Notes following briefing to Media on African Union Summit by Ambassador Jessie Duarte, Media Centre, Union Buildings, Pretoria
Monday 21 January 2008

Remarks by Ambassador Jessie Duarte

The Council of Ministers is scheduled to take place from 28-29 January 2008 – for those of you who are unaware of the terminology – this is usually the Ministerial meeting that precedes every Assembly meeting during which Ministers receive reports from the Permanent Representatives Committee which is the Ambassadors of Africa stationed in Addis Ababa.

This meeting will, amongst others, look at the Budget of the AU and make proposals about the acceptance of that budget to the Heads of State and Government. 

This meeting will also examine the report of the 2nd AU Conference of Ministers responsible for looking at the integration of the Continent and this is primarily economic integration led by President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and his Minister will make a report first.

The theme of this Conference is based on Industrial Development and there will be quite a substantive discussion on building Africa’s industrial base with all the issues that impact on this process particularly constraints that pertain in countries – a low manufacturing base, the question of how to increase Africa’s trade with other regions of the world, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules and how they impact on the African continent, amongst a few other matters.

There will also be a report of the second Pan African Forum on Children which took place in Cairo reporting on the status of Africa’s children – education, health status – the common understanding is based on the fact that a child is considered to be one until the age of 18.

There is also quite a comprehensive report that will be given on drug control measures being taken by various countries in Africa – that is related to quite an advanced integration of Ministers of Police Services who have been co-operating for quite a while and they will make the report.

There is also going to be a report on labour and social services in Africa and also the issue of the African Union government report.  This is a report given to the Council of Ministers by a Committee of 10 Ministers who had looked at what would need to be done to shape the AU into an organisation that is capable of managing the African integration agenda.  This will be a fairly thorough report – a lot of work has been done.  We have had a group of Eminent Persons led by Professor Adedeji whom some of you will remember as leading the South African Peer Review process.  Dr Frene Ginwala was representing South Africa on that Eminent Persons Group.  They will report on the organisational architecture of the African Union – they have looked at this.  They will look at the terms of office of Commissioners.  They will report on what they found the relationship between the Permanent Representatives Council and the AU Commission to be.  They will report on the efficacy of the establishment of Ministerial committees on various sectors and how that is progressing. 

And as I said before, they will discuss the budget.

I have also said they will discuss the status of trade negotiations in the World Trade Organisation.

Off course, they will also consider candidatures for various international organisations and make recommendations to the Heads of State in this regard.

There will be a meeting of the Peace and Security Council of the AU on the margins of the Summit and amongst the items on that agenda will be a report back from the President of Ghana on his visit to Kenya and his findings, and the situation in the Comoros, the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the situation in Côte d’Ivoire.

Additional items of which I am presently unaware may feature on the agenda of the Peace and Security Council meeting.  Countries are able to raise matters from the floor so it is not a closed agenda.

Then, on the Assembly, there will also be a NEPAD Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee Meeting (HSGIC) on the margins of the Assembly – we expect this may take place on the 29th January 2008.

The Assembly will be in session from 31st January – 2nd February 2008 and during this time, the Assembly will consider the election of the Chairperson of the AU and other members of the Bureau and the Drafting Committee.  This is a normal process.  There will be an input given on the industrial development of Africa.  That will make up most of the agenda.

Heads of State and Government will receive a Ministerial report on the High Level Panel on the audit of the African Union and they will discuss this quite thoroughly – ie. the architecture issue, the relationship issue and capacity within the AU.

Then, there will also be a report from the Committee that has been dealing with the concept of the Union Government and how far we are in this regard – this will entail assessing how well we are progressing in terms of regional economic community integration and the remaining challenges.

I am sure you all recognise that this cannot be a quick process.  As we have said in the past, it took approximately 50 years for the AU to come into being and we are still in the process of structuring and restructuring.  I can tell you that we have gone a long way towards the understanding of the concept of one that must being together 53 sovereign states into some sort of architecture where they can work together, where the issues of sovereignty are not nullified but at the same time there will be areas where minimum standards – eg. harmonisation of certain policies in Africa.  You already have in some regions harmonisation of the policies around the freedom of movement of people although they are difficult to implement.  They do exist.  There is also already in west Africa a common currency.  Elements of what needs to happen already exist but there is a long road ahead of us. 

I cannot tell you what the heads of State will decide.

There will also be the election and appointment of the Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson of the AU.  As you know, President Konare’s term of office ended in July 2007 and the Commission as a whole was given an additional six months to finalise this process.  This issue will be discussed by the Heads of State and Government in terms of looking at a list on which a number of people have been nominated for these positions.

Heads of State and Government will also look at the appointment of Commissioners and there will be the appointment of members of the Peace and Security Council for a period of two years.  The Peace and Security Council operates on the basis of ten countries that serve for a three year term and then two countries per region that serve for a two year term each and those countries will be considered.

The Assembly will also adopt the budget for 2008 and the report of the activities of the Peace and Security Council and that of the Chair of the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee will be presented.

These are the highlights of the Assembly.

There will also be some discussion on the participation of the African Diaspora as an observer at Assemblies of the African Union.  This is an item that Senegal is strongly supporting.

That is the broad outline of what will happen in Addis Ababa in the next week.

Questions and answers
Question           Ambassador, is President Mbeki going to brief Heads of State and Government regarding his mediation attempts in Zimbabwe?

Answer: President Mbeki’s mandate comes from SADC so he will present his report to the SADC Heads of State and Government.  If he is asked (I am not aware at this stage of such a request) he might do so.  I cannot confirm this at this time.  As you know, the mandate for the mediation in Zimbabwe was a SADC mandate.

Question:  Ambassador, the Commission on Human and Peoples Rights briefs the Heads of State and Government every year, do we have an idea of what their report will entail?

Answer: The African Human Rights Commission reports to the Heads of State and Government in July of each year.  They will not report at this session.  They present an annual report in July each year.

Question: Ambassador, do you have a list of those who have been nominated to the posts of Chairperson, Deputy Chairperson and Commissioners?

Answer: This is public knowledge and is on the AU website.  Could you please access this?

Question:  Ambassador, the budget of the AU is always contentious – will ways of getting all member states to pay their contributions come up?  Is this matter also addressed through the Eminent Persons Group?

Answer:  The Eminent Persons group looked at alternate sources of funding for the African Union.  But with a very careful component being that the AU should be caution of relying on donor funds that fund the programmes of the AU from other international sources because Africa’s experience is that once a budget is funded by ODA funds then the agenda is determined by the outlook of the country contributing the funding so, because of this, the decision was taken that 75% of the budget be funded by 5 African states with the highest GDP – Algeria, Nigeria, Libya, South Africa and Egypt.  So 75% of the budget, despite what happens, is funded by those 5 countries. 

What has then happened – in the last two years – is that the medium sized countries have been paying their contributions to the AU in trunches – some pay every month, some pay every quarter, some every six months – so they have a system of cash flow into the AU.  This has resulted in some countries reflecting as being in arrears at the end of the AU’s financial year.

This matter will be addressed quite extensively in the report by the Eminent Persons – also with a view to looking at the reality of some countries who just cannot maintain their payments – even to pay the minimum contribution of 0.25% of the budget.  There are some countries who are desperately trying to bring themselves up to speed.

Countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo have made a huge effort to bring their account up to date. 

What does happen is that countries who are in arrears for more than three years are sanctioned – they cannot speak, receive documentation, so this is a bit of a challenge and this matter will be discussed quite broadly.

The real question of the affordability of the budget will be considered.

We cannot have an African Union Commission that is not properly funded.  This is not feasible.  To continue to talk about a united, integrated African Union government in the future while we are struggling with getting the AU Commission resourced has difficulties.

The struggle to get the Commission resourced is sometimes linked to the view that the Commission is not properly structured.  People question the nature and the structure of the Commission and would like to put money in but do not.

The matter of countries in arrears will be addressed.

Question: Ambassador, will the budget of the Pan African Parliament be discussed?

Answer:  The Pan African Parliament’s budget has been received by the AU and the request has been incorporated into the budget requests.  This will be discussed by the Ministers and the Heads of State and Government is usually done each year.  It is always a bit contentious because the competition to fund all the organs of the AU are very real but the Pan African Parliament is an important institution and we do believe that it needs to be well resourced so that it can do the work that it is supposed to.

We will be encouraging the AU to look at the budget very objectively and that there is an understanding that this should be a prime institution, it should be an apex institution of the AU because in 2009 the Assembly will be reviewing the status of the Pan African Parliament – will it become legislative or not?

Issued by Department of Foreign Affairs
Private Bag X152
Pretoria
0001

21 January 2008