African Governance Platform comes to life
By John Stephen Katende
11th June 2012:
The long awaited African Governance Platform will officially be launched this Friday, June 15, in Lusaka – Zambia by the African Union Commission’s [AUC] Department of Political Affairs.
The African Governance Platform is the coordinating arm of the African Governance Architecture [AGA]. It will be launched in response to the decision of the 16th AU Summit on the 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. It will also 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 AU said in a June 6 press release.
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 the AU says “…will facilitate, coordinate and promote structural conflict prevention in Africa.”
The AGA also 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 being a set of institutions and a panoply of legal instruments, the AU says, “…the AGA will be 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.
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