democracy and Governance in Africa

[lx] Interview with James Nxumalo in Addis Ababa (16 April 2004).

[lxi] Jon C. Pevehouse, “Democracy from the Outside-In? International Organizations and Democratization”, International Organization, (2002), 542.

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