Actualising the United States of Africa dream

President Kufuor, chair of the African Union, in concluding his Africa Day speech observed the following:

'All these efforts will bear ready and abundant fruit only if we start with deepening the partnership arrangements among ourselves as Africans before we go out as a continent to access what others can bring to support our efforts.

Fortunately, there is a growing recognition among us today of the need to provide our union with a stronger continental machinery in order to work on agreed strategic areas of focus, including a common understanding of continental integration and the constraints against such an integration process.

We therefore look forward to the July 2007 summit in Accra dedicated to the "Grand Debate on Union Government" which, hopefully, will help us identify the strategic goals, objectives and actions that will help our embattled continent to gain its rightful and dignified place in the globalised world.'

Yet, the news that the Accra summit, 25 June - 6 July 2007, will be the 'Grand Debate on Union Government' may not necessarily be encouraging. Debates we have had plenty. Declarations, decisions, protocols, agreements, treaties, we have signed many.

Our main difficulty has been in implementation, having the will, structures, personnel and discipline to realise our goals. So, before we can get excited about July's grand debate we must first examine how the AU has managed to implement its own time table to date.

The African Union has set for itself the ambition of building, by the year 2025:

'A united and integrated Africa; an Africa imbued with the ideals of justice and peace; an inter-dependent and virile Africa determined to map for itself an ambitious strategy; an Africa underpinned by political, economic, social and cultural integration which would restore to Pan-Africanism its full meaning; an Africa able to make the best of its human and material resources, and keen to ensure the progress and prosperity of its citizens by taking advantage of the opportunities offered by a globalised world; an Africa engaged in promoting its values in a world rich in its disparities.'

The fundamental vision is, therefore, to 'build an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, an Africa driven and managed by its own citizen and representing a dynamic force in the international arena'.

The Constitutive Act of 2002 sets up and mandates certain institutions to facilitate the realisation of this vision: the Commission serves as the engine of the Union; Member States as the political project managers; the Pan-African Parliament and ECOSOCC as democratic control and monitoring organs; the Regional Economic Communities are viewed as the main pillars or building blocks of the Union; the Court of Justice, like that of the EU, is envisioned, once established, to serve as the judicial and arbitration body, especially on commercial cases and harmonisation rules; and the African Court of Human and Peoples" Rights to operate like Europe’s ECHRJ.

African leaders fully recognise that the success of the African Union will, to a large extent, 'depend on effective understanding and collaboration between these various organs, as well as on respect for their individual roles and functions'.

The Union further recognises that it would not be able to garner the necessary political consensus for accomplishment of its mandate, unless it has in place an appropriate governance tool. The question then to ask is how well has the Union so far done to ensure the tools are in place?

It has over the last three years been pursuing a short-term strategy. The strategy, which spans 2004-2007 has the objective to consolidate the institutional pillars of integration, build the human network and forge a network of relations for the Continent. In our view, before ordinary Africans can begin to believe that the 'grand debate’ in Accra would not be just another talk shop, they must be told how far the Union has gone with this short-term strategy which ends this year.

Africans are right to be sceptical. Yet, Africans know that the medium term goal of converging all the regional economic communities between 2008 and 2015 and the long term goal of the continent’s integration by 2025-2030 are all achievable. What we want to know is if our leaders have shown by their deeds that they also share this belief.