PAP Secretariat initiates technical frameworks with National Parliaments to promote AU policies and programmes

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The Secretariat of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) has embarked on a process of establishing administrative frameworks with National Parliaments in Africa with the aim to fast-track the ratification, domestication and implementation of the African Union (AU) legal instruments pertaining to human rights and democratic governance.

The process is underpinned by engagements with Clerks of national Parliaments and Clerks working with Committees on Human Rights and Governance matters. The engagements serve as a basis to develop administrative systems to ensure that AU legal instruments are tabled in African legislatures and mainstreamed into domestic legislation. The programme cadres with the PAP’s mandate to facilitate and oversee implementation of AU policies and programmes; and coordinate the harmonisation of these policies in Regional Economic Communities and their parliamentary fora.

The proposed technical working sessions will focus on AU legal instruments which promote good governance, respect for human rights, justice, and the rule of law in Africa, in accordance with Aspirations 3 and 6 of Agenda 2063 of the AU. These instruments include the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights in Africa; African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance; African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child; African Youth Charter; Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa; and the Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community relating to the Pan-African Parliament.

Mr Vipya HARAWA, Clerk of the PAP believes that strategic partnerships with Africa’s Parliaments on collaborative technical mechanisms to monitor the ratification and domestication of AU legal instruments will pave the way for the incoming Bureau of the PAP to engage with Presiding Officers of these parliamentary institutions at the political level as part of promoting human rights and good governance on the continent.

“Our consultations with Clerks of national Parliaments seek to put in place administrative frameworks for the implementation of norms, standards, decisions, and recommendations of the AU by member states. This will enable our political leadership to hit the ground running and get on with the business of ensuring that the PAP remains a platform for African citizens to participate in the affairs of the AU, especially in the areas of human rights and good governance. Throughout this programme with secretariats of national Parliaments we are aiming to address all technical hurdles affecting implementation at the national level through Parliaments,” says Mr Harawa.

The initial phase of the campaign currently underway undertaken by the Secretariat of the continental Parliament targets various deliberative organs in countries such as Algeria, Benin, Congo DRC, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa and Togo.

The ongoing activity is being implemented under the auspices of the African Governance Architecture (AGA) project. AGA is inspired by the Constitutive Act of the AU that expresses the AU’s determination to ‘promote and protect human and people’s rights, consolidate democratic institutions and culture and ensure good governance and the rule of law’. It is a “platform for dialogue between the various stakeholders” who are mandated to promote good governance and strengthen democracy in Africa, in addition to translating the objectives of the legal and policy pronouncements in the AU Shared Values.