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.

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