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Roundup: African leaders to brainstorm on dream of integration |
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10:58, July 01, 2007 |
African leaders are arriving in Accra, the capital of Ghana, Saturday for their July 1-3 summit, which will be devoted to an unprecedented "Grand Debate on the Union Government."
The establishment of the African Union Government is part of aproposal of realizing the continent's political and economic integration by setting up a United States of Africa by 2015.The union's 53 members have all agreed that the union's ultimate objective is the political and economic integration of the continent leading to the creation of the United States of Africa, an idea pioneered by pan-Africanists, represented by the Republic of Ghana's founding president Kwame Nkrumah.
However, differences exist over the modalities and time frame for achieving this goal and the appropriate pace of integration.
There are mainly two schools of thoughts.
One is that the union should build and strengthen current AU structures, harmonize and rationalize regional economic communities before taking the bold leap to the United States of Africa.
The other is that the union should accelerate the pace of integration for as long as the continent remains a motley gathering of fragmented states, the ideal conditions for full integration will never be attained.
In July 2006, a committee of seven African heads of state submitted a report to the AU summit. The report, named the "Study on an African Union Government towards the United States of Africa," outlines a roadmap of forming the United States of Africa by 2015 in three phases.
The first phase is the establishment of the Union Government by2009, to be followed by the second phase of the consolidation of the union government from 2009 to 2012 and third phase of establishing the United States of Africa by 2015.
While Libya, Nigeria, Senegal and some other west African countries are enthusiastic about the acceleration of the integration process, some countries in the east and south of the continent prefer a "step by step" approach.
"That Africa should unite has never been in question. The question is the model of integration that would help accelerate Africa's economic development and strengthen democratic governanceon the continent," South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said earlier this month.
Source: Xinhua
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