|
Organization of African Unity (OAU), established 1963 at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by 37 independent African nations to promote unity and development; defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of members; eradicate all forms of colonialism; promote international cooperation; and coordinate members' economic, diplomatic, educational, health, welfare, scientific, and defense policies. The OAU was, at the time, the most significant result of Pan-Africanism. The organization mediated several border and internal disputes and was instrumental in bringing about majority rule and the end of apartheid in South Africa, which in 1994 became the 53d nation to be admitted to the organization. In 1997, OAU members established the African Economic Community (AEC), envisioned as an African common market; the AEC signed an agreement with regional African economic groupings that was intended to lead to harmonization of policies of those common markets.
A more radical expansion and transformation of the OAU was adopted at LomE, Togo, in 2000, in the form of the Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU). The AU is a successor organization to the OAU with greater powers to promote African economic, social, and political integration, and a stronger commmitment to democratic principles. Designed somewhat along the lines of the European Union and strongly promoted by Libya's Muammar Qaddafi, the AU, when fully realized, will have a General Assembly, Executive Council, Pan-African Parliament, African Central Bank (and eventual common currency), African Monetary Fund, and other organs and agencies. The establishing act was ratified in 2001, and in July the OAU held its last summit as the AU came into existence. The OAU continued to function, however, during a yearlong transition period, until the first official summit of the AU was held in July, 2002.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2003, Columbia
University Press.
Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
|
