AFRICAN UNION UNION AFRICAINE UNIÃO AFRICANA Addis Ababa, Ethiopia P. O. Box 3243 Telephone: 5517 700 Fax: 5517844 Website: www. Africa-union.org EXECUTIVE COUNCIL Fourteenth Ordinary Session 26 - 30 January 2009 Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA EX. CL/483 (XIV) REPORT OF THE CHAIRPERSON ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE COMMISSION COVERING THE PERIOD JULY TO DECEMBER 2008 EX. CL/483 (XIV) Page i TABLE OF CONTENTS Page FOREWORD I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1-7 II. PEACE AND SECURITY 7-36 III. REGIONAL INTEGRATION, DEVELOPMENT AND COOPERATION 37 III.1 Integration and Human Capital Development 37 1. Education 37-41 2. Science & Technology 41-42 3. Information Society 42-43 4. Health and Sanitation 43-47 5. Human and Social Welfare 47-52 6. Children, Youth and Sport 52-56 III.2 Integration and Development of Interconnectivity 56 1. Transport (roads, rail, air, water) 57-59 2. Energy (energy crisis); 60-63 3. Telecommunications, Posts and ICT 63-66 III.3 Integration and Climate Change and Sustainable Management 66 of Natural Resources 1. Impact of Climate Change and General Issues of Concern 66-68 (Forest Resources Management, Water Resources Management, Soils Management, Livestock) III.4 Integration and Development of Financial Market and Assets 69-75 (the Financial Institutions…) III.5 Integration and Development of production capacities 75 1. Agriculture (CAADP, Food crisis) 75-81 2. Industrial and Mining Development 81-82 EX. CL/483(XIV) Page ii III.6 Integration and Trade capacity building 82 1. Market Access Capacity Building 82-86 2. Multilateral Trade Rules and Negiotiations (EPA,WTO) 87-89 III.7 Role of all Actors in Strengthening the Integration Process (Public Sector, Private Sectork Civil Society, Diaspora) 89-92 III.8 Partnership and Relations with the World 92 1. On-going Partnerships 92-95 2. Afro-Arab Cooperation 95-98 3. Representational Offices 98-112 4. Africa’s Share in Global Exchanges 112 IV. SHARED-VALUES 113 IV. 1 Democracy, Elections and Governance 113-118 IV. 2 Human Rights 119-121 IV. 3 Humanitarian Affairs 121-122 IV. 4 Gender and Development 122-123 IV. 5 Culture 123-124 IV. 6 Social Values and Solidarity 124 IV. 7 Legal Matters (Legal architecture of the Union) 124-129 IV. 8 Communication and Information 129-130 V. STRENGTHENING THE INSTITUTIONS 131 V.1 The Commission 131 1. Administrative and Human Resource Management 131-133 2. Financial Management 133-135 3. Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation 135-139 4. Conference Services 139-140 5. Audit Activities 140-141 6. Integration of NEPAD 141-144 V.2 The ECOSOCC 144-145 VI. CONCLUSION 145-146 EX. CL/483 (XIV) FOREWORD I have the singular honour to submit for the consideration of the Executive Council and the Assembly of the Union this report which sets out the major activities carried out by the Commission during the past six months. It is the second report I am presenting to this august Assembly since I assumed office on 28 April 2008. The first report which I presented to you in Sharm El Sheikh in July 2008, gave an overview of the situation that I inherited from my predecessor, Professor Alpha Oumar Konaré. I take this opportunity to once again pay him glowing tribute. That report also brought to bear on our deliberations a number of key ideas that would guide our actions in the course of our mandate. It is now my pleasure to highlight these key ideas which have been fine-tuned, revised and updated, and encapsulated in a new Strategic Plan for the next four years, a Plan which I now submit for your consideration in the present report. The four basic pillars of this Strategic Plan, namely: Peace and Security; Integration, Development and Cooperation; Shared Values and Institutional and Capacity Building, have to a large extent been inspired by the experiences, both positive and not so positive, that we garnered while implementing the last Strategic Plan 2004-2007 adopted by this august Assembly in July 2004. Our approach is to focus more on the realities of the Continent’s political, economic and social climate so that we can together move forward at a sustained pace with all Member States, all the Organs of the Union and all the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and with the support of all our partners and friends of Africa, towards continental integration, cushioned on concrete, qualitative and quantitative accomplishments that will be open to measurable and credible appraisal by our very selves, using clear-cut performance indicators. Our Organisation is, indeed, endowed with a wide range and a relatively comprehensive set of documents (legal texts, decisions and recommendations) covering all spheres of human activity, documents that could make us the envy of other Continents. It must however be observed that the political will underpinning this wide range of documentary asset, an asset shaped by our good intentions, have not always been translated into concrete measures. Our peoples in their towns and villages gain nothing from these good intentions which are quite often relegated to the status of feasibility study and consigned to the dusty archives of our offices. The Commission whose leadership you so kindly entrusted to me, will in the course of our mandate present to you a number of bold but realistic projects that would enable our peoples to appropriate the African Union in their day-to-day life, a Union which delivers positive and tangible results, rather than through an increasingly cloudy concept, albeit nurtured and steadfastly defended in the past by successive generations of African patriots. It is my sincere hope that the African Union would realise its legitimate ambitions in the next few years. It is also my ardent wish that, at the end of the present sessions, the debate on the Union Government would culminate in a consensual road map with well-defined accelerators and benchmarks, in furtherance of our resolute and irreversible march towards the integration of our dear Continent and the emergence of the United States of Africa – the ultimate goal that we have unanimously endorsed in the best interest of our future generations and for their legitimate, full and unfettered participation in the management of world affairs. Jean Ping EX. CL/483 (XIV) Page 1 I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Introduction 1. This report which gives an account of the activities undertaken by the Commission from July to December 2008 is the second which I have the honor to present to this august Assembly. As I indicated in my first report in June 2008, only two months after the present Commission assumed office, we are resolutely intent on devoting our best efforts to concrete actions and on taking advocacy measures in furtherance of the continent’s physical integration through integrating projects such as infrastructure development projects with regional, inter-regional and continental dimension, effective implementation of the common positions adopted by our top policy organs and self-evaluation without complacency, of the actions we have taken in relation to the commitments that we freely entered into, so as to build our credibility vis-à-vis our people and all our partners, African and international alike. In its report on the Audit of the Union, and precisely in recommendation No. 3 which was endorsed by the Executive Council both in Arusha and Sharm El Sheik in July 2008, the High Level Panel underscored the need for both the Council and the Assembly to place high on the agenda of all their sessions, a report on the status of implementation of our Decisions. This recommendation is vital and we have started implementing it right from the present sessions. It underscores the fact that any new decision on the same issues must take into account the outcomes of the implementation of the previous decisions. 2. This report, it must be emphasized, differs from the first in terms of form, presentation and content. Indeed, it aims at painting a much more integrated picture of all the activities carried out under the four pillars defined in our draft Strategic Plan 2009- 2012, namely: • Peace and Security ; • Integration, Development and Cooperation; • Shared Values ; and • Institution and Capacity Building. Peace and Security 3. The African Union currently has a relatively well-oiled architecture in the Peace and Security pillar, as evidenced by all the institutions that have been established including the Peace and Security Council, the keystone of this whole system and which is enjoying increasing legitimacy within the international community. We already have in place a number of mechanisms and facilities, albeit still modest in stature, that enable us to move, relatively fast and resolutely into the thick of things, even though this is not enough to extinguish the hotbeds of tension in our continent or to prevent fresh resurgence of crisis. EX. CL/483 (XIV) Page 2 Integration, Development and Cooperation 4. The reverse is entirely the case in the sphere of development. Like in the domain of peace and security, we have to establish similar architecture for the comprehensive development of our continent. We have the means to do so. Our partners are aware of this and it is this fact that explains the proliferation of partnerships with them. Indeed, they know that this continent is endowed with immense but largely unexploited resources, a young and abundant population as well as other potentials which, if harnessed, could change the course of human history, as we have seen in other continents that are less endowed than ours. At this threshold of the century, the African should take up this huge challenge and so make this continent proud. The development architecture must be built on concrete and more realistic action plans, anchored on the principle of subsidiarity between Member States, the RECs and the African Union.