Cairo, Egypt, 12th April 2019- A seminar bringing together the African Union Commission, the Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC), and the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), to deliberate on the preparations for the upcoming Mid-Year Coordination meeting set to be held in Niamey, Niger in July 2019, has concluded. The primary goal of the Executive sensitization and experience sharing seminar held in Cairo, Egypt, under the theme “The road to Niamey: Taking the Agenda of regional integration forward” was for the AU organs and the regional blocs to share experiences on the progress of the integration agenda and generate recommendations to feed into the process of developing a proposal on effective division of labour among the AU, the RECs, the Member States, and other continental institutions.

During the two-day seminar, participants deliberated on a wide range of issues on the existing cooperation frameworks between the AU and RECS, such as Abuja treaty establishing the African Economic Community; the 2008 Protocol on Relations between the RECs and the AU; and the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation in the Area of Peace and Security. The meeting further deliberated on among other pertinent issues, the rationalization and harmonization for the existing eight RECS; the varying pace of implementation of Agenda 2063 by member states; the implementation capacity at each of the three levels (AU, RECS, member states); and the joint planning, resource mobilization, monitoring and evaluation aspects.

To upscale efforts to realize the needed sustainable development for the continent, the meeting also took stock of the implementation rate of the decisions adopted by the Assembly and the signing, ratification and domestication of the legal instruments of the Union. Proposals were made on the need for a strategic shift on the decision making process towards a more data-evidence based process. The meeting noted that this would eliminate the risks of overlapping decisions and also move the Union towards a process of adopting decisions complemented by the necessary human and institutional capacity to implement the decisions wholly.

While opening the seminar, Egypt’s Deputy Foreign Minister for African Affairs, Ambassador Hamdi Sanad Loza spelt out the merits of a functional division of labour among the AU, the RECs, the Member States, and other continental institutions, noting the synergy would support the progressive realization of Africa’s development framework Agenda 2063 and positively impact the lives of all Africans.

To unlock the potential for continental integration as a credible step towards accelerating operational delivery of Agenda 2063, Ambassador Osama Abdel Khalik, the Permanent Representative of Egypt to the AU and the Chairperson of PRC, observed the need for efficient connectivity between the different blocks of regional integration and ensuring their seamless compatibility.

Drawing on lessons from the successes and challenges of the synergy between AU, the RECs, member states and other institutions, the representative of the AU Commission Chairperson, Ambassador Jean Mfasoni, emphasized the need for a more enhanced bottom-top approach consultative process among the stakeholders, to ensure full ownership of the continental agenda and results.

Facilitating the seminar, African Union Leadership Academy manager Dr. Muna Abdalla, called attention to the need for continuous human and institutional capacity building as the bedrock to achieve clear, well defined and common definition of the concepts of division of labor, subsidiarity and complementarity ahead of the July meeting.

Read; “No shortcut to inclusive prosperity”- Cairo meeting to deliberate division of labour to drive Agenda 2063.

In January 2017, in the context of institutional reforms, the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, adopted the decision to replace the June-July summit with a coordination meeting between the Bureau of the Assembly, the RECs, the AU Commission and regional mechanisms. To ensure effectiveness of delivery against identified priorities, the Assembly further mandates the AU Commission, in collaboration with the RECs, AU organs, relevant continental organizations, to develop a proposal on an effective division of labour among the AU, the RECs, the Member States, and other continental institutions for submission to the First Mid-Year Coordination Meeting in July 2019.

For further information, please contact
Doreen Apollos | E-mail: ApollosD@africa-union.org | Tel: +251 115182737