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CCP-AU conference and workshop report
22 September 2008
Europafrica.org
The transformation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (AU) in 2001 was the landmark moment. The African Union strategic plan for 2004-2007 set out five ‘priority programmes’. The second programme is to ‘actively involve African citizens at large and members of the Diaspora in the process of building continental integration.’ Accordingly African people are expected to drive the agenda of the Union to bring about integration of African people and not just Heads of States and Governments. To this end, different stakeholders mainly African based CSOs, have been organizing consultation meetings at various levels with the idea of informing the people of Africa about the current process including their voices within the decision making bodies of the African Union. However, there is still a lack of coordination and missed opportunities for working on the AU especially around the bi-annual Summits.
Due to this fact on March and November 2007, two training workshops on the AU and two bi-annual continental conferences were organized in Ghana and Ethiopia ahead of the June and January African Union Summits. These workshops successfully built the capacity of both Ghanaian and Ethiopian NGOs to engage the AU and to also participate in the Ordinary Summits.
Recognizing this potential of enhanced AU-CSO engagement, the Centre for Citizens’ Participation in the African Union (CCP-AU) was established at the end of the training workshop in Ethiopia. The CCP-AU is an informal platform committed to the actualization of a people-centred African Union, and aspires to broaden and strengthen opportunities for substantive engagement between CSOs and the AU. The CCP-AU and its founding organizations have contributed to the continental conferences and CSOs training workshops. The most recent and promising events that the CCP-AU organized were the CSO Training Workshop from May 24-25 in Cairo, Egypt and the Third Citizens’ Continental Conference on the 11th AU Summit, which took place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, from June 22-23, 2008.
The present report focuses on that conference. Any reader of this report will not be able to deny the stunning breadth of topics that was covered during the conference. Such breadth is proof positive that African Civil Society is indeed grounded in and concerned about numerous issues of vital importance to the African project. Far from being a potted plant on the wane, African Civil Society is an emerging force in the conduct of African affairs. The people-driven expertise along with the civic courage that are inherent to civil society lie at the bedrock of the creation of a truly people-centred African Union. Our hope is that all readers will be exposed to and acknowledge the tremendous potentialities that lie in the field of AU-CSOs engagement.
The Centre For Citizens’ Participation in the African Union
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