On March 18th 2004, 256 citizens step forward and assume their new role as pan African parliamentarians. The inauguration of the pan African parliament in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this week is a major significant step for continental unity.

We in Africa must celebrate the inauguration but immediately place on its agenda the challenge of negotiating better global terms for Africa around debt, trade and aid. Yet, this is only half the agenda. The pan African Parliament must be empowered with research and communications facilities to legislate laws, monitor compliance of African states to agreed standards of governance and human rights and lastly, popularise the major protocols and instruments of the African Union. It must be enabled to receive representation by individuals and associations representing interests affected by international or continental public policies or practises. Simply, it must be able to intervene decisively to protect human rights in member states.

The treaty establishing the pan African Parliament states its vision as “a common platform for African peoples and their grassroots organisations to be more involved in discussions and decision-making on the problems and challenges facing the continent”. The Parliament shall provide oversight for the budget of the AU, harmonisation of policies towards regional integration and make recommendations that promote human rights, democratic institutions and good governance among other functions. During the first five-year term of its existence, the Parliament shall “exercise advisory and consultative powers only [article 11]”. Most African countries have nominated five legislators of which one must be a woman from national parliaments and deliberative organs.

The three-day event will be presided over by AU Chairperson H.E. President Joachim Chissano of Mozambique in the presence of several heads of state and citizens past and present. The spirits of Yaa Asantewa, Nkrumah, Ben Bella, Bibi Titi, Nyerere, Mbuya Nehanda, Sobukwe and Kenyatta will, no doubt, be there to see this long unfulfilled dream come to fruition. Yet, the revitalisation of state Pan-Africanism occurs in a rapidly changing international policy context.

The hope of new approaches to old problems of inequitable trade relations and inadequate aid flows over 2001-2 were severely punctured by a return to aid scepticism, a pervasive anti-terrorist lens and the subsequent undermining of multi-lateralism in 2003. In 2004, these developments unfortunately seem set to continue crowding out national sovereignty and dominating the policy discourse on and in Africa for the next three years. It is in this context that the pan African parliament and other organs of the AU must act and do so urgently.

On the surface, it would seem that the experience of parliamentary representation at national levels could strangle the potential of the new Parliament. At a rough estimate, across Africa there are over 9,210 national parliamentarians elected from Africa’s population of over 700 million people. That is, one legislator for every 76,000 people. However, most poor people in Africa, parliaments and legislative bodies seem disconnected from the day-to-day realities and challenges they face.

If the crisis of relevance seems stark in some national contexts, then at regional levels the challenge for parliamentarians is multiplied. 265 nominated legislators in a continent of over 700 million people (one pan African MP for every 2.6 million people) does not embody a high capacity for representative democracy, much less “a platform for African peoples and their grassroots organisations”. For example, this compares unfavourably with India where 795 MPs represent one billion people (one MP per 126,000 people).

For the first five years and until members are elected by universal adult suffrage, the credibility of the pan African Parliament cannot rest on their representational quality but on the issues they espouse, the causes they champion and the changes they bring to the lives of ordinary people across Africa. By doing this, the pan African Parliament can deepen its credibility and relevance to African peoples struggling with poverty and injustice across the continent.

* Irungu Houghton is pan African Policy Advisor, Oxfam GB

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