Opening remarks by the Executive Director of the Southern Africa Trust, Neville Gabriel, at the Africa Day Consultative Dialogue between the Pan African Parliament and Civil Society Organisations on Regional Integration, Governance, and Citizen's Participation: Midrand, May 25, 2009

The Honourable President of the Pan African Parliament, Dr Gertrude Mongella;
Honourable Members of the Pan African Parliament;
Representatives of civil society organisations;
Ladies and gentlemen;

A very happy Africa Day to you all! On behalf of the Southern Africa Trust I welcome you all to this second consultative dialogue between the Pan African Parliament and African civil society organisations.

[Ad lib: Tribute to Dr Tajudeen Abdul Raheem, Head of the UN Millenium Campaign in Africa, who died tragically in a car accident on his way to the airport in Nairobi earlier today, including a moment of silence in honour of his life and work]

As we commemorate the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), it is an opportune time to take stock of how far we have come in transforming the continent for the benefit of the poor. No doubt, slow but significant progress has been made, evidenced not least by the existence of this Pan African Parliament and its imminent transition to being a legislative body. But for too many millions of Africa's people, life remains a daily struggle for survival. On a day like this, we should be asking ourselves how we can harness the resources of all stakeholders on the continent to accelerate development to overcome poverty.

Evidence from throughout the world, and indeed from some parts of our own continent, demonstrates that cooperative governance and social cohesion are two essential elements for rapid and sustained development that works to drive down poverty.

Yet, for too long civil society organisations, governments, and the business community in Africa have approached each other as adversaries rather than social partners, often undermining each others' efforts despite declaring a shared vision for building a just, peaceful, caring, and prosperous continent.

It is particularly pleasing today, therefore, that this consultative dialogue was made possible through a meaningful partnership between civil society organisations, the Pan African Parliament, and business (through the generous participation of MTN).

Your Excellency, Dr Mongella, five years ago when you first came to Pretoria to establish the Pan African Parliament, in partnership with the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa and the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference I organised a dialogue with you to give civil society organisations an opportunity to engage you about their vision for the parliament. During that engagement, you challenged us to ensure that civil society engagement with the parliament is sustained and that the dialogue is not a once-off event.

In 2007, we then organised the first formal consultation between the parliament and civil society organisations from across the continent. At that consultation, you declared that "as representatives of the people, it is imperative that the voices of the voiceless resonate through (the) decisions and pronouncements" of the Pan African Parliament.

We hope that during this consultative dialogue today, we can seek out creative and practical strategies to foster effective engagement of the citizens of Africa in their development, through this parliament. When people participate in decisions that affect their lives, they take responsibility and accountability for those decisions and in turn strive for a unified, peaceful and prosperous continent. The challenge for us is to develop structured mechanisms that are institutionalised to ensure such collaborative engagement.

In southern Africa there have been some promising signs of such progress at a regional level. In April 2007, all stakeholders (civil society, business, donors and governments at the level of heads of state and government) gathered in Mauritius for a SADC Summit and Consultative Conference on Poverty and Development. For the first time in our region, the social partners sat down together in the same room to chart a path for the region's development for poverty eradication, and to ensure mutual accountability for its implementation. The meeting also agreed to establish an institutionalised stakeholder engagement platform in the form of a SADC regional poverty observatory so that this new way of doing things can continue.

I am also happy to report that, since the last consultation between the Pan African Parliament and civil society organisations held in 2007, a broad coalition of organisations from across the continent including the Southern Africa Trust, has established facilities to support better engagement of the pan African institutions in Addis Ababa and Midrand. This dialogue today, gives further expression to the implementation of the Midrand civil society support facility for engagement with the Pan African Parliament, NEPAD, and the APRM which is coordinated by the Southern Africa Trust.

In our discussion today, we have the opportunity to face two key challenges which are primary concerns of these two facilities as it must be for this parliament if it is to truly represent the voices of the voiceless:

1. We must not relent in providing spaces for citizens and their formations to participate and contribute to their own well being through committees so that the recommendations you make to other bodies of the AU are grounded in the citizens' aspirations, especially the poor;


2. Legislation that enables citizens to embrace the integration of the continent and participate fully and freely in their own development must be consistently promoted.

The sustainable development of Africa is in our collective hands. As you look forward to assuming legislative responsibilities, while already enjoying such authority within your national assemblies, we look forward to fostering closer working relations between civil society organisations and the Parliament, in cooperation with our strategic partners such as TrustAfrica.

I heartily congratulate the Pan African Parliament on its first five years of existence and wish it every success in its growth and expansion of roles and responsibilities. And I wish you all well for very constructive deliberations today to achieve real progress for the peoples of our continent.

Thank you.