(Addis Ababa, 27 January 2010) A new guide to the African Union launched today by the Africa Governance and Monitoring Project (AfriMAP) of the Open Society Institute and Oxfam International aims to ensure that Africa’s citizens can contribute more fully to the work of the inter-governmental organisation.  

The guide, which comes at heels of a period of major reforms in the AU, aims to encourage civil society to fully engage with the African Union, whilst at the same time calling for greater openness and tolerance of public participation in the affairs of the organization. 

“African civil society organizations must work to support the African Union in its work, using the openings that exist to contribute to its decision-making processes and advocate for people-friendly policies.” said Ozias Tungwarara, AfriMAP Director.     “It is also essential that the AU leaders embrace the idea of opening their doors and allow citizens to come to engage them. This guide allows for such a crucial exchange,” he added

It has been almost a decade since the AU was established, and feelings remain mixed about its effectiveness and purpose.  The Pan African organization has established two crucial organs enabling citizen participation (the Pan African Parliament, and the Economic Social and Cultural Council), but much work remains to be done to make them as effective as they could be.  The Peace and Security Council has also recently adopted procedures enabling civil society organizations to appear before it, but few have yet done so. 

Meanwhile, the energy seems to have left the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the Africa  Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), once among the most promising initiatives for a new commitment to good governance and participatory development on the continent. 

With the renewed commitment in 2008 by incoming Chairperson of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, some civil society organizations consolidated their efforts to engage with the AU, to a point where some had reoriented their programmes around AU priorities.   As a result, the new guide adds to such a renewed commitment to engage with the AU as the primary inter-governmental organization for the African continent. 

“The guide aims to help civil society groups and ordinary citizens understand the workings of the AU, and assist them to positively and constructively engage with the organization,” said Oxfam’s Désiré  Assogbavi. 

The guide looks at three key areas around the AU: a description of its organs and institutions; suggestions on influencing AU policy decisions and processes; and finally a summary of the debate on a Union Government. 

As the African Union expands to a bigger and more complicated organization, issues surrounding the union have expanded with it.  The talk of a Pan African Parliament that is empowered to legislate, a stand by African Defence Force, an ever widening membership to the APRM and finally a Union Government, makes it fundamental for the AU to become more transparent and accountable to its citizens.  After all, the ambition to accelerate African integration cannot be achieved by continental polices alone, but by African people.  This has been the vision behind the birth of the AU, and the guide acts as a catalyst toward achieving such a vision.   

Background:

The African Union (AU) has committed to a vision of Africa that is ‘integrated, prosperous and peaceful … driven by its own citizens, a dynamic force in the global arena’ (Vision and Mission of the African Union, May 2004). ‘The guide to AU structures and processes’ is an effort to take up the challenge of achieving this vision. It is a tool to assist activists to engage with AU policies and programmes. It describes the AU decision-making process and outlines the roles and responsibilities of the AU institutions. It also contains a sampling of the experiences of those non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that have interacted with the AU.

Much of the information in ‘The guide to AU structures and processes’  is drawn from the report Towards a People-Driven African Union: Current Obstacles and New Opportunities (AfriMAP, AFRODAD and Oxfam GB, January 2007, updated November 2007) available on the websites of the publishing organisations. Additional information is derived from the report of the Audit of the African Union presented to Heads of State and Government in January 2008 and information collected by consultant Rudo Chitiga, who prepared the first draft of the Guide.

About the Publishers:
AfriMAP, the Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project, is an initiative of the Soros foundation network’s four African foundations, and works with national civil society organisations to conduct systematic audits of government performance in three areas: the justice sector and the rule of law; political participation and democracy; and effective delivery of public services.
www.afrimap.org

The Open Society Institute works to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. To achieve its mission, OSI seeks to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. At a local level, OSI implements a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, OSI builds alliances across borders and continents on issues such as corruption and freedom of information. OSI places a high priority on protecting and improving the lives of people in marginalized communities.
www.soros.org

Oxfam International works with others to overcome poverty and suffering in 24 countries across Africa. Alongside its development and humanitarian work, Oxfam International supports regional African organisations and coalitions to effectively engage continental and international policy-making institutions to respond to poverty and exclusion.  Recognising the next three years as a defining moment for the African Union, Oxfam GB has invested in partners and its own staff to support the African Union as a positive force for realising the social, economic, political and cultural rights of Africans.
www.oxfam.org.uk



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Posted on: 27 January 2010

(Kampala, Uganda, 21 October 2009)—The lack of citizenship rights generates conflict and undermines democracy in many countries in Africa, according to two new studies by the Open Society Institute.  The reports, the culmination of years of research, analyze citizenship laws from all 53 countries in Africa.

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See the report of the launch event and communique from the parallel workshop here: http://www.afrimap.org/researchDetail.php?id=51

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Released today on African Human Rights Day, the reports recommend that countries amend their constitutions and laws and that the African Union adopt a treaty on the right to a nationality.

“Throughout Africa, millions are stateless and denied basic rights”, said Bronwen Manby, senior adviser on Africa at the Open Society Institute and author of the reports. “The African Union needs to sit up and take notice of this crisis.”

The denial of citizenship rights has devastating human consequences. Millions of Africans without citizenship are deprived of the right to vote, to cross borders, and to access state health or education services. 

Citizenship discrimination is a major cause of conflict in many countries, most notoriously in Côte d’Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Politicians in both countries have demonized particular ethnic groups and discrimination in the application of the law has stripped millions of people of their nationality. In these countries and many others, individuals born and raised on a country’s soil are barred from ever obtaining citizenship purely because their ancestry.

The studies document how incumbent governments have also manipulated citizenship laws to exclude prominent individuals from claiming public office. Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda and Ivoirian prime minister Alassane Ouattara are two prominent cases discussed in the reports.

The reports will be unveiled at a special summit in Kampala, where African heads of state are set to adopt an agreement on the protection of internally displaced persons. Lack of citizenship—a frequent cause of conflict and displacement—can be especially problematic for Africa’s almost 12 million internally displaced persons. Without citizenship protections these people are easily excluded from services and political rights.

“The idea that someone can live here but belong nowhere is plainly un-African”, said Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, senior legal officer of the Open Society Justice Initiative. “By enshrining the right to a nationality in national and continental law, African governments would honour our traditions of building inclusive communities and help to eliminate conflict.”

Key findings include:

·         Only a handful of African countries provide in law for children born on their soil to have a right to their nationality if they would otherwise be stateless, despite the provisions of international treaties that require this protection.

·         The laws of at least half a dozen countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Uganda, include provisions that restrict nationality from birth to members of certain ethnic groups.

·         More than half of Africa’s countries still discriminate against women and deny them the right to pass citizenship to their children or husbands.

·         Though almost all countries have laws allowing foreigners to naturalise, in practice, citizenship is often almost impossible to obtain.

·         Half of Africa’s states allow revocation of a person’s birth nationality and in many countries governments can rescind naturalised citizenship on highly arbitrary grounds.

Encouragingly, more than a dozen countries have amended their laws in recent years to reduce or eliminate gender discrimination. More than half Africa’s states now allow dual citizenship, recognising the reality of contemporary patterns of migration.

Moreover, the laws in more than half of the continent’s countries grant children born on their soil the right to nationality at birth if one of their parents was also born there, or the right to claim birth nationality when they reach the age of majority—though the observance of these laws is often lacking.

The reports include a detailed set of recommendations for African countries to reform national citizenship laws and adopt a protocol on the right to a nationality to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

“The first step is for African countries to follow the international conventions and ensure that all children who don’t have a right to nationality anywhere else, have the right to nationality where they are born”, said Manby.


The two publications released today are:

·         Struggles for Citizenship in Africa, published by Zed Books, which highlights case studies of citizenship crises in Africa.

·         Citizenship Law in Africa: A Comparative Study, published by the Open Society Institute, which provides a detailed comparative analysis of the citizenship laws of all 53 African states.

They were produced as a collaboration between two programmes of the Open Society Institute: AfriMAP and the Open Society Justice Initiative.



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Posted on: 21 October 2009