CASTELLANO DA SILVA, Igor (2013). From OAU to AU: 50 Years of African Continentalism. Mundorama, n. 67, March, 2013. http://mundorama.

net/2013/03/30/from-oau-to-au-50years-of-african-continentalism-by-igor-castellano-da-silva

From OAU to AU: 50 Years of African Continentalism

by Igor Castellano da Silva1 Last year, the first decade of the African Union (AU) was celebrated. This year, the extinct Organization of African Unity (OAU) project is remembered with the symbolic 50th anniversary of concrete continentalism in Africa (pan-Africanism in its institutional version). It is surely a time to celebrate the initiatives but also to review the principles that guided the new continentalism in opposition to its older version. Moreover, it is likewise important to critically evaluate the new scheme, its advances and the challenges that still block this project of continental cooperation and autonomy. As anywhere in the world, African projects for integration have always been situated in a dialectic relationship between micro-nationalism and macro-nationalism (Thiam, 1965). Micronationalism is connected to the nation-state and to the basic need to defend its sovereignty. This is even more present in the African case, where historically the sovereignty has been mostly based on juridical terms (Jackson & Rosberg, 1982) and guaranteed, since independence, to governments with a huge lack of capacity to extend their power throughout the territory (Clapham, 2005). Macro-nationalism is another name given to the pan-African project, related, since the struggle for continental independence, to the necessity to reunite efforts against colonialism (later, still present largely in Southern Africa) and neo-colonialism (this, at least, in political discourse). Paradoxically, the early concretization of pan-Africanism (the OAU of 1963) was constructed to favour the micro-nationalism and state sovereignty of old colonial boundaries in opposition to the federalist project of a United States of Africa supported largely by Kwame Nkrumah, Ghanas national leader. The OAU was, as a result, a political forum that guaranteed the principle of non-interference in internal affairs, with the exception of issues related to the anticolonial struggle in Southern Africa this fight was also largely opposed to white minority rule in Rhodesia and South Africa. Besides this restricted scope, the failure of OAU to respond to external pressures in the postCold War (political and economic liberalisation) and its reluctance to commit to solutions to security problems that could violate state sovereignty brought about the necessity of a huge reform programme that would reinforce macro-nationalism. As in the origins of panAfricanism, this new plan was also ontologically based on a (at least modest) counterpoint against external interference and dependence. Africans tried to produce a more autochthonic solution to African problems in the wake of the failure of some international interventions (Somalia, Rwanda, Angola, Sudan) and the lack of global response to African crisis (Rwanda, DRC). Thus, this new project was a plan for renewed autonomy in order to reduce dependence and to boost an African Renaissance in economic, political, cultural and security terms. This also happened in an environment of competition among aspirants to regional powers, as Senegal
1

PhD student at the International Strategic Studies Doctoral Program of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil, attached to the Brazilian Centre for African Studies - CEBRAFICA). He is also a researcher at the South American Institute of Policy and Strategy (ISAPE). Currently, he is a PhD fellow at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, funded by CAPES, Brazil.

did not want to be on the back of the previous South African-Nigerian-Algerian project of the Millennium Partnership for African Recovery Programme (MAP). Even Gaddafi's Libya joined the game to establish its position as a source of investment for Africa and projects of monetary integration all based on a perception of a supranational integration that almost plagiarized Nkrumah's idea. Indeed, this latter idea was ultimately embraced in the Accra Declaration of 2007. However, if the objective of unity is commonly shared, in practical terms the winning project was almost the one originally proposed by Thabo Mbeki: that of a more gradual integration, but also one that would comprise important advances in relation to its predecessor OAU. The new AU was crafted to boast a much broader approach and structure. The programme was based on four pillars (Landsberg, 2013). The first and most important was the Peace and Security element, based on the 2002 Protocol and on a Council which carries the UN model. The African Standby Force (ASF), the Continental Early Warning System and the Panel of the Wise complement the structure. More than these institutional characteristics, this pillar bears the greatest innovation in the principles of the AU continentalism. In opposition to the OAU, it established an intervention regime, changing its principles "from non-interference to nonindifference" (Mwanasali, 2008:41). This regime recognized an unprecedented option for intervention, namely in cases of genocide, human rights crisis, unconstitutional changes of governments and when local conflict threatens regional stability (AU, 2000:Art. 4 (h, j, p); AU, 2003). The other complementary pillars are the Development paradigm, based on the New Partnership for Africas Development (NEPAD) project for reduction of underdevelopment, investment in infrastructure and protection of human development; the Governance regime, based on the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), an initiative for the promotion of peace through democracy and governance on voluntary and self-imposed terms; and the idea of Strategic External Partnerships, which proposes a relation between Africa and the external world on a more equal basis. Furthermore, despite the criticism of it as an elitist project, AU has a much broader structure of decision compared to its predecessor. When OAU relied almost entirely on its Assembly of Heads of State and Government as a centre for deliberation, AU dissolved its decision-making processes, shared by different sources of authority, such as the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, the judicial court and the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) (Landsberg, 2012:6). This more decentralized structure was accompanied by a "greater recognition given, within the institutional framework of the AU, to the involvement of African civil society organisations" (AU, 2007:9, 23), whose voice is to be heard mainly through the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSSOC) and the PAP (Murithi and Ndinga-Muvumba, 2008:7). This institutional structure has a notorious complexity and a progressive character not only in relation to earlier African integration initiatives but also vis a vis many other regional integration processes worldwide. Moreover, behind this more complex and broader institutional structure, there was still the very same perception that the continental integration could, in an African way, solve the main African problems. However, the more ambitious the project is the more it needs political and executive commitment for its accomplishment. If AU offers a wider plan than OAU did, it also needs more rigorous efforts for implementation. Nevertheless, currently there is an imbalance between a complex set of norms, rules and procedures and the efforts towards their implementation. For instance, in terms of commerce, despite the outstanding growth in the trade relationship within the continent in the last decade, with annual growth rates of more than 20% (UNECA, 2010:84), intra-African commerce still represents only 10% of total African trade (Shaw, 2012:3).

As far as NEPAD is concerned, the programme offers a possibility for the continental exceptional economic growth to be accompanied by social development and, more importantly, for the African countries to lead the process (establishment of policies and priorities). However, despite the wide scope and multiplicity of the projects it sustains, NEPAD still presents some difficulties in the implementation of programmes and targets, a situation which usually relates to capacity and funding constraints and the slow pace of approvals (Nkuhlu, 2005:8; UN, 2012:4-5, 11). Moreover, criticism is directed at its over-reliance on a free-market orientation for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and on the North-South partnership, to the detriment of a more bottom-up approach that would offer priority to intraAfrican economic cooperation, South-South partnerships and the role of the State to simulate investments. As a consequence of this profile, NEPAD suffers from the lack of commitment of traditional donors and the downward trend of western FDI inflows to Africa after the 2008 economic crisis (UN, 2012:14). In terms of the Peace and Security regime the difficulties are even more exposed. If, on the one hand, the AU is improving its commitments with peacekeeping (i.e. Darfur and Somalia) and efforts for the creation of an ASF (composed of five regional brigades); on the other, it was not able reach concrete African-led solutions for recent crises in Ivory Coast, Libya, Mali and DR Congo. If in some cases a common position was reached, the major commitment had to come from external actors, which seem to be increasingly eager to both maintain and expand geopolitical and economic presence in the continent. Some observers highlight the lack of resources to finance AUs peace activities, others stress the operational limitations of the ASF (Mwanasali, 2008:54,57; IISS, 2010:1). With this complex reality of global competition for the continent and Africas difficulties to execute collective decisions , some analysts foresee this problem to continue in the future, to such an extent that "the continent is bound to experience a major implementation crisis over the next few decades" (Landsberg, 2012:3). Besides the implementation crisis there is another blocking factor that obstructs deeper continental integration, and it may also be associated with the difficulties of implementation. It is the still present competition with micro-nationalism. The reforms sustained by AU are sometimes direct challenges to the stability of national governments and regimes that are neither committed to a project of state-building (diametrically opposed to patrimonialism) nor of social empowerment (the main purpose of a continental development programme). The lack of implementation is, then, partially related to the lack of interest of some national leaders to perform the continental programmes and priorities. Finally, there is another element that struggles between pan-Africanism and nationalism. It is regionalism, related to the regional projects of integration, labelled by the AU as Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and considered one of its bases. In fact the experiences and gradual mechanisms of integration of the RECs could be seen as good models for a more solid continental project. However, another perception is that the RECs have already created a bureaucracy and a group of interests which are not prepared to cede power to a younger continental and centralized project. This reality is added to the fact that the legal structure of RECs usually do not give full reference and submission to AU organs and that they often sustain different interests and positions regarding African issues (Mwanasali, 2008:54). The situation is aggravated with the multiple, overlapping memberships in these mechanisms, creating what some considered a cacophony of geographical criteria (K onar, 2006). The problem is also qualitative, as coordination among the RECs, and between them and panAfrican Organisations, has been very poor, even almost non-existent (AU, 2007:12)

The issue is also related to the priority that regional powers give to the continent and its regions, in relation to their own material (in)capacities. Is it viable for South Africa to sustain larger commitments in the continent (i.e. sending troops to the Central African Republic) when it experiences difficulties to mediate conflicts in its own region (DRC and Zimbabwe)? Is it possible, with wider commitments, to also materially stimulate, in an effective way, the implementation of trade interactions in the region? The same can be asked in the Nigerian case, which has historic problems to compete with French presence in the Western Africa region. As the interventions in Ivory Coast and Mali showed, France is still very present in that region, mainly when there are many difficulties and delays for Nigeria to lead regional actions. Or alternatively, do these regional powers have material capacity to sustain both projects on an equal basis, without establishing priority levels? Therefore, regionalism is another element between micro and macro-nationalisms that has not shown in which instances it is complementary or concurrent with them. It surely adds complexity to the AU project, which will at least take one more decade to show signs of real implementation and accommodation with partially rival principles of micro-nationalism and regionalism. Meanwhile, the African solution to African problems will continue to be mainly a promise made in speeches and institutional arrangements, suffering from relevant constraints for its complete realisation. References AU (2000). Constitutive Act of The African Union. African Union, Lom, Togo, this 11th day of July, 2000. AU (2003). Protocol on Amendments to the Constitutive Act of the African Union. Adopted by the 1st Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of the Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 3 February 2003, and by the 2nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the Union in Maputo, Mozambique on 11 July 2003. AU (2007). Audit of the African Union. African Union High-level Panel. African Union, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, December 18, 2007. CLAPHAM, Christopher (2005). Africa and the International System: The Politics of State Survival. Cambridge: Cambridge Studies in International Relations. IISS (2010). AU's regional force still on standby. The International Institute For Strategic Studies, IISS Strategic Comments, vol. 16, n 10, pp. 1-3. JACKSON, Robert H.; ROSBERG, Carl G (1982). Why Africa's Weak States Persist: The Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood. World Politics, vol. 35, n 1, Oct. 1982, pp. 124. KONAR, Alpha O. (2006). Address by H.E. Alpha Oumar Konare, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, on the Occasion of the Opening of the Seventh Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of States and Government of the African Union . African Union. Banjul, Gambia, 1 2 July 2006. LANDSBERG, Chris (2012). Refections on the African Union after Decade One: Looking Back in Order to Look Forward. Africa Insight, Special Issue: The African Union at 10 Years, vol 42, n 3, December 2012, pp. 1-12. LANDSBERG, Chris (2013). Opening Lecture on Africa Union. International Organizations Course. University of Johannesburg, Department of Politics, 19 February. MURITHI, Tim; NDINGA-MUVUMBA, Angela (2008). Building an African Union for the 21st Century. In: AKOKPARI, John; Ndinga-Muvumba, Angela; MURITHI, Tim. The African Union and its Institutions. Cape Town: Centre for Conflict Resolution, pp. 1-24. MWANASALI, Musifiky (2008). From Non-Interference to Non-Indiference: The Emerging Doctrine of Conflict Prevention in Africa. In: AKOKPARI, John; Ndinga -Muvumba,

Angela; MURITHI, Tim. The African Union and its Institutions. Cape Town: Centre for Conflict Resolution, pp. 41-62. NKUHLU, W. L. (2005). The New Partnership for Africas Development: The Journey So Far . NEPAD Secretariat, Chief Executive, June 2005. SHAW, Alexander (2013). Quo vadis the African Union?: Let di versity replace the impossible dream of unity. The Sunday Independent, 03 February, 2013, p13. THIAM, Doudou (1965). The Foreign Policy of African States: Ideological bases, present realities, future prospects. London: Phoenix House. UN (2012). New Partnership for Africas Development: tenth consolidated progress report on implementation and international support. Report of the Secretary-General, General Assembly, 27 July 2012, A/67/204. UNECA (2010). Assessing Regional Integration in Africa IV: Enhancing Intra-African Trade. United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: UNECA.