Post on 30-Jul-2020
CONCEPT NOTE Regional Economic Communities and the
African Public Service Ministers’ Programme
Paper prepared for the Conference of Ministers of Public/Civil Service, October 2008
CONTENTS Acronym Executive Summary Introduction Background and Context: 2005–2008 RECs and the 5th Pan-African Ministers Meeting Revisited RECs and the African Ministers Programme: Achievements and Challenges The Capacity Challenge The Governance Challenge: Peer Review Quo Vadis RECs and the Public Service Revisited: An Update Advancing the Ministers’ Programme: Scenarios In Search of the Way Forward Recommendations
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ACRONYMS ACBF African Capacity-Building Foundation ADB African Development Bank AEC African Economic Community AMDIN African Management Development Institutes Network APRM African Peer Review Mechanism AU African Union AUG African Union Government AUSC African Union Service Commission CEN-AD Community of Sahel-Saharan States CESPAM Centre of Specialisation and Public Administration and Management COMESA Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa DBSA Development Bank of Southern Africa DRC Democratic Republic of Congo EAC East African Community EALA East African Legislative Assembly ECA Economic Commission for Africa ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States EU European Union FTAs Free Trade Areas IBSA India-Brazil-South Africa Trilateral Dialogue Forum IGAD Inter-Governmental Authority for Development ISDSC Inter-State Defence and Security Committee ISPDC Inter-State Politics and Diplomacy Committee NCAUAs National Commissions on African Union Affairs NEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s Development OAU Organisation of African Unity OPDSC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation PCRD Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development RECs Regional Economic Communities RICs Regional Integration Communities RISDP Regional Indicative Strategic PlanSADC Southern African Development Community SNCs SADC National Committees UMA Arab Maghreb Union
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This paper sets out to conceptualise a triangular framework of strategic interaction
between the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), the African Union (AU) for which
the RECs serve as its regional pillars of governance, and the African Public Service
Ministers’ Programme. As an exercise, this entails examining progress in the
strengthening and rationalising of the RECs at a time when the first tripartite SADC-
COMESA-EAC summit is set to get underway in October 2008; an event which would
provide an opportunity for the Ministers’ Programme to advance the African Public
Service Charter within a context addressing the harmonising of regional integration
initiatives in Eastern and Southern Africa. In this vein, this paper’s aim is to review the
proposals, initiatives and activities pertaining to the RECs within this triangular context
of relationships that emerged to address the goals and objectives of the 5th Pan-African
Conference of Ministers of Public Service and Administration and relate them to the
need for devising an action plan for the next five years which will be the focus the
upcoming 6th Pan-African Public Service Ministers’ Conference.
Hence, this paper provides an overview of the status of the RECs insofar as they
pertain to defining their role in advancing the African Public Service Ministers’
Programme (hereafter referred to as the African Ministers’ Programme). It also reviews
proposals concerning the RECs made in terms of the 5th Pan-African Conference of
Ministers of Public Service in conjunction with reviewing the outcome of such
consultations as the SADC Governance Consultative Forum of July 2007 and the
Ministers OF Public Service/Civil Service Ministerial Workshop on Post-Conflict
Reconstruction and Development on 8 and 9 April 2008. Revisiting these consultations
pinpoints achievements that have been made over this period between Pan-African
Public Service Ministerial conferences in regard to the remaining challenges that must
be addressed as the transfer gets underway in launching the 6th Pan-African
Conference.
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The African Ministers’ Programme’s focus on developing a public service and
administration relationship with the RECs grows out of its interaction with the NEPAD
Capacity Building Initiative and the fact that the implementation of NEPAD, as the AU’s
continental economic development blueprint, is intended to be implemented through the
RECs. This necessitated a closer look at the relationship between African public service
management, and how this sector is governed, and the RECs. In the run-up to the 5th
Pan-African Ministers’ Conference it was found that there had been little documented
interaction and/or mutual influence between African public service and administration
ministries and related institutions and regional economic communities regarding NEPAD
implementation.
At the time of this realisation and the undertaking of a study to explore how this absence
of interaction could be redressed, the RECs themselves were coming under increasing
scrutiny in terms of their capacity to facilitate the kind of project development and
implementation required in order to advance the developmental objectives of NEPAD
which centred heavily on building the continent’s infrastructure as the foundation for
accelerating regional cooperation and integration. Moreover, the proliferation of RECs
accompanied by regionally overlapping country memberships and duplication of
developmental agendas begged the ever-pressing question of how to rationalise the
RECs into the AU’s five-region template of continental governance. Since a survey of
the relationship between the RECs, NEPAD and African public service and
administration undertaken in 2005, more recent findings have been forthcoming in the
wake of the AU Summit Grand Debate on a “United States of Africa” resulting in the
Accra Declaration of July 2007 which re-emphasised the centrality of the RECs in any
ongoing process of transforming the AU into an African Union Government (AUG). The
very first priority articulated in the Accra Declaration is the urgency to “rationalize and
strengthen the Regional Economic Communities” while a ministerial committee was
established to, among other things, define “the relationship between the Union
Government and the Regional Economic Communities (RECs)”. The Accra Declaration
and the follow-ups to it, including the AU Audit that it mandated along with an
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investigation and reporting back of the ministerial Committee of Ten on an AUG, gives
added urgency to an African Ministers’ Programme focus on the RECs.
In revisiting the achievements of the African Ministers’ Programme under the 5th Pan-
African Ministers’ Conference, new ground was broken in the establishment of a
dialogue and working relationship with the Development Bank of Southern Africa
(DBSA), the convening of the Expert Seminar on the SADC Governance Forum from 2
to 4 July 2007 and the Ministerial Workshop on Post-Conflict Reconstruction and
Development that occurred on 8 and 9 April 2008 in Burundi. These consultations re-
emphasised the capacity development challenges facing the RECs and the African
Ministers’ Programme in meeting them. Another challenge has arisen in the possibilities
presented by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) as a potential good
governance mechanism for giving impetus to transforming RECs into eventual Regional
Integration Communities (RICs). These observations inform one of two possible
scenarios that future direction of the REC dimension of the African Ministers’
Programme might take: the first scenario is as an institution-building path to
regionalising public service and administration which can emanate either from the AU in
Addis Ababa or from REC initiative in the regions; and the second scenario is billed as
an Institutional Networking Coordination model for regionalising public service and
administration with the AU/REC system, including the ECOWAS option of establishing
regional conferences of ministers of public service. Both have their strengths and
weaknesses, while, in the short term, the second scenario is the most cost effective
(though the second option of the first scenario might also have its cost-savings) in terms
of not requiring new structures to be introduced into an already cost-burdened system.
RECOMMENDATIONS
From the forgoing, what follows are a few recommendations pertaining to priorities
associated with the observations and scenarios for effecting a way forward.
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• In anticipation of the October tripartite summit between SADC, COMESA and
EAC, the Bureau should consider introducing within the summit agenda the
possibility of a tripartite public service and administration coordinating structure to
facilitate establishing a Tripartite Conference of Ministers of Public Service
covering these three RECs. Alternatively, the African Public Service Charter
could be introduced. Either or both would facilitate the harmonisation of
integration programme goals as envisioned by the October tripartite summit.
• In the short term, the African Ministers’ Programme should seek to build upon the
SADC Consultation of 2007 to establish the public service consultative forum
envisioned by that exercise, accompanied by similar efforts at establishing public
service consultative forums in other regions. The fact that COMESA participated
in the SADC Consultation suggest the possibilities for a SADC/COMESA public
service consultative forum for Southern Africa and an EAC/COMESA public
service consultative forum for East Africa whereas for West, Central and
Northern Africa, the establishment of similar forums may be more
straightforward. Such forums are critical to the need for perpetuating an ongoing
discourse on African public service and governance reform and capacity building
at the regional level of African governance.
• High-priority agenda items for such consultations should include how to effect a
cost-effective networking framework for advancing public service and
administration concerns within the REC agenda interrelated with how such an
agenda can help the RECs and institutions like the ADB and DBSA address the
capacity development challenges of the RECs.
• The formalisation of such regional consultative forums should also incorporate a
regional PCRD component in an ongoing discourse aimed at addressing the
regional stability challenges posed by given “conflict states” and/or states
undergoing post-conflict stabilisation.
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• Because of the cross-cutting nature of ministries and departments of public
service and administration, it is important that there be instituted an ongoing
dialogue and working relationship at national level between such
ministries/departments and ministries/departments of foreign affairs (or economic
ministries in those countries where these form the REC focal points). Such
collaboration will be critical to charting a public service and administration REC
agenda.
• The Bureau should consider undertaking a study of the IBSA sectoral working
group format in terms of how it might become adaptable and be applied to
activating AU/REC/NEPAD technical committees, with a public service
technical/sectoral dimension, either as a mechanism on its own or in conjunction
with activating REC/NEPAD national committees or national NEPAD focal points.
• Of equal priority, the Bureau should encourage other RECs to study the
ECOWAS model of a regional conference of ministers of public service and how
the ECOWAS approach might be adapted and/or replicated to other regional
circumstances. This should include exchanges between ECOWAS and other
RECs in exploring such possibilities.
• There is a need to consider establishing a networked Centre on African
Governance Reform as a virtual structure (not a new institution) linking already
existing non-governmental regional and continental bodies to formulate and
implement an ongoing research programme, one that would facilitate longer-term
scenario planning on inter-African issues of public service management and
administration import. This would be as a means of ensuring that the African
Ministers’ Programme keeps pace with the fluid process and politics of change in
the AU/REC system and, indeed, becomes a proactive participant in influencing
and shaping the direction of where African integration at the continental and
regional level is headed.
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• As a corollary to establishing a African governance reform research network, the
African Ministers’ Programme may also want to consider encouraging the
establishment of an African Integration Forum as a civil society initiative for
promoting non-governmental and private sector dialogue with governments on a
broad range of regional cooperation and integration issues in Africa and
Southern Africa and, also, to participate in monitoring and evaluation activities
pertaining to continental and regional integration initiatives.
• A closely related concern, in follow-up to the above recommendation, is
consideration of how the APRM might be regionalised and adapted as a good
governance accession tool for advancing regional integration in a changing
AU/REC system.
• The Bureau should consider having the 6th Pan-African Conference of Ministers
of Public Service and Administration study and deliberate on the efficacy of
having their respective governments establish ministries (and departments) of
inter-African cooperation and integration pursuant to establishing a council of
ministers that would work with the AU Executive Council in addressing the
governance as opposed to the purely foreign policy-diplomatic agenda with a
view toward embedding the mainstreaming of the African Charter and the
Ministers’ Programme at national, regional and continental agenda.
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INTRODUCTION This paper sets out to conceptualise a triangular framework of strategic interaction
between the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), the African Union (AU) for which
the RECs serve as its regional pillars of governance, and the African Public Service
Ministers’ Programme. As an exercise, this entails examining progress in the
strengthening and rationalising of the RECs at a time when the first tripartite SADC-
COMESA-EAC summit is set to get underway in October 2008; an event which would
provide an opportunity for the Ministers’ Programme to advance the African Public
Service Charter within a context addressing the harmonising of regional integration
initiatives in Eastern and Southern Africa. Within this vein, this paper’s aim is to review
the proposals, initiatives and activities pertaining to the RECs within this triangular
context of relationships that emerged to address the goals and objectives of the 5th Pan-
African Conference of Ministers of Public Service and Administration and relate them to
the need for devising an action plan for the next five years which will be the focus the
upcoming 6th Pan-African Public Service Ministers’ Conference.
Hence, this paper provides an overview of the status of the RECs insofar as they
pertain to defining their role in advancing the African Public Service Ministers’
Programme. It also reviews proposals concerning the RECs made in terms of the 5th
Pan-African Conference of Ministers of Public Service in conjunction with reviewing the
outcome of such consultations as the SADC Governance Consultative Forum of July
2007 and the Ministers for Public Service/Civil Service Ministerial Workshop on Post-
Conflict Reconstruction and Development of April 2008. Revisiting these consultations
highlights achievements that have been made over this period between Pan-African
Public Service Ministerial conferences in regard to the remaining challenges that must
be addressed as the transfer gets underway in launching the 6th Pan-African
Conference.
Critically assessing these challenges informs alternative scenarios on a way forward
accompanied by recommendations intended to address how the African Ministers’
Programme can become an engine of governance reform and public service delivery at
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the level of the RECs with the aim of strengthening the institutional architecture of the
inter-African system with the AU at its apex. How this relates to the Ministers’
Programme, which interacts closely with the demands of post-conflict reconstruction
and development, the Capacity Building Initiative of the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development (NEPAD) and the African Management Development Institutes Network
AMDIN) is in meeting the challenge of devising a long-term implementation strategy that
delineates a role for the RECs in relationship to governance at both a continental and a
country level. Indeed, it is the NEPAD Capacity Building Initiative that highlighted the
importance of defining a strategic role for the RECs in the Ministers’ Programme given
the role that was defined by the AU for the RECs as the regional pillars for rolling out
the NEPAD developmental strategy for the continent.
BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT: 2005–2008 The African Ministers’ Programme’s focus on developing a public service and
administration relationship with the RECs grows out of its interaction with the NEPAD
Capacity Building Initiative and the fact that the implementation of NEPAD, as the AU’s
continental economic development blueprint, is intended to be implemented through the
RECs. This necessitated a closer look at the relationship between African public service
management, and how this sector is governed, and the RECs. In the run-up to the 5th
Pan-African Ministers’ Conference, it was found that there had been little documented
interaction and/or mutual influence between African public service and administration
ministries and related institutions and regional economic communities regarding NEPAD
implementation.1 At the time of this realisation and the undertaking of a study to explore
how this absence of interaction could be redressed, the RECs themselves were coming
under increasing scrutiny in terms of their capacity to facilitate the kind of project
development and implementation required in order to advance the developmental
objectives of NEPAD which centred heavily on building the continent’s infrastructure as
the foundation for accelerating regional cooperation and integration. Moreover, the
proliferation of RECs accompanied by regionally overlapping country memberships and
1 Department of Public Service and Administration, South Africa . Draft Background Paper: Regional Economic
Communities, NEPAD and Implications for African Public Service and Administration. Johannesburg, 2005, p. 29.
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duplication of developmental agendas begged the ever-pressing question of how to
rationalise the RECs into the AU’s five-region template of continental governance.
The RECs, in their diversity, also reflected considerable unevenness in their strengths,
weaknesses and performance within their respective regions with some, such as the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), enjoying considerable
executive autonomy at the secretariat level accompanied by member states that gave
priority to establishing NEPAD focal points and/or ministries devoted specifically to
NEPAD and/or regional cooperation and integration.2 Others, like the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) were seen to have relatively weak secretariats with
insufficient autonomy in relation to heads of state to be able to take project-related
initiatives on their own or to engage donors decisively at a decision-making level.3 The
domestication and mainstreaming of REC agendas at the national level of member
states was also weak to non-existent although, at least on paper, provision has been
made – as in the case of SADC – for national REC/NEPAD committees. Moreover,
there was a lack of an effective working relationship between RECs and the AU, let
alone problems of mainstreaming the NEPAD programme into the agenda of the RECs.
Many of these observations anticipated more recent findings regarding the RECs and
their relationship with the AU which underline the timeliness of the current effort by the
African Ministers’ Programme to generate greater momentum in its interaction with the
RECs at the level of public service management and development administration. Since
a survey of the relationship between the RECs, NEPAD and African public service and
administration undertaken in 2005, more recent findings have been forthcoming in the
wake of the AU Summit Grand Debate on a “United States of Africa” resulting in the
Accra Declaration of July 2007 which re-emphasised the centrality of the RECs in any
ongoing process of transforming the AU into an African Union Government (AUG).4
2 Ibid., p. 9–10. 3 Ibid., p. 10. 4 See: Francis Kornegay. The Regional Dimension to the United States of Africa Grand Debate. Johannesburg,
Centre for Policy Studies, March 2007 (Policy Brief 43), p 8.
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The very first priority articulated in the Accra Declaration is the urgency to “rationalize
and strengthen the Regional Economic Communities” while a ministerial committee was
established to, among other things, define “the relationship between the Union
Government and the Regional Economic Communities (RECs)”.5 The Accra Declaration
and the follow-ups to it, including the AU Audit that it mandated along with an
investigation and reporting back of the ministerial Committee of Ten on an AUG, gives
added urgency to an African Ministers’ Programme focus on the RECs given, not only
the added concern about the effective institutional workings of the AU and its organs,
but the fact that there is an ongoing momentum to further transform the AU, not fully
through its transition from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), into a more clearly
defined continental union government. This process, however it unfolds, further
enhances the role of the RECs as indicated in the following “Report of the Ministerial
Committee on the Union Government”:
• “It was generally acknowledged that the Accra Declaration had mentioned the
process of rationalizing and strengthening of the RECs and the harmonization of
their activities, as constituting one of the steps to attaining Union Government.
• The Committee further agreed that the process of the rationalization,
harmonization and implementation of the programmes of the RECs, should not
affect the process of establishing the Union Government in the agreed domains
of competence.”6
The Union Government deliberations, futuristically ambitious as they may appear,
nevertheless, presage much of the current ongoing preoccupations over the urgency
attached to strengthening the AU system overall, including the functioning of the RECs
and their interaction with the AU and its organs. Here, a reality check is provided by the
findings of the AU Audit Report in the review of the institutional capacity constraints of
this entire governing infrastructure. With regard to the RECs, the following observations
are made:
5 ”Accra Declaration,” Accra Mail, 4 July 2007. The Assembly of the Union, meeting at its 9th Ordinary Session in
Accra, Ghana, from 1 to 3 July 2007. 6 Report of the Ministerial Committee on the Union Government, EX.CL/390 (XII)-b. pp. 5–6.
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• As instruments for promoting socio-economic development, legitimacy and
sustainability, many RECs have not achieved their “fundamental milestones
within the envisaged timeframes”.
• There is a lack of convergence among RECs in terms of the Abuja Treaty goal of
an eventual African Economic Community (AEC) accompanied by an approach
to integration based more on deadlines than concrete achievements.
• Several RECs, including ECOWAS, the Intergovernmental Development
Authority (IGAD), the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) and the Community of Sahel-
Saharan States (CEN-SAD) have yet to establish Free Trade Areas (FTAs) while
others such as SADC, the East African Community (EAC) and the Common
Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) have indicative strategic
plans to move toward common markets as early as 2015, 2009 and 2014
respectively.
• While the AU, aspiring to five RECs, currently recognises eight such RECs, there
are several more such entities that exist to which member states have acceded
to that are not recognised by the AU and which, therefore, compound the
proliferation and overlapping membership problem.
• REC proliferation has weakened the logic of regional cooperation caused by the
irrational configurations of some RECs.
• Member states belonging to two or more RECs cause inconsistencies in focus
and commitment, compounded by competition for bilateral donor funds, causing
national interests to trump pan-African ideals as member states act contrary to
agreed principles and commitments made at regional level.
• Some RECs, such as ECOWAS and the EAC have their own regional
parliaments while others do not, while the “role of the Pan-African Parliament
also needs to be reviewed in parallel to the existing regional parliaments”.
• Finally, there is the ineffectiveness of the AU/RECs’ Coordination Committee set
up under a 1998 OAU Protocol (though there is a new Protocol on AU/REC
relations adopted in 2007) to provide policy orientation and monitoring of the
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RECs which is seen as a “contributing factor to the challenges that beset the
delay of the regional integration process”.7
Recommendations include:
• “Member states commit to integration by implementing decisions at national,
regional and continental levels.
• National mechanisms such as proposed National Commissions on AU Affairs
(NCAUAs) accompanied by instruments for the mainstreaming and
‘domestication’ of REC decisions at national level (i.e. ECOWAS national Nepad
Focal Points or SADC National Committees) should be established.
• The Assembly should regularly review the progress of harmonisation in line with
agreed plans.
• The Assembly should adhere to its Decision AU/Dec.112 (VII) that recognises
only 8 RECs.
• The RECs should fast track the objective of creating an African Common Market.
• The Coordinating Committee should effectively present an annual progress
report to the Assembly of the AU on the activities of the RECs.
• Member states may need to consider reviewing their Multiple Memberships to the
RECs.”8
The upshot of these assessments and recommendations is that the RECs, although
officially part and parcel of the AU’s inter-African governing system, are completely
autonomous, sovereign entities driven by their sovereign member states. They can take
initiatives on their own either individually or in conjunction with other RECs with which
they may establish cooperative, coordinating relationships as is, in fact, intended under
the Abuja Treaty. The tripartite coordination between SADC, COMESA and the EAC,
7 The High Level Panel. Audit of the African Union, Addis Ababa, December 2007. This is a summary of findings of
Chapter 9: “The African Union and its Relationship with the Regional Economic Communities”, pp. 113–138. See particularly: Assessment of structures.-activities of the RECs. – progress towards harmonisation and rationalisation.
8 The High Level Panel. Executive Summary: Report of the High Level Panel of the Audit of the African Unit. Addis Ababa, December 2007. Highlights recommendations on RECs and on “Impact of the AUC on the policies, resources allocation and regulatory frameworks of member states”, p. 13 and p. 21.
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where, especially in terms of SADC-COMESA relations, there was rivalry, is a positive
case in point and augurs well for eventual rationalisation of Eastern and Southern
African regions. Overall, however, there is a question of the cost-effectiveness and
sustainability of some of the remedies offered in the Audit report that are of direct
relevance to embedding public service and administrative institutional capacity in the
AU system.
For example, while the establishment of a recommended AU Service Commission
(AUSC) seems a good idea in terms of the programmatic thrust of the African Ministers’
Programme (and would have responsibility for recruitment, making appointments and
promotions and enforcing discipline while setting service conditions and grading of
posts under the staff rules and regulations of the AU), the cost-effectiveness of such a
new structure raises serious questions about how realistic such reforms are given the
limited financial capacity of the AU. Moreover, there would be an impetus for the RECs
to encourage establishing similar service commissions which would similarly raise
questions of institutional sustainability at regional levels of the AU system.
The purpose of the foregoing is to place in context the political terrain and environment
within which REC-public service and administration deliberation leading up to the 6th
Pan-African Conference compared to where these issues stood at the time of the 5th
Pan-African Conference. This is also important in establishing the increasing relevance of the African Ministers’ Programme to the emerging continental discourse on inter-African governance and integration. This, in turn, provides a
fitting basis for revisiting the proposals and recommendations regarding REC-public
service and administration relations tabled at the 5th Pan-African Conference which, in
many respects, anticipated some of the findings flowing from the inquiries set in train by
the Accra Declaration with regard to the RECs.
RECs AND THE 5TH PAN-AFRICAN MINISTERS MEETING REVISITED Apart from the observation that the African public service and administration sector has
tended to remain on the periphery of the most pressing issues animating the activities of
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the RECs, their member states and NEPAD, many of the challenges that have most
recently been unveiled in various audits and assessment were foreshadowed in some of
the findings that informed the deliberation on the RECs at the 5th Pan-African
Conference. These included:
• inadequate coordination and communication between RECs and member
governments on NEPAD projects and priorities;
• lack of adequate coordination and communication between governments
belonging to the same REC or RECs on NEPAD projects and priorities;
• little of no coordination and communication on NEPAD projects and priorities
between RECs which may often have overlapping country memberships;
• in many instances, insufficient authority at the executive-secretariat level to
proactively engage with REC/NEPAD development partners as well as with the
political leadership of REC member governments in undertaking and executing
projects and in mobilising their financing;
• discrepancies between an REC’s and/or a member government’s NEPAD project
commitment and the actual development of that project to ensure fast-tracking for
implementable investment by prospective partners over a 6 to 18 month period;
• discrepancies between levels of funding for NEPAD projects and actual projects
that have been developed to the proposal stage for absorbing the funding that is
available;
• sorting out the politics of protocol involving NEPAD initiative between RECs and
REC member governments to ensure REC ownership of NEPAD initiatives;
• lack of, in many instances, governmental NEPAD focal points (or inadequate
focal points) that could serve as interfaces for coordination and communication
between an REC member government with the REC to which it belongs and with
another government belonging to the same REC; and
• little or no non-governmental and/or private sector stakeholder mobilisation and
engagement in REC activities and in NEPAD projects.9
9 Department of Public Service and Administration, South Africa, Op Cit. pp. 18–19.
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Furthermore, in light of the foregoing and more recent evaluations, the observation
reflected in the 2003–2005 edition of the NEPAD Governance and Public Administration
Programme is as apt now as then with regard to issues of the institutional management
of developmental agendas: the fact that “existing analysis of reform efforts in Africa
reveal that substantive governance problems emanate from failures at policy and
coordination levels of government. Enhancing the capacity of the centre to engage in
active coordination, to generate appropriate policy and to monitor and evaluate
programmes is essential for regional development and for the success of NEPAD.”10
(Emphasis added.)
In many respects, this exercise, in preparation for the 5th Pan-African African
Conference, was an essential awareness-raising step that was a precondition to
beginning to seriously address the challenges of public service and administration at the
continental and regional levels of African governance. The problem facing the African
public service and administration sector viz-à-viz the RECs reflected more broadly the
status quo of departments of foreign affairs being, in the main, the sole interface
between governments within the multilateral sphere of inter-governmental relations that
comprise the role of the RECs in the African governance chain. Here, deliberations
leading up to and during the 5th Pan-African Conference and its aftermath has managed
to break new ground in expanding REC engagement beyond the purely foreign affairs
domain, especially at the level of engaging developmental institutional partners involved
in working with the RECs to facilitate NEPAD projects and initiatives. Thus, the Bureau
of the African Ministers’ Programme followed up on the recommendation that a dialogue
be initiated with the NEPAD and REC secretariats, and “facilitating partnering
institutions” like the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and the African
Development Bank (ADB) with the aim of developing a long-term and sustained
engagement with all stakeholders in the REC/NEPAD/member state triad with the
objective steadily strengthening regional cooperation in terms of advancing and
enhancing NEPAD implementation. The initiation of deliberations between the Bureau
and DBSA and with SADC aimed at mainstreaming a public service and administration
10 Nepad Governance and Public Administration Programme (no date), p. 35. Refers to the 2003–2005 programme.
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agenda within the regional cooperation and integration agenda can be viewed as a
major step toward bringing the African public service sector from the periphery and into
a closer relationship of interaction with the RECs.
RECs AND THE AFRICAN MINISTERS’ PROGRAMME: ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES
Post-5th Pan-African Conference: The SADC Consultation
With regard to redressing the peripheral status of the public service and administration
sector within the AU/RECs/NEPAD agenda, the Expert Seminar on the SADC
Governance Forum convened from 2 to 4 July 2007 represented another important
benchmark in following up on some of the recommendations informing the 5th Pan-
African Conference. 11The SADC Consultation, first of all, provided a platform for
undertaking a comparative analysis of the RECs capabilities with regard to NEPAD. Its
deliberations were instructive in highlighting several areas of concerns. Among these
were issues of harmonisation, the capacity challenges facing the RECs, their lack of
instruments for monitoring and evaluation, the weakness of linkages between RECs and
member states and the need to “think of a ‘bottom to top’” solution to many issues rather
than a “top-down”, once again, highlighting the largely inoperable SADC National
Committees (or SNCs).12
The critical recurring issue of capacity at the REC level emerged during the SADC
Consultation, resulting in a number of lessons emerging from a review of “institutional
and collaborative relationships with RECs’ capacity development”:
• There was a need to develop a “shared understanding of capacity development”
which is often confused with training when, in fact, it involves a much broader
process of institution-building.
• There is a need to focus on deeper causes of problems and find essential points
of leverage.
11 Department of Public Service and Administration, South Africa. Report: Expert Seminar on SADC Governance
Consultative Forum from 2 to 4 July 2007, p. 2. 12 Ibid., pp. 5–6. Summary highlight of “Overview of the sectoral working groups in SADC, DFA.”
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• Capacity efforts, reflecting the first lesson, require a “systematic approach, rather
than an ad-hoc event”.
• There is a need to be aware of hidden agendas and competing priorities often
reflecting that “political considerations are more important than technical aspects”
of a capacity initiative.
• The need to ensure that capacity initiatives are strategically rooted in terms of
facilitating linkages of the functioning of an institutional system with its overall
strategy.
• There must be a consideration of the level of organisational maturity which will
have a bearing on determining levels of institutional readiness and absorption
capacity for capacity building interventions in terms of suitability, feasibility and
acceptability of such efforts.13
With particular regard to SADC public sector capacity strengthening efforts, two were
seen as particularly noteworthy: an initiative emerging out of the Human Resource
Development Unit of the SADC Secretariat, though it was pointed out there was minimal
content relating to public service issues as such; and establishment of the Centre of
Specialisation and Public Administration and Management (CESPAM) through a
mandate of the SADC Executive Council for capacity-building in public management
and administration.14 CESPAM appears particularly promising as the basis of an
embedded SADC public service and administration programme that could be examined
for possible replication by other RECs – or have its terms of reference expanded to not
be limited to SADC but to address other REC capacity building challenges in public
management and administration.
The SADC Consultation was also a valuable start at initiating the kind of institutional
dialogue needed between the African public service sector, the RECs and other
development partners by not limiting the dialogue exclusively to SADC but bringing
COMESA into the discussion as well. Indeed, this presages closer tripartite
collaboration between SADC, COMESA and the East African Community (EAC) which
13 Ibid., p. 10. “Review of institutional and collaborative relationships with REC’s for capacity development”. 14 Ibid., p. 13.
20
are holding their first Tripartite Summit in October with a particular emphasis on
harmonising integration programme.15 Seen from the vantage-point of advancing the
African Charter, a tripartite SADC-COMESA-EAC public service and administration
consultation could be contemplated. In any case, in terms of the 2007 SADC
Consultation, COMESA’s capacity building focus is more targeted toward the trade
sector, focusing on trade and trade-related negotiations involving other regional and
global organisations, including its trilateral relationship with the East African Community
as well as SADC. COMESA also has a number of partners in the terrain of resource
mobilisation although it struggles to ensure that member states make their mandatory
contributions. Like SADC, it does have a parliamentary forum as well as a civil society
forum while its Council of Ministers is supported by technical and consultative
committees as a means of further reinforcing capacity. In spite of the overlap in
membership with SADC and the EAC, at an operational level, there is useful
cooperation and good work reflected in the area of infrastructural development.
In summary, the SADC Consultation appears to have been a good start at initiating
what should become an ongoing dialogue between the region’s public service and
administration sector within the African Ministers’ Programme and SADC and perhaps
COMESA and the EAC as well in terms of the emerging tripartite dimension of REC
collaboration between these three groupings. Should future follow-up consultations
hone in more specifically on targeted issues of capacity-building in terms of building a
cooperatively regional public management and administration dimension to SADC, the
consultative forum vehicle will have earned its relevance. What is not clear as of yet are
what future consultative follow-ups are contemplated and where these might lead in
terms of not only placing the African Ministers’ Programme on the SADC agenda but in
embedding a dedicated public service and administration complement to SADC
governance.
15 Final Communique of 28th Summit of SADC Heads of State and Government. 17 August 2008, p. 4.
21
The Ministerial Workshop on Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development
One of the key elements of the 2004–2008 African Ministers’ Programme is post-conflict
reconstruction and development (PCRD). The programme aims to build strategic
stability in those regions of the continent struggling to overcome the devastation of
protracted conflict and, as a major component of that, rebuild state governing
capacities. It is an element in the African Ministers’ Programme that reflects ongoing
efforts at post-conflict recovery in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi,
Sudan, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Hence, the importance of the consultation that the
Bureau convened at Club Lac Tanganyika in Bujumbura, Burundi on 8 and 9 April 2008.
Commissions on “Building State Capacity in Post-Conflict Countries” and on the “Role
of Partners in Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development” were the featured
activities. Although the post-conflict reconstruction and development emphasis is a
Ministers’ Programme element in its own right, apart from the issue of AU/REC
interaction with the African public service and administration agenda, it nevertheless
has a direct bearing on an evolving REC governing capacity in effecting regional
cooperation as a dimension of overcoming the instabilities of inter- and intra-state
African conflicts.
The Bujumbura commission on “Building State Capacity” addressed the following key
areas:
• building institutions and structures of the public service;
• developing human resource capacity for and within the public service;
• support for institutional reforms and good governance;
• creation of policies, legislation and structures to address corruption;
• establishing supportive technologies for management practices and institutional
reforms;
• mainstreaming gender equality in public administration;
• establishing systems to plan and monitor expenditure; and
22
• promotion of broad-based participation in decision-making and monitoring
processes.16
The Role of Partners commission interrogated the roles of various key players in the
post-conflict reconstruction and development arena with a view toward proposing a
framework for coherence and coordination of action between state and non-state actors
and development partners, including donors in the area of reconstructing public
management and administration and its institutions.17 This discussion was predicated
on the concern that the primary focus of any proposed post-conflict reconstruction
strategy is on institutional and multidimensional interventions aimed at consolidating
peace and establishing state capability. A secondary and equally important focus is on
developing a coherent approach to the management of key stakeholders in
implementing and sustaining post-conflict recovery.
From a regional cooperation and integration perspective, it is possible to envision an
institutionalisation of REC post-conflict reconstruction and development capacity and
resource mobilisation as a strategic peace and security dimension of mainstreaming the
African Public Service Charter into REC operations in terms of the African Ministers’
Programme goal of “Building Capable States” within the framework of the NEPAD
Governance Initiative, also a key element in this programme. Within this context, it is
possible to envision a new institutional architecture of REC-based public management
and developmental administration inclusive of REC public service commissions,
consultative forums and post-conflict reconstruction and development commissions in a long-term scenario of transforming RECs into “regional integration communities” in an
evolving continental union governmental system.
THE CAPACITY CHALLENGE Apart from achievements associated with the dialogue that ongoing between the African
Ministers’ Programme, led by the Bureau, and the RECs and development partners in 16 5th Pan African Conference of Ministers for Public/Civil Service Ministerial Workshop on Post-conflict
reconstruction and development. Bujumbura, Club Lac Tanganyika, 8 and 9 April 2008. p. 2. 17 Ibid., p. 2.
23
the development finance institutional community (principally DBSA) followed up by the
SADC Consultation and the Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development Workshop
in Burundi, there remains a raft of proposed initiatives that remain to be undertaken in
advancing the relationship between the RECs and the African public service and
administration community. A major preoccupation extending across the entire gamut of
these initiatives and challenges pertains to issues of human resource and institutional
capacity building, an area that falls squarely within the domain of the African public
sector in advancing the developmental management agenda of the RECs, member
states and the AU. Here, many of the capacity building issues that have been cited and
recited many times over remain ongoing challenges requiring greater public
management and administrative engagement in the still-evolving institutional
architecture of inter-African governance centring around the RECs and the AU. In this
regard, the embedding of the African Ministers’ Programme within the RECs and the AU
joins the need for new institutional architectural complements addressing the building of
public service and administrative within the AU/REC (and NEPAD) framework with the
challenge of meeting the capacity building challenges.
Defining the capacity building challenge confronting the RECs extends beyond human
resource concerns centring on training, to take in a number of areas addressing the
institution-building and governance needs of the RECs associated with the
implementation of their regional cooperation, developmental and trade agendas. At the
East African Regional Consultation on Enhancing and Aligning Africa’s Human Assets
and Institutional Strengths with Africa’s Capacity Needs in Nairobi, Kenya from 28 to 30
September 2004, it was estimated that African capacity building initiatives amounted to
an annual cost in the neighbourhood of US $4 billion.18 With particular reference to the
high priority afforded to infrastructural development, capacity building is particularly
critical in assisting RECs in developing regional regulatory structures in the transport-
communications sectors, encompassing transport, power, telecommunications and air
18 East African Regional Consultation on Enhancing & Aligning Africa’s Human Assets and Institutional Strengths
with Africa’s Capacity Needs: Nairobi, Kenya, 28-30 September 2004. p. 1 Draft report and planning paper on East African capacity building consultation under Wits University, Centre for Africa’s International Relations capacity building project.
24
transport, as well as in strengthening REC work in facilitating private investment and
public-private partnerships, especially in areas relating to regional power opportunities
and international telecommunications.
In terms of institutional cooperation, building capacity in trade policy at both regional
and national levels is a key REC concern accompanied by enabling RECs to be able to
interface more directly with non-governmental technical specialist and private sector
groupings to facilitate policy harmonisation and regional policy formulation relating to
private sector development. But this latter capacity building dimension also begs an
institutional enabling function addressing the need for RECs to prioritise activating REC
national committees and/or focal points to facilitate capacity development in REC-
private (and NGO) sector linkages. While this survey summary of the capacity building
terrain encompassing the challenges facing the RECs is indicative of the expansive
magnitude of the scope that must be engaged in developing an appropriate public
service and administrative component to drive capacity development, the human
resource dimension of capacity building cannot be underestimated.
In a speech before the African Capacity-Building Foundation (ACBF)-Economic
Commission for Africa (ECA) workshop on “Capacity Needs of the Regional Economic
Communities” in February 2006, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary
of ECA, Abdoulie Janneh, reiterated what has become common knowledge: “Top of the
list of challenges facing the RECs are the capacity constraints within their individual
secretariats, which are seriously impeding the implementation of their work
programmes.”19 He went on to point out what has become a perennial refrain; the fact
that most if not all RECs are understaffed, suffer from high rates of staff turnover
accompanied by a lack of technical specialist expertise. According to Janneh, at the
time of his remarks, an ECA survey that was cited included a finding that more than
55% of the RECs reported serious gaps in such specialist areas as IT management, law
and accounts as well as in such critically strategic – for Africa – sectoral programme
19 UN Economic Commission for Africa. ACBF-ECA Workshop on the “Capacity Needs of the Regional Economic
Communities: Speech by Abdoulie Janneh, UN Undersecretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, 25 February 2006, UNCC, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. p.2.
25
areas as agriculture, economics and political science. And, of course, these staffing
capacity constraints are linked to resource constraints wherein budgets are insufficient
to deal with their technical skills shortages reflecting the fact that member states are
more often than not delinquent in meeting their financial obligation; that were these
obligations met, staffing constraints might be better addressed. However, to appreciate
the holistic inter-connectivity of the staffing-resource constraint conundrum with other
seemingly intractable REC challenges associated with their proliferation accompanied
by overlapping memberships, Janneh points out the logical: “given the multiple
memberships of many countries in overlapping RECs, the ability of these States to meet
their contribution obligations is also limited” while “the effectiveness and efficiency of the
secretariats of the regional economic communities is hampered by the duplication of
programmes at the REC level.”20
Janneh’s comments were made in 2006. Two years prior, with specific regard to SADC,
former Botswana President Festus Mogae alluded to some of the same challenges in
pointing out the discrepancy between what he wryly termed “the progress that has been
achieved in adopting principles and making decisions” which “must be reflected on the
ground” but for the fact that SADC’s problems might lie “at the bureaucratic level, where
most of the key positions remain unfilled despite having been advertised in 2001.”21 He
added that, at the time, most SADC secretariat staff “had become ‘permanently
temporary’, a demoralising situation.”22 It would appear that, in developing a public
service and administrative architecture for the RECs that could bring to bear capacity on
recruitment, appointments, establishing terms and conditions of service and enforcing
standards of discipline and conduct, that an updated survey of REC staffing
complements might be undertaken as part of a process of putting such administrative
services into place at the regional governance level.
20 Ibid., p. 2 21 S’Thembiso Msomi, “Not the neighbourhood bully: South Africa should quit treading so carefully and give the
Southern African region the leadership it needs”, Sunday Times, 22 August 2004. 22 Ibid.
26
With particular regard to post-conflict recovery considerations, it has been recognised
that there is a need for a flexible adaptation of administrative capacity in post-conflict
countries to the requirements of rebuilding infrastructure and effecting governance
reforms on the one hand, and preserving existing assets on the other.23 This
adaptability needs to focus on as speedy as possible a transition from planning to
implementation involving the range of external partners among donors and NGOs.
THE GOVERNANCE CHALLENGE: PEER REVIEW QUO VADIS
One area of that, thus far, has fallen outside the AU/NEPAD/REC nexus has been the
governance dimension introduced into the equation by the African Peer Review
Mechanism (APRM). Although it is not articulated as a key element in the African
Ministers’ Programme, the evolution of peer review, as a participatory accountability
process emerging out the NEPAD initiative, could become increasingly germane to the
African integration dynamics, especially one envisioning an eventual transformation of
RECs into regional integration communities (or RICs) within an emerging African union
governmental context. Moreover, the public service and administration sector is central
to the concept of good governance in terms of responsive, participatory, transparent
and efficient government and service delivery. The APRM is widely considered the most
innovative aspect of NEPAD for its functioning as an instrument voluntarily acceded to
by AU member states as a self-monitoring and evaluative initiative of good governance.
Yet, ultimately, there is a problem of leverage emerging out of a process that may be
voluntarily acceded to but yet is separated from any accession process of wider and
deeper integration; one based on the incentivising of good governance as a
harmonising badge of admission into a more advanced stage of integrated pan-African
governance. Again, such a notion introduces the variable speed concept operative in
the European Union context whereby states can join the EU at their own pace and
23 Division State and Democracy, Project on Democracy and the Rule of Law. Discussion Paper: Promoting Good
Governance in Post-Conflict Societies. Eschborn, 2005. p. 22. “Summary and conclusion,” section on “needs vs. capacities.” Collaboration between GTZ and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
27
where they, indeed, aspire to accede to it and are assisted by the EU in a compliance
programme leading to their eventual accession.
Thus, accession operates as a leveraging tool driving the integration process, instead
of, as in the African case, relying on an inclusive consensus approach wherein all
member states are expected to meet a set deadline which, in reality, can be pushed
back indefinitely as stages of compliance or buy-in fail to be met (though this has
undergone some modification whereby certain organs of the AU have become operative
after a certain numerical threshold has been met by member states deciding to buy into
this or that mechanism as in the case of the Pan-African Parliament, the Peace and
Security Council, etc.). To be sure, there is an element of accession involved in some
states joining RECs, as in the case of Rwanda and Burundi being accepted into the
EAC and Madagascar into SADC. But accession has not become an institutionalised
part of the African integration repertoire as in the case of the EU. However, the APRM,
as an embedded process, could potentially institutionalise accession by serving as a
good governance tool in a regionalised peer review process linked, perhaps, to applying
a variable speed approach to transforming RECs into RICs based on countries
acceding to a RIC (conceivably a politically as well as economically integrated
federation).
Indeed, it could be argued that regionalising the APRM process in such a manner could
accelerate the African union government timetable as opposed to the current
establishing of deadlines which may or may not be met. As things stand now, the
mandate of the APRM is to ensure that the policies and practices of participating
countries conform to the “values, principles, codes and standards enshrined in the
Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance” as a
generator of best practices. A positive good in its own right, it nevertheless, is devoid of
any geopolitical leverage that might otherwise be derived from its being empowered as
an incentivising tool that attracts countries into a wider and more deeply integrated
Africa. At the very least, this is a process that should be a priority subject of comparative
study in looking at both the European and the African contexts from which lessons
28
learned can be drawn for the benefit of advancing the African governance agenda in
which the public service and administration could play a centrally strategic role.
RECs AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE REVISITED: AN UPDATE24
Since the 5th Pan-African Ministers’ Conference, different RECs have been pursuing
different strategies aimed at mainstreaming the African Charter within their respective
regional cooperation frameworks in a manner that can filter down to the national level of
member states. Perhaps the most encompassing of the REC initiatives in this regard
has been within ECOWAS. Here, the African Charter has been regionalised into a
Conference of ECOWAS Ministers of Public Service accompanied by efforts to establish
national coordinating committees. These are intended to serve as mechanisms for the
monitoring and evaluation of monitoring of implementation of the Charter. There have
been four such ECOWAS Conference of Ministers meetings up to 2008. At the second
ECOWAS Conference, it was recommended that member states appoint and
communicate the designation of National Focal Points (which, it was suggested, could
be the chairperson of a national coordinating committee).25
At the fourth Conference of ECOWAS Ministers of Public Service on 9 May 2008, the
focus of deliberations were on a “Decent Work Programme and Sustainable
Employment” covering fundamental principles and rights at work and international
labour standards, employment and income opportunities, social protection and social
security, and social dialogue and tripartism.26 Apart from several recommendations
tabled addressing initiatives that should be undertaken by member states at the regional
level, guidelines were adopted for a regional innovation awards programme on public
service delivery and reforms.27 What is notable about ECOWAS – as with how it has
related to NEPAD – is the extent to which it has taken to heart the African Charter to the 24 This section is partially based on proceedings of the preparatory “RECs Consultation Meeting: 9 July 2008,
Johannesburg, South Africa.” 25 Executive Secretariat. Final Report: Second Conference of ECOWAS Ministers of Public Service. Abuja, 30 April
2004, p. 5. 26 Executive Secretariat, Final Report: Fourth Conference of ECOWAS Ministers of Public Service. Free Town, 9
May 2008, p. 7. 27 Ibid., p. 9.
29
degree of replicating at regional level what is intended at the continental level when and
if the AU adopts the African Charter. At the ECOWAS level, this includes the election of
its own Bureau in counterpart to the continental Bureau currently chaired by South
Africa. ECOWAS has, therefore, been implementing decisions and resolutions at a
regional level of what is envisioned at continental level.
Other REC efforts, apart from ECOWAS, reflect different levels of regional cooperation
and/or integration efforts more generally. Thus, the EAC – comprising five member
states now that Rwanda and Burundi have joined Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania – is
contemplating establishing an inter-parliamentary union to facilitate passing of
legislation within the framework of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) given
the EAC’s prospective goal of moving toward a federation; a federated regional
integration community within what is envisioned by the AU in terms of a future
continental union government. Thus, addressing the African Charter within the EAC
context would put greater pressure on national parliaments in harmonising public
service delivery and governance reforms. At present, there is a Public Service
Coordination Committee that operates in conjunction with the EALA at the regional level
with the aim of feeding into the Ministers’ Programme at continental level. What will be
of interest here is how or whether or not this fledgling EAC framework, which points in
the direction of ECOWAS, will influence how the regional trajectory of the African
Ministers’ Programme will evolve within a tripartite SADC-COMESA-EAC framework.
As far as the other eastern African REC, the Inter-Governmental Authority for
Development (IGAD), is concerned, preoccupation is current at the level of moving
IGAD further along toward focusing on economic cooperation as opposed to its
dominant preoccupation with regional conflict resolution. Yet, in terms of a
preoccupation with REC rationalisation, the issue emerges as to whether or not IGAD
should not specialise in a security community function viz-à-viz COMESA and EAC,
thereby, from the standpoint of the Ministers’ Programme, being able to focus on the
post-conflict good governance dimension of rebuilding public service capacity and
regenerating delivery alongside post-conflict governance reform. This would reflect
30
IGAD’s comparative advantage, so to speak, in terms of experience in regional conflict
resolution and the challenges of post-conflict recovery which would enable it to make a
contribution within an expanded cooperation context with COMESA and the EAC.
One of the issues that has emerged during consultations and that, to some extent, is
mirrored in the AU Audit Report in terms of how to advance sectoral mandates such as
public service and administration and adoption of the African Charter, is the dominance
of foreign ministries and departments of foreign affairs. This relates to an observation
that in relating to other ministries among AU/REC member states, foreign affairs are
reluctant to share power with other ministries/departments. This looms as an
increasingly fundamental issue in inter-African affairs. Because of the increasingly
governance-focused nature of inter-African relations between different member states
within a continental and regional multilateral context, the so-called “Africa policies” of
AU/REC member states goes well beyond the purely foreign affairs domain of foreign
policy and diplomacy. Indeed, the very contemplation of AU/REC/NEPAD as proto-
governmental within a pan-African governance context underlines this point. In short, an
African state relating to another African state constitutes more than simply a foreign
policy-diplomatic engagement. Therefore, the concentration of AU/REC relations with
departments of foreign affairs may not be adequate to advancing continental and
regional good governance protocols and mandates related to advancing the goals and
objectives of the AU Constitutive Act and Charters such as that pertaining to the Pan-
African Conference of Ministers of Public Service and Administration.
Thus, the Pan-African ministers of public service may want to consider tabling a
recommendation that member states consider establishing ministries and departments
of inter-African cooperation and integration. These could be tasked with dealing
specifically with governance relations between member states, while addressing issues
of coordination at the national level with other member states, the RECs and with the
AU, perhaps in conjunction with recommended national AU affairs commissions – along
with departments of foreign affairs. Within ECOWAS, some member states already
have such dedicated regional cooperation and/or NEPAD ministries. However, while
31
departments of foreign affairs would concentrate specifically on the diplomatic
dimensions of inter-African relations falling in the domain of foreign policy,
cooperation/integration/partnership ministries/departments would provide the missing
connectivity between national, regional and continental levels in implementing AU/REC
mandates and protocols. This would provide a governing point of reference for national
focal points and coordinating committees such as exist in ECOWAS and called for
within SADC (re SNCs). In turn, this should facilitate the institutional mainstreaming of
the African Charter at national level and regionally such as in the case of ECOWAS.
ADVANCING THE MINISTERS’ PROGRAMME: SCENARIOS IN SEARCH OF THE WAY FORWARD A further elaboration of the peer review dimension in a developing relationship between
the RECs and the African public service sector is suggestive of the potential of this
sector to emerge at the cutting edge of governance reform and institutional restructuring
in the inter-African system. The African Ministers’ Programme, in its quest to fulfil the
African Public Service Charter is concerned not only with public service delivery in the
narrowest sense, but more broadly in regard to good governance. Furthermore, given
the cross-cutting nature of this sector in its concern with building effective and efficient
institutional delivery systems both in terms of human and technical resource capacities,
there is the potential for the African public service sector to function as the centrepiece
in driving an African renaissance. This would obtain, both in making the current AU
system more institutionally effective and, in the process, furthering its longer-term
transformation into an African union government. Because, in a very real sense, making
the current AU/REC system function more effectively amounts to the actual constructing
of the envisioned African union government, or at least to laying the foundations for
continental government based on the RECs as the pillars in such a system.
Recognising these possibilities entails the realisation that, before the continent’s leaders
embark in earnest on the continental union government quest, there still remains a lot of
fleshing out to be done in the fledgling AU governing framework as it already exists.
Here, however, it can be argued that within this current political context, the relevance
32
of the African Ministers’ Programme may reside more in the domain of how it can
contribute to elaborating what is still a very incomplete and embryonic AU/REC
institutional architecture than in the various technical specificities of public management
and administration as a discipline relating to capacity building. In short, to make
advances in this domain, inclusive of the key elements of the 2005–2008 programme,
will require African public service leadership initiative, both at the continental, regional
and national levels, in devising sustainable strategies for carrying forward another level
of institutional capacity building within the AU/REC framework interacting with the
NEPAD political, economic and corporate governance agenda. In essence, this is the
task that defines the way forward.
In contemplating illustrative scenarios that might describe how this process can unfold,
there is a need to envision a maximalist option of elaborating new institutional structures
which may, for the time being, be out of the reach of the AU/REC system in terms of
that system’s financial capacities and a more conservatively modest option based on
knitting together new relationships of interaction between already existing structures at
national level that can be mandated to implement a regional public service and
administration programme within the REC context. From an illustrative scenario
standpoint what will be attempted in this section of the paper is to sketch out two
possibilities with attendant options that are implicit in some the findings that have
already emerged from consultations that have taken place in the African Ministers’
Programme and that build on already existing institutional models operating within the
REC context. Scenario One will be billed as an institution-building path to
regionalising public service and administration which can emanate either from the AU in
Addis Ababa or from REC initiative in the regions. Scenario Two is billed as an
institutional networking coordination model for regionalising public service and
administration with the AU/REC system both in terms of accommodating inter-sectoral
coordination among REC member states and in terms of regionalising the African
Charter as in the case of ECOWAS.
33
Scenario One: Institution-Building
Option One: This scenario would contemplate the establishing of new structures
devoted to institutionalising public service and administration within the AU/REC
system. This could happen in one of two ways: one AU-centric, the other REC-centric.
For the sake of identifying possible African Ministers’ Programme options for RECs
under the AU-centric option, the operative assumption is the establishment of an African
Union Service Commission (AUSC). While, as envisioned, the AUSC would, among
other things, “be responsible for recruitment, making appointments and promotions and
enforcing discipline” as well as “be in charge of setting service conditions and grading of
posts under the Staff Rules and Regulations of the AU”, it would also assume
continental leadership in implementing the African Public Service Charter in cooperation
with the RECs within the framework of an invigorated AU/REC Coordination Committee.
This would include the joint policy formulation and programme design of an agenda for
REC-based service commissions. They would replicate the responsibilities of the AUSC
at the REC level as well as undertake implementation of a good governance
programme, taking as the point of departure the key elements of the African Ministers’
Programme of 2005–2008. Within this AU-centred framework two types of regional
commissions are envisioned addressing: REC-based public service commissions linked
to the AUSC, and regional commissions on post-conflict reconstruction and
development.
With regard to the first category, three regional and two regional joint service
independent commissions would be established:
• a Southern African Joint Service Commission building on cooperative interaction
between SADC and COMESA (within the tripartite framework that also includes
the EAC);
• an Eastern African Joint Service Commission building on cooperative interaction
between COMESA and the EAC (within the same tripartite arrangement that also
includes SADC) plus the Intergovernmental Development Authority (IGAD);
• an ECOWAS Regional Service Commission for West Africa;
34
• an ECCAS Regional Service Commission for Central Africa with provision for
inter-REC coordination with SADC and COMESA; and
• a UMA Regional Service Commission for Northern Africa (including the Sudano-
Sahelian transcontinental sub-region) with provision for inter-REC coordination
with CEN-SAD.
While such regionally based REC public service commissions could conceivably take on
PCRD terms of reference in addition to their broader public service and governance
mandates, the demands of PCRD could also justify specialist regional commissions
established to develop and implement a long-term stabilising PCRD agenda and,
indeed, interact with the REC-based public service commissions in exercising an
Africanised trusteeship-type state-rebuilding role targeting countries and surrounding
regions coping with conflict as well as those emerging out of conflict. Hence:
• Southern African Joint Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development
Commission;
• Eastern African Joint Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development
Commission;
• West African Commission on Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development;
• Central African Commission on Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development;
and
• Northern African Commission on Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development.
At the national level, this institutional edifice would be augmented by establishment of
what has been proposed as National African Union Affairs Commissions (NAUACs)
accompanied by national REC/NEPAD committees within each REC member state as
in the case of NEPAD Focal Points in ECOWAS in West Africa and prospective SADC
National Committees (SNCs) in Southern Africa. These national REC/NEPAD
committees or focal points would be represented on a country’s NAUAC. The major
question that remains to be addressed here is the seeming inability and/or political will,
at least in the case of SADC, to activate the SNCs which, within the mandate of the
Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) is intended to perform a
35
participatory monitoring and evaluation function in regard to a range of cross-cutting and
targeted sectoral issues.
Option Two: The REC-centric option would envision the impetus of institution-building
emanating from the RECs. With the initiative shifting to the regions, the unifying
framework could become the African Ministers’ Programme itself under the impetus of
the Bureau. Indeed, the ECOWAS Conference of Ministers of Public Service might
serve as a suitable model in this regard. Depending on how active a leadership role
would be undertaken by the Bureau, regional public service and administration
constituencies would have to play a particularly active role in driving the mainstreaming
of the African Ministers’ Programme within their respective RECs as in the case of
ECOWAS. In essence, the extent of reform and innovation in public service delivery,
management and governance would hinge on regional leadership in this sector.
Initiatives would become regionalised either within the networking framework of the
Bureau or as a reflection of the dynamics of the region itself and its attendant RECs.
While the commission architecture envisioned in Scenario One could well emerge in this
scenario as well, there is an alternative path that could be pursued based on the SADC
Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation (OPDSC) model. The OPDSC
includes two inter-state committee structures: the Inter-State Defence and Security
Committee (ISDSC) and the Inter-State Politics and Diplomacy Committee (ISPDC).
Under this model, the commission architecture in Scenario One could be consolidated
by SADC and other RECs in the form of an Organ on Governance, Planning and
Development Cooperation (or OGPDC) empowering one inter-state commission and
three inter-state committees, namely:
• Inter-State Cross-Border Migration Committee (ISCDMC); • Inter-State Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development Committee
(ISPCRD); and • Inter-State Coordinated Strategic Planning Committee (ISCSPC).
This illustrative organ model would reflect the broad scope of governance reform
inclusive of the kinds of functions envisioned under a regionalised AUSC. Further, in the
case of SADC specifically, it could interact with the more political and security structured
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OPDSC and its ISDSC and ISPDC structures or whatever comparable structures that
exist within other RECs. The critical dimension in both scenarios is that the kinds of
illustrative structures envisioned should incorporate a long-term strategic scenario
planning capacity for overall REC development and interaction with other RECs and the
AU. Additionally, whether either scenario involves the regional commission option or the
organ model, the institutionalisation of a public service and administration complement
within the RECs should aim to bring a greater degree of order and coherence to the
inter-African governing system under the AU while preparing the RECs for further
evolution in a changing AU system contemplating an eventual African union government
presiding over an African Economic Community. Both options and scenarios could
further accommodate regionalised peer review functions though this might require an
additional Regional Peer Review Commissions and/or, in the case of the organ model,
incorporate peer review as a function of an inter-state coordinated strategic planning
committee. However, such regionalised peer review structures would be relevant only
insofar as the AU moves toward a clearer consensus and commitment on the eventual
transformation of RECs into RICs wherein accession would become an incentive for
harmonisation within a variable speed integration agenda.
Scenario Two A: Institutional Networking Coordination
This scenario has two variants that would not be mutually exclusive. The first varient
would involve the nationalising of the REC agenda in the African Ministers’ Programme
in a manner that provides for greater networking connectivity between member states
and the RECs without setting up new structures. It would activate, or might necessitate
activating, REC/NEPAD structures that in some instances exist on paper but have yet,
for various reasons, to be made operational. The first scenario, as well as this one,
should, first of all, be able to accommodate proposed National AU Affairs Commissions
(or NAUACs). The real concern here is the implementation of REC/NEPAD national committee and/or focal points. One option for activating such committees and focal
points would be through the parliamentary oversight function. Yet African parliaments of
variable influence have been notably absent in exercising an oversight role in
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monitoring the implementation of regional cooperation and integration commitments at
the national level.
An alternative route to activating such committees and focal points might be to pursue
consideration of the sectoral working group model that drives cooperation within the
India-Brazil-South Africa Trilateral Dialogue Forum (IBSA). Here, the designated IBSA
focal points within the foreign ministries of the three countries have actively worked to
mobilise the involvement of other governmental departments, civil society and the
private sector in the implementation of a growing range of trilateral project initiatives
emerging from the working groups. There are more than 16 working groups, including a
sectoral working group on public service and administration. The IBSA working group
system (which, in fact, is under consideration for streamlining given its proliferation)
operates according to the rotational leadership of IBSA by one of the three countries
which presides implementing the IBSA agenda over a two-year period.
In this manner, in conjunction with their foreign affairs IBSA focal points, other
governmental departments that are aligned with a working group are involved in the
coordination, at national level, of IBSA commitments including outreach to civil society
and the private sector in undertaking individual sectoral working group commitments.
Meanwhile, the counterpart foreign affairs focal points in the other two partnering
countries are similarly in contact with other ministries and departments and their
respective IBSA national sectoral working group constituencies in carrying out their
responsibilities in conjunction with the lead country and its counterpart IBSA structures
during the rotational leadership period.
There is a recommendation on the table that the AU Executive Council comprising
ministers of foreign affairs transform into a much broader Council of Ministers that would
allow greater scope for sectoral ministerial/departmental participation in deliberation on
specialist issues that may not receive the attention they require from the foreign affairs
sector given the more politico-diplomatic focus of foreign affairs on the one hand and
the technical specialist nature of more sectorally focused ministries and departments
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(which could also reflect ministries of inter-African cooperation/integration). Presumably,
were such a transformation to take place, a council of ministers format at continental AU
level could be smoothly replicated within the RECs. In the event the that this does not
occur, it will be up to African ministers of public service and administration to engage
foreign affairs ministries (and/or economic ministries where they are the focal points,
especially at REC level) to cooperatively structure a sectoral working group format into
the foreign affairs agenda at REC level so as to activate technical committees, including
the public service and administration sector as a regional cooperation priority within the
RECs.
This is also where the activation of REC/NEPAD national committees and focal points
might serve a sectoral working group purpose. Here, the SADC National Committees
are a case in point. As envisioned, the SNCs for each SADC member state are
formatted into technical specialist committees for government-civil society-private sector
deliberation. The sectoral subcommittee format of these proposed SNCs is as follows:
• politics and security; • trade and investment; • food, agriculture and natural resources; • infrastructure and services; and • social and human development.
This format would have to be expanded to include public sector and governance to
accommodate the African Ministers’ Programme at the REC level within an SNC
technical or sectoral working committee format. Assuming that the SNCs within SADC
can and will be activated (as they should be within the overall SADC treaty and RISDP
mandate), which in any case is likely to occur at variable speed, the development of a
dialogue and working relationship between SADC foreign ministers and their public
service and administration counterparts would be in order to carry forward
implementation. Indeed, such a dialogue may be urgently in order as a means of
activating the SNCs in conjunction with the establishing of an IBSA-like sectoral working
group coordinating framework. In terms of adopting a regional cooperation agenda that
implements the African Ministers’ Programme, this could be a critically strategic area of
intervention that departments of public service and administration could undertake to
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implement the long-overdue implementation of REC/NEPAD national committees, such
as the SNCs, and focal points that are yet to be activated in SADC member states and
that, indeed, would add another nationally based regional dimension to the APRM.
Scenario Two B: Institutional Networking Coordination – ECOWAS In what amounts to a second variant of this scenario, either of the above scenarios [one
and two (a)] could accommodate the initiative that ECOWAS has already undertaken
irrespective of the adoption of the African Charter on Public Service and Administration
by the AU. Here RECs could follow suit in establishing SADC, COMESA and EAC
conferences of ministers of public service or, given their budding tripartite relationship, a
SADC-COMESA-EAC conference of ministers of public service. Such a framework
could promote IBSA-like inter-sectoral coordination in working groups, including those
that might be devoted to public service delivery and governance reform. Such a
scenario would require greater study by other RECs of how the ECOWAS approach
works and how it might be adapted to their regional circumstances accompanied by
exchanges missions between ECOWAS and other RECs.
Scenario Strengths and Weaknesses
Scenario One: The problem with the first institution-building scenario is cost
effectiveness and sustainability within the current severe resource constraints of the
AU/REC system; one in which there is an understandable aversion to elaborating new
institutional complements to the current AU/REC architecture. This scenario may have
more relevance in envisioning how an institution-building approach to embedding the
African Ministers’ Programme might contribute, over time, to the evolution of the
AU/REC framework into a continental union governmental system. Given current
realities, such an evolution is likely to occur in piecemeal fashion at variable speed
wherein certain RECs may achieve a level of sustainability before others in being able
to underwrite the illustrative structures suggested here. The likelihood of RECs adopting
such structures may also reflect how far along they are in transforming themselves into
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RICs as might be the case of the EAC where the leaders of its member states have
placed it on a path toward federation, in which case the consolidating of a federal public
service bureaucracy would seem inevitable.
Certainly, the rationalisation of the RECs which would make country memberships more
cost effective and thereby free up more resources for institutional development, might
increasingly make this scenario more compelling in building public management and
administration into the REC/RIC system. In the final analysis however, the important
thing is that for the African Ministers’ Programme to remain relevant, it will have to keep
abreast of the dynamics and trends in the evolution of the current AU system in terms of
the ongoing Grand Debate about African union government so as to be able to adapt its
agenda to where this discourse is leading given its implications for making the inter-
African governing system more efficient and effective at continental, regional and
national level. The African public service and administration sector has a stake in this
unfolding scenario as it will be called upon to shape up the governing systems that a
transforming inter-African governmental system will require. Indeed, it should be in a
position to actively engage in and affect this discourse.
Scenario Two: The strength of this scenario, including its ECOWAS version, is that it
should not require establishing new structures with all the cost implications that this
would entail. What it does entail is a more concerted effort at African public service and
administration networking, first and foremost with focal point ministries – for the most
part, foreign affairs – in devising a technical and/or sectoral working group system,
inclusive of a public administration component, within a rotating country leadership
framework, perhaps in accompaniment with activating existing REC/NEPAD national
committees and focal points where they are not operative. The question that may
emerge and that has to be investigated is how efficiently such a framework can be
managed. Unlike the IBSA sectoral working group format which rotates among only
three countries, an African REC attempt at replicating such a framework would have to
contend with many more countries and variable governing capacities among these
countries as members states of given RECs. There is also the question of which REC
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such a working group format should be attached to where there are overlapping
regional and interregional domains as in Eastern and Southern Africa though the
tripartite cooperation between SADC, COMESA and the EAC could facilitate such a
sorting out of this dilemma. With regard to ECOWAS, ECCAS and UMA, this may be a
simpler process. But how would the multi-country rotational leadership position work in
adapting the three-country IBSA model?
RECOMMENDATIONS
What follows are a few recommendations pertaining to priorities associated with the
forgoing observations and scenarios for effecting a way forward.
• In anticipation of the October tripartite summit between SADC, COMESA and
EAC, the Bureau should consider possibilities of introducing within the summit
agenda the possibility of a tripartite public service and administration coordinating
structure to facilitate establishing a Tripartite Conference of Ministers of Public
Service covering these three RECs. Alternatively, the African Public Service
Charter could be introduced. Either or both would facilitate the harmonisation of
integration programme goals as envisioned by the October tripartite summit.
• In the short-term, the African Ministers’ Programme should seek to build upon the
SADC Consultation of 2007 to establish the Public Service Consultative Forum
envisioned by that exercise accompanied by similar efforts at establishing public
service consultative forums in other regions. The fact that COMESA participated
in the SADC Consultation suggest the possibilities for a SADC/COMESA public
service consultative forum for Southern Africa and an EAC/COMESA public
service consultative forum for East Africa whereas for West, Central and
Northern Africa, the establishment of similar forums may be more
straightforward. Such forums are critical to the need for perpetuating an ongoing
discourse on African public service and governance reform and capacity building
at the regional level of African governance.
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• High-priority agenda items for such consultations should be how to effect a cost-
effective networking framework for advancing public service and administration
concerns within the REC agenda interrelated with how such an agenda can help
the RECs and institutions like the ADB and DBSA address the capacity
development challenges of the RECs.
• The formalisation of such regional consultative forums should also incorporate a
regional PCRD component in an ongoing discourse aimed at addressing the
regional stability challenges posed by given “conflict states” and/or states
undergoing post-conflict stabilisation.
• Because of the cross-cutting nature of ministries and departments of public
service and administration, it is important that there be instituted an ongoing
dialogue and working relationship at national level between such
ministries/departments and ministries/departments of foreign affairs (or economic
ministries in those countries where these form the REC focal points). Such
collaboration will be critical to charting a public service and administration REC
agenda.
• The Bureau should consider undertaking a study of the IBSA sectoral working
group format in terms of how it might become adaptable and be applied to
activating AU/REC/NEPAD technical committees, with a public service
technical/sectoral dimension, either as a mechanism on its own or in conjunction
with activating REC/NEPAD national committees or national NEPAD focal points.
• Of equal priority, the Bureau should encourage other RECs to study the
ECOWAS model of a regional conference of ministers of public service and how
the ECOWAS approach might be adapted and/or replicated to other regional
circumstances. This should include exchanges between ECOWAS and other
RECs in exploring such possibilities.
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• There is a need to consider establishing a networked Centre on African
Governance Reform as a virtual structure (not a new institution) linking already
existing non-governmental regional and continental bodies to formulate and
implement an ongoing research programme; one that would facilitate longer-term
scenario planning on inter-African issues of public service management and
administration import. This would be as a means of ensuring that the African
Ministers’ Programme keeps pace with the fluid process and politics of change in
the AU/REC system and, indeed, becomes a proactive participant in influencing
and shaping the direction of where African integration at the continental and
regional level is headed.
• As a corollary to establishing a African governance reform research network, the
African Ministers’ Programme may also want to consider encouraging the
establishment of an African Integration Forum as a civil society initiative for
promoting non-governmental and private sector dialogue with governments on a
broad range of regional cooperation and integration issues in Africa and
Southern Africa and, also, to participate in monitoring and evaluation activities
pertaining to continental and regional integration initiatives.
• A closely related concern, in follow-up to the above recommendation, is
consideration of how the APRM might be regionalised and adapted as a good
governance accession tool for advancing regional integration in a changing
AU/REC system.
• The Bureau should consider having the 6th Pan-African Conference of Ministers
of Public Service and Administration study and deliberate on the efficacy of
having their respective governments establish ministries (and departments) of
inter-African cooperation and integration pursuant to establishing a council of
ministers that would work with the AU Executive Council in addressing the
governance as opposed to the purely foreign policy-diplomatic agenda with a
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view toward embedding the mainstreaming of the African Charter and the
Ministers’ Programme at national, regional and continental agenda.
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