Africa. 53 Countries, one Union [1]
Introductory Speech by President Romano Prodi
Bologna (Italy), Palazzo Re Enzo, may 21st 2010
Honourable Presidents, Ministers, assembled dignitaries, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, it’s my very great pleasure to open this conference.
In being here, it is not only a great honour for the reputation of the participants, but especially in light of the current political and economic difficulties. We live in a time of crisis in which it is essential to openly share and strengthen our ideas with those who operate in this complex reality.
African states face great challenges to their stability and security. Although in the past years there has been considerable progress in achieving peace and economic growth, there is still no peace for many African people. Moreover, old and new threats continue to jeopardize political stability. This is particularly troubling because peace in the African continent affects not only the future of Africa, but the future of all of us.
In response to these challenges African leaders have built important common institutions. We have come a long way in the last few years and I acknowledge the enormous progress that has been made by the African Union and by the Regional Economic Communities. Thanks to the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) significant progress has been achieved in many fields, from conflict prevention to the deployment of peacekeeping missions and the development of long term capacity.
Nonetheless there is still significant room for improvement. Achieving this objective requires improved coordination and depends from the strengthening and deepening of the existing mechanisms.
It has become very clear that only by overcoming the present political and economic fragmentation, Africa can move ahead towards further peace, development and prosperity. The countries of Africa should be able to benefit from the peace and prosperity that much of the rest of the world enjoy today. To do so, however, they will have to work together. Fifty-four countries must make one continent – on their own terms, without losing their national identities or sacrificing their national interests. In the new globalized world not even the biggest African States have the political strenghth and the economic dimension in order to guarantee peace and to sustain long term growth.
Remarcable progress has been made, but the challenge is to move forward. My personal view is built on four principles:
- First, Africa does not need new continental institutions in order to achieve the benefits of integration. Instead, the focus should be on helping existing institutions to develop and investing in their capacity building.
- Second, Africa should move forward on many fronts at once rather than concentrating exclusively on a single policy area. Conflict management to create a secure and stable environment is important and yet by itself is not enough. Human rights, Political, Civic and Economic goals are equally necessary to build a new future for Africa.
- Third, only the countries of Africa can ensure their own peaceful development. Nevertheless, a more integrated and coherent contribution from the developed countries and organizations also plays a vital role. On this point we want to stress the necessity to move from a “foreign aid” model to more flexible relationships based on a full scale strategy in trade and investment.
- Fourth, concrete progress is more important than abstract goals. This is not to deny the importance of great ambitions like peace and prosperity, but rather to insist that such ambitions are best achieved using benchmarks and targets that can make it easier to show measurable progress.
Building on these four principles we suggest a limited and yet ambitious program for action. The goal is not to revolutionize the African experience. Only the Africans themselves can do that. Rather we hope to suggest areas where the experience of cooperation can take root and where early success can help momentum to build. We also suggest where we believe coordination among the developed countries and organizations is most likely and most productive, and where we believe it is least important to the success of African efforts overall.
The priority must be active conflict management to create a stable and secure environment at the national, regional, and continental levels. Here we see no necessary obstacle to international coordination and many possibilities for success. The African Security and Peace Architecture is being established including important contributions from the African Union, ECOWAS, SADC, and other organizations. Nevertheless, it lacks resources. It also lacks coherent external support.
Indeed, most developed countries have a great responsibility for the current situation, having always dealt with African states on strictly bilateral basis with no attention for any continental approach. Now it is the time to develop a more meaningful strategic relationship among the European Union, the United States, the United Nations, and emerging powers like China, India, Russia and Brasil.
We live on the secular heritage that dealt with Africa country by country in a bilateral way. While we obviously recognize the nature and the great role of the national states we must work together with the clear goal to help and enhance their cooperation.
We are in a new era in which the scale and complexity of the challenge demand increased cooperation between all actors. Addressing that challenge calls for effective relationships, improved coordination and a clear understanding of each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
Not surprisingly, it is military capability that catches the headlines in terms of the development of the African Standby Force (ASF), but as the so-called Prodi Report underlined, peace on the African continent cannot be achieved through the deployment of military force alone. A second tier of interest encompasses, therefore, economic concerns related to trade, investment, transportation and energy. Indeed, energy and transportation account for some of the highest costs in the economic sector. The goal is not only Africa’s integration in the global market, but also to promote intra-African trade. African countries are divided not only by languages and regimes, but also by weak infrastructure, poor market institutions, and similar (rather than complementary) industrial profiles, which limit the gains from integration. We believe that these are areas where opportunities exist for ‘community’ action among African countries to develop. Such communities could emerge within existing regional and continental organizations. They will have to adapt to the many different challenges that African countries must face. And they are likely to benefit from an enhanced coordination among developed countries and organizations – where competition is often the rule. Nevertheless, only success at this level can ensure stability over the medium term. Africa must prosper if it is to be secure.
Our initial conference in Bologna focuses primarily on these first two sets of issues. Nevertheless, it is obvious that we must broaden the agenda as the series of conferences continues in Washington, D.C. (2011), and Addis Ababa (2012).
This long run engagement is focused to help the design of a framework of road map for an ever increasing African integration.
A third tier of concerns touch on issues of health, education, participation, citizenship, poverty, inequality, and human rights – which are the keys to development over the long term. These are properly matters for national institutions. Action at the continental or regional level can be supportive, but only national and local politicians can effect change. Here coordination among developed countries and organizations is less of a priority since so much of the work is a project based and focused on particular concerns. Nevertheless we still have scope for improving coordination even if only to avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts or inefficiencies arising from projects working at cross-purposes.
These suggestions for actions are not to deny the many other vital challenges that African countries must address. On the contrary, we are well aware of the need for action in many other areas as well. In the briefing notes that accompany this conference, there is clear evidence of the range of concerns. This selection is simply to illustrate potential areas for progress through integration. Following the principle of subsidiarity, these are areas where we believe united action would be more effective than relying upon national efforts alone. The goal remains peace and prosperity. That can only be realized when integration is the instrument and not the objective. The fifty-three countries of the African Union already reside in one continent. The final goal should not be the elimination of those countries; it is to transform the relations between them so that they all can benefit.
I wish everyone a very productive conference. Let me thank the very prestigious participants of this Conference once again, the colleagues from the SAIS Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University and especially professor Erik Johns’ MA students, who, under his guidance, have done an excellent research on some of the vital challenges faced by African states. The superb result of this work can be found in the “Briefing book” provided in the folder.
Now it is up to us to exploit this opportunity in its entirety.