President John Evans Atta Mills, on Thursday urged Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Africa to operate within the context of the Economic Social and Cultural (ECOSOCC) setting for their activities to impact positively on the work of the African Union (AU)
President Mills made the call in a speech read for him at the opening of the First Session of the Standing Committee of the Permanent General Assembly of ECOSOCC in Accra.
The three-day meeting is to afford the Committee the opportunity to constitute cluster committees that would set ECOSOCC on the path to fulfilling the mandate given it by the AU at the AU summit in Sirte, Libya.
At Sirte, the AU mandated the Standing Committee of ECOSOCC to form cluster committees to which the various CSOs on the continent could belong. It also urged member states to support that process and requested for a full progress report to the Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the AU in June 2010.
ECOSOCC is an elected body of CSOs in Africa that has been given a critical advisory and consultative role in the framework of the AU.
It offers CSOs a seat at the roundtable that takes decisions on the present and future of the continent.
President Mills said the formulation of ECOSOCC was a reflection of the devotion of the AU leadership to the cause of ensuring that the process of African integration was people centred and people driven.
He therefore appealed to CSOs to work in close partnership with the governments and peoples of the continent to ensure that their activities are also people centred and people driven.
President Mills said even though CSOs are part of the people, they were not the totality of the people, saying that African governments, elected by the people are also part of the people and should therefore be accommodated by CSOs.
"ECOSOCC must not seek to place itself above the peoples and governments of Africa and claim the sole right to speak for all," he said.
He said those who seat at the roundtable to discuss Africa's progress, including CSOs, should demonstrate "Africanity", authenticity and commitment in their statues on ECOSOCC.
In a speech read on his behalf, Mr. Jean Ping, Chairman of the AU Commission, said the Union had recognized CSOs as full members to participate in the processes of policy formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
He said the composition of the clusters should therefore be such that, it permitted ECOSOCC to tap the potential of all CSOs on the continent by allowing them to affiliate with respective clusters.