11 Jun 2007: ISS Today: The 7th Ordinary Session of the Pan-African Parliament: Should We Hold Our Breath?

11 June 2007: The 7th Ordinary Session of the Pan African Parliament: Should We Hold Our Breath?

 

From 7 to 18 May 2007, the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) held its 7th Ordinary Session in Midrand, South Africa.  Opening the Session, Ghana’s President Kufuor, Chairman of the African Union (AU), gave an appraisal of the current politico-economic situation on the African continent. He underscored the strategic importance of New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) in the quest to improve governance and promote the economic development of the continent. Politically, he observed that most African countries now enjoy peace, security and stability -- thereby enabling their governments to deal with key questions of socio-economic development.  Economically, President Kufour told the PAP that a majority of AU Member States are better managed, inflation is at a historic low, and that in the past five years the continent witnessed an increase of more than 200% in direct investment inflows.

 

However, he cautioned that the continent should not be complacent in dealing with existing political challenges undermining stability in countries such as the Sudan, Ethiopia and Chad.  It is against this background that he called for continued efforts to ensure that the rest of the continent enjoys law and order so as to sustain the current encouraging developments.

 

It is against this background that the Session received and discussed a report from the NEPAD Secretariat focussing on the important area of infrastructure development. From the discussions, it was evident that the building of good infrastructure networks is key to poverty alleviation in Africa. It should be emphasised that trade and economic growth are inextricably linked to a well-developed infrastructure. The deliberations emphasised that achieving higher levels of development would require assistance from partners in the international community. In this regard, it was suggested that in order effectively to address infrastructural backlogs on the continent, G8 countries would need to double their annual aid to African countries to reach about $20 billion by 2010.

 

Indeed, the achievement of even levels of infrastructural development across African countries would be a major contribution to the economic integration of the continent. The PAP, therefore, underscored the need for all stakeholders within and outside the continent to support the implementation of NEPAD infrastructure development projects.

 

The Session also focused on other critical areas needing urgent attention: these include agricultural development, accountable natural resource exploitation and management as well as issues related to environmental preservation.

 

Indeed, the theme of the 7th Session was idea of an African Union Government. In this regard, deliberations were informed by a study entitled, “An African Union Government: Towards the United States of Africa”, which was presented to the 8th AU Summit held in Banjul, The Gambia, in July 2006. As one would have expected, parliamentarians expressed divergent views about the viability of the proposed Union Government. The flow of the debate illustrated the conceptual differences between realists and idealists in the study of international relations. On the idealist front, some parliamentarians thought some form of a Pan-African federalist governance system was not a utopian dream. On the other hand, there were those who called for a realistic appraisal of the situation on the ground, arguing that it was not possible to achieve a Union Government in the foreseeable future. Wherever one stands on the debate, there can be little doubt that the discussion will continue beyond the forthcoming 9th AU Summit in Accra, Ghana, where the idea of an African Union Government will be given more focussed attention.

 

Pace and security are among the PAP’s permanent agenda items. This is not surprising given the continent’s perennial struggles for political stability and conflict resolution.  The situations in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Somalia, Sudan and Western Sahara were among those given special attention by the Session.  Typically, discussions on these conflict situations led to the adoption of recommendations meant for implementation by parties to the conflict and various organs of the AU.  It is one thing to make a recommendation, however, and quite another to implement it. That it is not within the competence and control of the PAP to implement the recommendations it makes renders it difficult to pass judgement on the meaningfulness of such recommendations. Unfortunately, there is as yet no evidence  suggesting that PAP recommendations made in the past have ever been implemented by parties for whom they are intended. It is, therefore, not cynical to ask whether recommendations adopted during the 7th Session will fare any better? Arguably, an answer to this question holds a key to the PAP’s worth.

 

Perhaps what distinguishes this from previous Sessions is that it was bold enough to debate the situation in Zimbabwe. This is not because Zimbabwe represents the gravest of situations on the African continent, but that it was notable that other AU organs – particularly those that wield political clout – had avoided dealing with the question. At the end of the Session, the PAP decided to dispatch a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe on the basis of whose findings and recommendations some concrete action by the PAP might be expected.  While a measure of pessimism as to the utility of fact-finding missions may be understandable, given historical experience, it should be remembered that intergovernmental organisations act on the basis of their own observations rather than on public commentary or media revelations. With this in mind, we can only wait inanticipation for the next PAP Session to see what the continental parliament will do.

 

Policy analysts are impressed more by action than what a policy document says will happen. If we follow this approach, we should cautiously welcome the laudable recommendations and resolutions the recent Session has adopted, only to celebrate their value once we have seen action flow from them.

 

Gerhard Hugo and Prince Mashele, Regional Projects, ISS Tshwane (Pretoria)