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January 25, 2008:
Semira says African CSOs should engage actively with the African
Union for continental development |
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Wro Semira Alhadi, Acting Director of Christian Relief and Development Association
(CRDA) said African Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and coalitions are doing their level best for the
people in the continent. On her key note address on the two days conference held at Ghion Hotel from
January 23-24, 2008, Wro Semira underlined the need to engage African Civil Society in the African Union
to drive the agenda of the Union through the people in consistency with the principle enshrined in the
constitutive Act of the African Union.
She further emphasized on the need for a constructive engagement of CSOs with the African Union and of
working together in a spirit of partnership.
“The African Union also has to create a bigger space for CSOs and Citizens’ participation. It has to
build on the already existing partnership of the Union with members of the African Civil Society in the
framework of the ECOSOC,” Semira says.
She stressed the importance of building a partnership between governments and all segments of civil
society so as to strengthen solidarity and cohesion among peoples and to make Africans both the actors in
and beneficiaries of the structural changes engendered by development.
The A/Director suggested that the AU and its member states should take into consideration the
recommendations made on the conference in their decision making process.
African Civil Society Organizations should also meet regularly during the AU Annual Summits that are held
twice in a year, she added.
The conference was organized by Center for Citizens’ Participation in the African Union CCP-AU) whose
steering committee members are Action Aid Ethiopia (AAE), Afroflag Youth Vision (AYV), African Center for
Humanitarian Action (ACHA), Christian Relief and Development Association (CRDA), Oxfam GB, African Rally
for Peace and Development (ARPD), and Organization for Social Justice in Ethiopia (OSJE) with the
objective to strengthen the engagement of African CSOs’ with the AU.
To download the Communiqué of the Conference (PDF)
click here.
If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader you can download it free from the
Acrobat Web Site.
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