Communique and synthesis of working group reports of the Conference of African Parliamentarians on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), held in Abuja, Nigeria, from 20 to 23 June 2005.

(Abuja, Nigeria – June 20 to 23, 2005)

A four-day Conference of African Parliamentarians on the theme, "The Role of African Parliamentarians in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)", was organised by the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in Abuja between June 20-23, 2005. The conference was declared open by His Excellency Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who was the Special Guest of Honour, while the opening ceremony was chaired by His Excellency Alhaji Shehu Shagari, former President of Nigeria.

The conference brought together over 130 participants from 32 countries drawn from all regions of Africa. Participants included Speakers, Presidents and Members of the Parliaments, as well as leaders and members of regional parliamentary bodies, including the Pan-African Parliament, the Ecowas Parliament, the SADC Parliament and the East African Legislative Assembly, representatives of governments, civil society organisations and academia.

The objective of the conference was, inter alia, to provide a platform for African Parliamentarians to improve their knowledge of the evolution, aims and objectives of NEPAD and its African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) with the view to mobilising the participants for effective engagement in the implementation processes.

In the plenary and working group sessions, the conference discussed a variety of issues relating to the NEPAD and APRM documents and in particular the role of African Parliamentarians in these initiatives. In this respect, participants welcomed the NEPAD and APRM processes as important and timely initiatives for leveraging Africa’s social, economic and political development. The conference observed that there is limited knowledge of NEPAD and APRM initiatives among Parliamentarians.

Furthermore, participants noted that Parliamentarians, as the most important force for galvanising sustainable development, ought to play a leading role in the NEPAD initiative, particularly in order to ensure that the people of Africa effectively take ownership of the process. Accordingly, they agreed and made the following recommendations:

That African Parliamentarians should take a more active interest in broadening their awareness of NEPAD and the APRM, and proactively engage the NEPAD document with a view to enriching it through their inputs.

That as representatives of the people, African Parliamentarians should help to popularise NEPAD, create awareness about its evolution, aims and objectives, and mobilise support for it among the peoples of Africa.

That African Parliaments must ensure adherence by African governments and other stakeholders to the NEPAD principles, including, inter alia, a guarantee of free and fair elections, observation of the rule of law and institution of good governance.

That all African countries be encouraged to accede to the APRM.

That African Parliaments should undertake legislative measures to domesticate the NEPAD blueprint in their respective Parliaments, amending national laws that are inconsistent with the objectives of NEPAD and the APRM.

That African Parliamentarians should effectively engage on the issue of the debt overhang, which has held back development efforts in Africa for decades. The conference therefore calls for the cancellation of Africa’s debts as a first step towards restoring economic growth on the continent and meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

That African Parliamentarians should engage more frequently among themselves and hold similar conferences at regular intervals to update themselves about the NEPAD and APRM processes, including the challenges they face and the progress of the implementation effort.

African Parliamentarians should establish partnerships and linkages with civil society organisations to facilitate the sharing of information on the NEPAD and APRM processes, as well as build the capacity of both sectors to effectively engage on the issues. In this regard, there should be regular joint workshops for Parliamentarians and members of civil society.

That Parliamentarians must ensure that gender equality and youth participation becomes cross-cutting in the various programmes and Plan of Action of NEPAD and the APRM.

That the NEPAD and APRM processes should be used to engage the international community in advancing Africa’s interest, particularly in the context of the on-going reform of the United Nations system, including the quest for permanent seats for African countries in the UN Security Council.

Participants commended the Nigerian House of Representatives for taking the initiative to organise the conference and expressed gratitude to the government and people of Nigeria for their hospitality.

The conference was broken into five (5) working groups. The issues considered by the groups were:

NEPAD and African Parliamentarians: Engagement framework and strategies

Mainstreaming NEPAD/APRM objectives and principles into national legislation: Strategies and concrete modalities

Mainstreaming NEPAD/APRM objectivesand principles into regional/subregional legislation: Strategies and concrete modalities

Defining the role and responsibility of African Parliamentarians in the implementation of the NEPAD/APRM

NEPAD/APRM and African Parliamentarians: Sensitisation and mobilisation

Within the groups participants deliberated extensively on the issues. The summary of

the recommendations, as presented to the plenary and adopted, is as follows:

Noting the essence of strategic comprehensive in-depth and broad-based consultation with all stakeholders for the success of NEPAD/APRM, the following recommendations emerged towards the effective engagement of African Parliaments:

Parliaments are encouraged to develop institutional frameworks for effective engagement on NEPAD/APRM issues. The framework should include designs to facilitate an effective understanding by Parliamentarians of NEPAD and its objectives, bridge the current gap existing between the executive and legislature, and facilitate the sensitisation and mobilisation of the citizenry of their various constituencies.

Parliamentarians must engage the NEPAD document with a view to enriching and fine-tuning it and popularise NEPAD as representatives of the people.

The strengthening of Parliaments across the continent to enhance the effective performance of oversight functions.

Parliaments should become more independent.

Parliamentarians must be involved in constructive engagement with their heads of state and government.

Capacity-building and institutional support for the effective operation and functioning of Parliaments on NEPAD, eg through training and recruitment of adequate support staff.

A two-way reporting system should be built into the engagement process of Parliaments with regional and subregional parliamentary bodies.

The need to establish a nexus of collective effort between heads of state and government, Parliamentarians and the people towards the transformation of African economies and societies based on a set of commonly derived values through the NEPAD/APRM initiatives requires that Parliaments play a significant role through some legislative measures:

African Parliaments must ensure adherence to NEPAD principles by the government and other stakeholders, for instance on free and fair elections, the rule of law and good governance. African Parliaments should make the executive act on a consistent basis in developing projects within the framework of NEPAD.

Parliamentarians should initiate and enact laws to domesticate the NEPAD blueprint in their respective countries and take measures to enhance the necessary internal cooperation and regional and subregional cooperation in all facets of national activities and development.

There must be collaboration between Parliaments of all NEPAD nations and the other arms of government.

Establishment of a Parliamentary Committee on the AU and NEPAD exclusive of any that may be in existence for Foreign Affairs.

Create a direct network with the NEPAD Secretariat.

Parliaments are to have a technical group or team that will help it to analyse and engage the NEPAD process, in other words provide technical back-up.

Need to establish and subscribe to the African Parliamentary Network on NEPAD.

Parliaments, through the prescribed committee, should exercise an oversight function over all NEPAD-related activities being handled by the executive arm of government.

Parliament should exercise the power of appropriation on the funding of NEPAD in the respective countries, that is on internally and externally generated or sourced funds.

Subnational Parliaments (state or provincial or regional Houses of Assembly) should be engaged in active dialogue on the NEPAD agenda, particularly as it affects the peculiarities of their respective areas of jurisdiction.

Exchanging of information and experiences between national and regional Parliaments in order to reinforce communication about the goals of NEPAD for their popularisation so as to allow African societies to own them.

Reinforcing the role of the African Parliament in the implementation of NEPAD and the APRM.

Harmonising national and regional laws on customs, trade and migration.

Putting up regional Parliaments in every economic bloc of regional integration like Ecowas, SADC, etc and exchanging information and experiences between national and regional Parliaments in order to reinforce communication about the goals of NEPAD for their popularisation so as to allow African societies to own them.

African Parliamentarians should amend all national laws that are not consistent with the objectives of NEPAD and the APRM. In the same vein they should legislate on laws that will assist in the overall implementation of NEPAD.

The conference noted the current challenges related to the funding of NEPAD and the APRM and recommended the urgent need to diversify the projected sources of funding, with emphasis on internal funding to guarantee sustainability:

There is an urgent need to carry out a reprioritisation of the NEPAD programmes in order to undertake in a sequential manner critical areas of need.

The NEPAD agenda in countries should be focused on sustainable micro projects that impact positively on the peoples of Africa as opposed to the current grandiose macro projects.

African Parliaments are encouraged to address the issue of undertaxation by embarking on appropriate tax reform agendas in their respective countries.

Each African country should enhance its tax profile to make more funds available for developmental projects.

The current initiative to source funding for the AU (the proposed taxation on air travel) should incorporate NEPAD.

While not relying on external funding, African Parliaments and executives should make concerted efforts to secure external support in financing NEPAD – the details of such support should be well analysed in order not to create a future liability for Africa.

Training programmes should be organised for parliamentary staff, the media and related institutions to aide the work of Parliamentarians as it relates to NEPAD/APRM.

Parliamentarians should be proactive and should not always wait for the executive in getting and providing information concerning NEPAD and the APRM to the media and citizenry.

Improve partnerships with civil society organisations that have experience on NEPAD and the APRM and use them to reach communities, develop links with the communities and organise programmes on NEPAD and the APRM.

Constitute a network of media organisations on NEPAD and the APRM.

The other recommendations that should make Parliamentarians provide an enabling environment in terms of funding and oversight processes for the effective implementation of NEPAD, its monitoring and the evaluation of its programmes and activities to ensure project discipline, efficiency and sustainability, are:

African Parliamentarians should partner with civil society in moving NEPAD forward in terms of information-sharing and capacity-building. In this regard, regular workshops should be organised for Parliamentarians.

Encourage governments to include NEPAD in the school curriculum, both at university and college level.

African Parliaments should as a matter of urgency debate and formally adopt NEPAD as the framework for national development policy.

Embark on public enlightment campaigns, especially at constituency and grassroots level.

African Parliaments should create appropriate parliamentary structure(s) that will guarantee an engagement process with NEPAD, using ICT and other means to achieve this.

A capacity-building fund should be created by Parliament through the national budgetary process and other means to ensure the continuous engagement of Parliament with NEPAD.

African Parliamentarians should engage Africans in the diaspora and sensitise them about the need for them to mobilise global support and encourage the wider international community to appreciate the developmental needs of Africa.