Addis Ababa, 06 June 2012 – The African Governance Platform will officially be launched on Friday, 15th June 2012 in Lusaka, Republic of Zambia by the Department of Political Affairs of the African Union Commission (AUC).

The African Governance Platform is the coordinating arm of the African Governance Architecture. It will be launched in response to the decision of the 16th AU Summit on theme of "Shared Values in Africa”. The role of the Platform is to facilitate information flow, exchanges, dialogue, synergies and joint action between the various African governance actors. The Platform will function as an interactive and non-decision-making mechanism.

Given that the African Governance Architecture is an evolving process, there is a need to take cognizance of the established instruments and institutions with a formal mandate on democracy, governance, elections and human rights norms, alongside enhanced coordination, consolidation and implementation of the compliance with respect to the norms.

The AGA is the overall political and institutional framework for the promotion of democracy, governance and human rights in Africa. It is an evolving framework that will facilitate, coordinate and promote structural conflict prevention in Africa. the AGA seeks to strengthen coordination amongst AU organs and institutions with a formal mandate in governance, democracy and human rights as a measure of enhancing their capacity and optimising their impact. Rather than a set of institutions and a panoply of legal instruments, the AGA should be seen as a process and mechanism to engage and develop appropriate capacity and responses to Africa’s governance challenges.

The AGA consists of three pillars: (i) a vision supported by a governance agenda and norms; (ii) a set of governance institutions/actors; and (iii) concrete processes/relationships to promote synergies, common agendas and greater impact including the need to establish an African Platform on Governance as the motor for the AGA.

Worth recalling that, the Executive Council of the African Union (AU) at its Eighteenth Ordinary Session in Addis Ababa, endorsed the resolution to strengthen the African Governance Architecture, through the launch of a Governance Platform as an informal and non-decision making mechanism to: foster exchange of information, facilitate the elaboration of common positions on governance and strengthen the capacity of Africa to speak with one voice on shared values issues. The decision also requested the AUC to undertake periodic reviews and coordinate the monitoring of compliance with AU instruments on Shared Values.

Participants will include relevant stakeholder institutions representatives of the AU Commission and AU Organs, Officials from Institutions dealing with shared values related issues, RECs represented by the senior officials in charge of Governance and Democracy and other invited guests.

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