EU-Africa Platform for Dialogue on Governance and Human Rights launched

In time for next week’s Africa-EU Summit in Tripoli, the Africa-EU Platform for Dialogue on Governance and Human Rights was launched on 12 November in Brussels. ECDPM and its partner, the Dakar-based African Governance Institute (AGI) were involved as facilitators in this process. This Platform is the culmination of the extensive work over the last two years that has taken place within the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES), which was adopted at the first Africa-EU Summit in Lisbon in December 2007, and specifically it’s Partnership on Democratic Governance and Human Rights. The Platform provides an open, inclusive and informal space for dialogue, allowing the formulation of shared governance agendas and recommendations on issues such as economic governance and regional integration and in the enhancement of economic growth. The Platform will also feed the political dialogue between the two continents and allow for improved EU support for African governance initiatives such as the African Peer Review Mechanism and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. Through the creation and facilitation of an open space for all key African and European stakeholders; continental institutions such as the African Union and European Commissions, member states, civil society and private sector, to play an active role, the Platform will contribute to enhancing democratic governance policies and respect for human rights on both continents. Linked to this, the African Governance Architecture, the evolving political and institutional framework to facilitate, coordinate and promote democracy, governance and human rights in Africa, and an African Governance Platform (AGP), a mechanism for strengthening dialogue, coordination and synergy amongst African Union structures with a formal mandate in governance, democracy and human rights, including Regional Economic Communities, with a view to enhancing their capacity and optimising their impact, will be launched at a Summit on the Shared Values of the African Union to be held in January 2011. In addition to strengthening governance on the continent, the AGP should further help to facilitate a more balanced dialogue with external partners such as the EU in the framework of the JAES. ECDPM and AGI will remain involved in supporting the further refining of the details of the platforms.