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14.02.2014 Feature Article

Communicating an ECOWAS message, & Financing Africa’s Integration in small steps

Communicating an ECOWAS message,  Financing Africas Integration in small steps
14.02.2014 LISTEN

“The Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”:
Communicating an ECOWAS message, and financing Africa's integration in small steps

By E.K.Bensah Jr
There is a ritual I perform every now and then: I get to my twitter account (http://www.twitter.com/ekbensah), and re-tweet everything possible about ECOWAS and the African Union – either in French or English.

Yesterday, I came across what looks like an ECOWAS-verified account that purported to be the official account of the ECOWAS Commission Directorate of (Food,) Agriculture and Rural Development. The very first tweet looked like it was made on 9 January, 2014, and it read “#foodsecurity and #foodsovereignty for an ECOWAS of people.” One can imagine how excited I was, for not only did it explain that this Directorate is the one to implement the ECOWAS Agricultural Policy(ECOWAP), but that it also has a website on http://agric.comm.ecowas.int. To say this is the way ECOWAS should be going is an understatement!

As far as the tweets are concerned, there have been 25 tweets as of 9 January, 2014. The account is following 31 accounts (that include ifpri; CTA.int; CILSS; UEMOA; and the Food and Agriculture Organisation). Given the kind of accounts it is following, one can surmise this may be the authentic account of the Directorate in question of the Commission. Out of the 19 followers, “FAO in Africa” (news from the regional office for Africa), and “FAO Forestry” are part. The tweets combine mostly French tweets with English ones, which could be construed as a reflection of ECOWAS' language policy, which communicates in English, French and Portuguese, with the former two being the most dominant languages.

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It is encouraging to read that in the year that the AU is celebrating 10 years of the Comprehensive Agriculture Africa Development Programme(CAADP), which enjoins AU member states to apportion 10% of their budget to agriculture and food security, it is very welcome news to read that the ECOWAS counterpart institution/agency has gotten its act together to announce a “new media” presence in a way that has yet to be done in other ECOWAS agencies. Even the very well-respected anti-money laundering outfit GIABA, which is based in Dakar, has yet to set up a social media presence of this calibre.

The debate on financing integration revived
This column is no stranger to the very necessary debate on financing integration as the writer has covered it through various angles over the past two years. There is no gainsaying the necessity of both the African Union, and its regional economic communities obtaining independent ways of generating internally-generated funds—as obtains at ECOWAS with its ECOWAS Levy – so that the visceral inclination to default to donor money is cast into history.

So, reading of two recent developments from the just-ended AU Summit in Addis in January might finally put paid to the AU's search for concrete proposals on “indigenous” African money for the operationalization and running of the AU.

The first is the African Institute of Remittances, which is to be based in Nairobi, Kenya.

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In a statement availed to East African Business Week from the World Bank, Dar es Salaam Office last week, it was revealed that the AU Executive Council had not only chosen Nairobi to host the AU organ, but also asked the African Union Commission to conclude the Host Agreement with the Republic of Kenya in order to ensure the formal take-off of the Institute this year.

Scheduled to be fully operational by 2015, the Council also asked the World Bank and other development partners to support the Institute. “I am delighted that the Executive Council has decided that the Republic of Kenya will host the AIR. The establishment of AIR, the first of its kind in the world, is a cornerstone in harnessing Diaspora resources for social and economic development in Africa,” said Dr. Mustapha Kaloko, Commissioner of Social Affairs of the African Union Commission.

Commissioner Kaloko also called upon development partners to continue supporting the Institute. Kenya beat Mauritius, Egypt and Djibouti which have all been campaigning since 2010 to host the AIR Secretariat.

The decision to select Kenya was made during the 24th Ordinary Session of the AU Executive Council which met between January 27 and 28, 2014 at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

According to the statement, AIR project partners agreed to the need for sustained collaboration and coordination of efforts in support of the Institute to achieve the planned improvement in the market for remittances, and to leverage their impact on development in the continent.

The partners are African Union Commission, World Bank, European Commission, African Development Bank, and the International Organization for Migration.

The AU has already drawn up a budget of €2.1 million for setting up the AIR Secretariat in Nairobi. Out of the planned expenditure, €1,676,271 is a grant from the European Commission while the rest ($632,159) is to be disbursed by the World Bank. One might have hoped that despite this good news of the Institute, internally-generated funds might have been able to set this up!

reading of two recent developments from the just-ended AU Summit in Addis in January might finally put paid to the AU's search for concrete proposals on “indigenous” African money for the operationalization and running of the AU
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African integration watchers have never been strangers to the utility (and indeed necessity) of remittances for the development of the sub-regions and the continent, so this is certainly very welcome news. It will behoove AU member states to begin to look at how remittances can be channeled constructively in a way that benefits the development of the continent as well.

According to the World Bank, estimates reveal that North America has 39.16 million Africans, Latin America 112.65 million, Caribbean 13.56 million while Europe has 3.51 million.

The 2013 remittances forecast by the World Bank was $33 billion in 2013, a figure that is expected to grow to $36 billion this year and to $39 billion by end of next year. This money is usually spent mainly on consumer goods.

It is reported that the Nairobi-based Secretariat will face a daunting task of crafting policies that will see the funds go to productive segments that empower citizens economically.

The second development concerns itself with the establishment of the “African Union Foundation”. Which was launched by the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC), Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, with a message that there is the need to have alternative sources of funding for the organization so that “Africans can claim ownership of the foundation”.

PANA reports that in a press statement, the AUC quoted Dlamini Zuma as saying: “although the foundation accepts funds from outside donors, we should begin to fund our development projects ourselves.”

Dlamini Zuma said the issue of domestic and alternative sources of funding has been an intrinsic element of the continent's commitments of the Pan African values of self-determination, solidarity and self-reliance.

She therefore called on Africans to act as goodwill ambassadors to the foundation.

She disclosed, however, that African Ministers of planning and finance had deliberated on the issue but said the issue will be discussed further in details in March.

Established by the AU Assembly in May 2013, the African Union Foundation will seek to finance priority projects in Africa through voluntary contributions.

The Foundation will focus primarily on critical issues in line with AU's agenda 2063. In addition, other priorities that will be funded by the foundation include the development of skills and human resources, women's empowerment and gender equality, regional integration, youth development and entrepreneurship in Africa.

The Foundation supports and is derived from the African Union vision of “an integrated, people centered and prosperous Africa, at peace with itself and taking its rightful place in the world”.

Reports indicate that it was created to accommodate voluntary contributions from African private sector, African individuals, Philanthropic organizations, African Diaspora, companies doing business in Africa and any other donations or contributions.

In this respect, it is deemed necessary for the various players, including public, private and civil society to be mobilized to act in partnership to accelerate the pace of integration that has thus far been largely State led.

At the launching ceremony were the Deputy Chairperson of the Commission, Mr. Erastus Mwencha, other AU Commissioners, and the former Prime Minister of Jamaica, Mr. P.J. Patterson, among others.

Only last week, African non-profit organization, The Tony Elumelu Foundation offered a $150,000 grant to support the African Union Foundation.

Stay tuned for more updates on how Africa's rise will begin to come from these small but concrete steps on crafting the very necessary policy space Africa has been seeking for decades.

www.ekbensahdotnet.org
In 2009, in his capacity as a “Do More Talk Less Ambassador” of the 42nd Generation—an NGO that promotes and discusses Pan-Africanism--Emmanuel gave a series of lectures on the role of ECOWAS and the AU in facilitating a Pan-African identity. Emmanuel owns "Critiquing Regionalism" (http://www.critiquing-regionalism.org). Established in 2004 as an initiative to respond to the dearth of knowledge on global regional integration initiatives worldwide, this non-profit blog features regional integration initiatives on MERCOSUR/EU/Africa/Asia and many others. You can reach him on [email protected] / Mobile: +233.268.687.653.

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