Weekly Roundup

In this week's AU Monitor, we bring you news and documentation for forthcoming AU meetings on children, industry and of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council. In addition, the AU Monitor features interviews from the African Development Bank (AfDB) with resource mobilization lead expert, Boubacar Traoré, who sheds light on the Multilateral Development Banks’ meeting on debt-related issues held at the World Bank and with Ms Motselisi Lebesa, Principal Public Utilities Economist at NEPAD’s Regional Integration and Trade Department, who talks of Africa's infrastructure deficit and the approaches developed by NEPAD and AfDB in two recent studies. Also at the African Union, the President of the African Union, Ghana’s Head of State, John Kufuor, has appointed Cameroonian Vice President of Transparency International, Barrister Akere Tabeng Muna, as a member of the African Union Audit Commission, in conformity with the Accra Declaration in which Heads of States and Government agreed that, in order to attain the Union Government, "an Audit of the Executive Council in terms of Article 10 of the Constitutive Act, the Commission as well as the other organs of the African Union" be conducted prior to the January summit of the African Union in Addis Ababa.

In Asian-African news, the AU Monitor brings you an important article by Mills Soko on African and Indian economic ties, enunciating the potential for lessons and skills sharing, Dr. Soko states: "Africa has become the emerging market for Indian products and enterprises and an alternative source of energy for India, while African exports, including natural resources, agricultural goods and household consumer items, have grown exponentially." Further, in Sino-African relations, the African Union announced this week the donation of $300,000 by the Chinese government for peacekeepers in Somalia. Also in peace and security news, the AU Mission in the Sudan has condemned an attack by the Justice and Equality Movement and the Unity faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA-Unity) on a Sudanese army base in Kordofan while the United Nations Secretary General also condemned the government bombings on Southern Darfur on Tuesday.

In regional news, President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, urged the European Union to show understanding and flexibility in the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations, while, in a communiqué of the SADC Civil Society forum on “Ensuring Effective Civic Participation in Development and Democratic Governance”, Southern African civil society call upon heads of states and government to institutionalize and operationalize the participation of civil society in decision making at the national and regional levels; take concrete and urgent action related to the violations of human rights in Zimbabwe and Lesotho; and to enter trade negotiations, particularly with the EU, as a united bloc for the benefit of the region.