The African Union: The First Ten Years

(Hardback)

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This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the African Union during the organizations first ten years of existence. It takes the reader through the various intergovernmental processes that preceded and followed the establishment of the Union and through the workings of key organs such as the Assembly of Heads of State, the Council of Ministers, the Pan African Parliament and the Commission. The study argues that the African Union represented a rational choice of its member states, who saw it as a means to advancing their individual and collective preferences for liberation, peace and security, good governance and socio-economic development. It maintains that the African Union did not only make marked progress in a number of areas; the Union also established norms that had transformational effects on military and political elites at country and regional levels. However, like in most agent-principal relations, the autonomy of the Union was limited in many ways, and this affected the Unions effectiveness in such areas as human and socio-economic development, as well as in sustaining peace support operations. At a more general level, the study argues that the African Union offers clear insights into integration as a multidimensional process that no single theoretical tradition can explain in a comprehensive manner. The authors response to such a theoretical limitation is fusionism, an integrated approach that amalgamates various analytical traditions in order to provide a better explanation of the processes of international integration. The detailed analysis and bold proposals will undoubtedly make the study appealing not only to specialists in African Studies, but equally to a broader spectrum of international relations and development scholars.

Reviews

An excellent, detailed, and lucid account of the historical perspectives, achievements, and challenges of the African Union in its first 10 years of existence, contributing to filling the gap in available published material on the Union. Authored by someone who has interacted with the Union in different capacities, including as his countrys representative, the book is a must read for all interested in having a better and a deeper understanding of one of Africas premier continental organizations. -- Maxwell M. Mkwezalamba, Alternate executive director, International Monetary Fund. Former Commissioner for Economic Affairs at the African Union Commission.
Africa is a question whose answer is as huge, as complicated and as difficult as the Continent is big and diverse. Africa is, and shall remain, an enigma for a long time to come. Of the tomes of analysis and prescriptions, often over-simplified or patronizing, few insights are given into the belly of the beast to be able to understand sufficiently what lies at the heart of Africa, its problems and prospects. By pointing to integration, Dr Omar Touray is pointing us in the right direction and to a substantial part of the answer to the African question. That is the advantage of being the insider and the participant that he has been in birthing the African Union which is the pre-eminent continental institution for promoting and coordinating Africas integration efforts. This book is also a source of valuable information, not only as a compendium of the AUs/Africas continental policy frameworks on everything from peace and security, to agriculture, to health and education, human rights, gender, trade and development, terrorism, immigration, trafficking in persons, drugs and arms, corruption, etc., etc. but, in most cases, also brings and insiders perspective of how these frameworks were conceived, the main actors and the compromises that had to be made. It goes further to highlight limitations in the policy frameworks and the statuses of implementation; making the point that while Africa has an abundance of policy frameworks few of these are ever implemented, not least because of the AUs limited autonomy or lack of enforcement authority. Another important point made in the book is that, whatever its weaknessesand they are manythe OAU/AU has, on balance, accomplished much particularly with respect to its core mandate of decolonization of the continent, settling border disputes between Member States, dealing with disease epidemics like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, coordinating Africas responses or positions in international for a and, much more than people ever give the AU credit for, its role in conflict prevention, management, resolution and peace-keeping where the AU is often the first responders, as was the case in Mali, Somalia, Central African Republic, Somalia and South Sudan. It is in this regard that the book makes the point emphatically that the AU, whatever its shortcomings, is not only indispensable to Africa, but that it is the pre-eminent organization of the continent and its importance has been, or should be recognized as such by any external partner wishing to have any meaningful engagement with Africa. It is no wonder that world leaders, including those of the United States, China, Japan, Germany, South Korea and others have trekked to Addis Ababa to the African Union Headquarters. Ambassador Tourays book is a treasure trove of information that should be on the book-shelf of every student of Africa, researchers, and anyone interested in Africa and/ or the African Union. -- Lazarous Kapambwe, Former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Zambia to the African Union (Addis Ababa) and to the United Nations (New York); 67th President of the UN ECOSOC; Advisor (Economic Affairs) to the Chairperson of the African Union Commission.

Author Bio

Omar Alieu Touray was for several years Permanent Representative of the Gambia to the African Union and Ambassador to Ethiopia with concurrent accreditation as High Commissioner to Kenya and South Africa. He had been Permanent Representative Designate to the United Nations in New York before he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Ambassador Touray holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva, Switzerland. He is the author of The Gambia and the World and several papers on international development and African affairs. He currently works at the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.