Working Paper 1.

Committee : African Union (AU)

Topic : Furthering Good Governance within Africa
Signatories : The Democratic Republic of the Congo, The Republic of Seychelles, The Republic
of Ghana, Burkina Faso, Republic of Rwanda, The Republic of Namibia, Central African Republic,
The Republic of South Sudan, the Republic of South Africa, The Republic of Tanzania,

ARTICLE 1
Justice of Law & Anti-corruption
1. Encourages member states to implement the AU Anti-corruption Framework, an umbrella
solution with the aims to detect and prevent corruption across the African Union, through the
following:
a. Guarantee of a fair trial: If there is suspected corruption, especially involving
government members and a trial is being held- in order to ensure the partiality of the
trial- the African Union and the African Union court of justice will be called upon to
encourage a fair trial in accordance with the relevant international human rights
instruments which concerned state recognises, which include but are not limited to:
i. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
ii. African Charter on Human and People’s Rights
b. Bank Secrecy and financial privacy:
i. Adopting measures necessary to empower courts and authorities to order the
confiscation/seizure of banking, financial, or commercial documents;
ii. African Union will work with member countries to conduct cross-border
investigations in an effort to track the possibility of money laundering;
iii. Data received through this investigation effort will be forwarded to domestic
countries or the Court of justice of the African union;
c. Deterrence and Inter-African Union Cooperation: by freezing foreign accounts and
facilitating the repatriation of stolen/illegally acquired assets to the countries of
origin;
2. Encourages the implementation of the AU Human Rights Report, a reporting system targeted
towards the public with the purpose to deter and investigate human rights abuses occurring in
community; through the following mechanisms:
a. This reporting system will take the form of the following but are not limited to:
i. Government call center;
ii. NGO-led call center;
iii. Online platform, etc;
b. The victims must refer to the articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR), the African Charter of Human and People’s Rights, and any other relevant
international human rights instrument recognised by concerned states, when
pin-pointing the specific human rights that has been violated;
c. The victims must fill in a form in which they must include:
i. The date, time and place of incident;
ii. Name and position of perpetrator(s);
iii. Names and addresses of any witnesses;
iv. Any other necessary information;
 d. Deterrence and punishment: After the provision of data from the reports, investigation
towards the perpetrator government will take place- in which the data and reports will
be send to the African court of justice and human rights for further investigation;

3. Strengthening of asset declaration to improve transparency in order to promote integrity of

government officials, deter public corruption, prevent abuse of power by officials, protect
assets belonging to public and public interests. Government officials including the President,
members of parliament, head of executive authorities and other political officials will be
required to disclose the following information but not limited to:
a. Official income pertaining to the officials
b. Gifts and sponsored travel
c. National and Foreign Bank accounts
d. Loans given or received by official, including from private individuals
e. Expenditures above a certain threshold
Following the asset declaration, a report system is needed to be implemented to track progress of
the countries’ officials as follows but not limited to:
a. Current progress on implementation of the African Union’s policies ,
b. Public response on the projects,
c. Any concerns, roadblocks, or problems to be addressed;
Failure to declare assets thoroughly and accurately will engender the imposition of sanctions;

4. Recommends Integrated Social Response System (ISRS) to improve transparency and

accountability of public services in Africa by utilising mobile technology which in terms of
response management from society to create discourse for the decision-making in every social
dimension and monitor human rights accountability; funding and resources assistance could
be done through local government monetary allocation or collaboration with related entities
that mainly focus on improving Africa capacity; this program as follows:
a. Enabling an online platform for society to provide their feedback on different issues
that matter to them directly to the local government response bodies;
b. Providing integrated services for the local community as assistance to help them and
as a hotline complaint issues regarding the social aid distribution. This service will
conduct discourse periodically to inform the progress of aid distribution in each area
with the help of local government and provision from society;

ARTICLE 2
Democracy & Transparency
1. Supports the collaboration of Transparency International and the African Union for a more
unified and transparent democratic Africa;
a. Local government units and the national government should report to their country’s
Transparency International team on such as but not limited to:
i. Ongoing and future projects,
ii. Yearly budget allocations,
iii. National and local issues,
b. With these information given by the local government units, Transparency
International will update the public via the following but not limited to:
i. website,
ii. leaflet,
iii. text message;
 c. Governments are to use their preferred media outlet based on statistics on what the
public majority will most likely use;

2. Encourages Access to Information web pages as they are a likely option in updating the public
on their local government unit’s projects;
a. The website will have sections to make information easier to access such as but not
limited to:
i. Agriculture,
ii. Economy,
iii. Politics,
iv. Human Rights,
v. Natural Disasters,
b. The “home” section will be the first displayed on the webpage and will have all the
important and prioritised updates listed to make it much more accessible
c. One-stop-shops are similar to computer shops in every municipality which will allow
citizens with unstable internet connection or no gadget to check the webpage

3. Reaffirms the use of SMS text messages as another great media outlet to constantly inform
citizens of a specific nation;
a. Since SMS text messages may be seen as “disruptive” or “spam” therefore only
urgent matters will be sent as updates,
b. SMS text messages will also be sent when there are community building events that
citizens can participate in,
4. Calls upon the use of leaflets sent to citizens with succinct information for the nation to
understand projects and possible warnings;
5. Further invites African nations to utilise the desired media outlet in clauses two, three, and
four based on the most effective way for citizens to access information;

ARTICLE 3
Civil Society

1. Recommends Generation Participation Calls (GPC), a program aimed to adopt a new

mindset for citizens by giving them the resources to proactively participate in defining and
mitigating the problems of their communities through interconnected and multidimensional
education; this program relies on:
a. Arranging community-based education and campaign in collaboration with NGOs,
media, schools, local governments, volunteerism, and private sectors to make a
learning environment for citizenship and democracy;
b. In collaboration with related private institutions in regards of Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR), providing courses that focus on the study of good governance
and providing free and paid certification courses which the certificate can be applied
for higher level of education or institutions application added competence values;
2. Recommends Road to Good Africa (RGA) program as an effort in increasing active, capable,
and cohesive civil society, promoting the importance of good civil responsibilities and
improving the contributions of civil societies to their respective government, the program is as
follows:
a. Engaging in campaigns and announcements by collaborating with relevant
Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and international societies such as The
African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) in building capability on civil
 responsibility, implementing participatory facilities, and other essential capabilities
needed for better participation of civil society;
b. Establishing education centers and aspiration collection facilities in marginalised
areas by collaborating with UN Bodies such as the United Nations Development
Program (UNDP) and providing inclusive education and access in participating in
development of good governance.

ARTICLE 4
Economic Mechanisms
1. Recommends African Economy Renew Program (AERA), an economic framework for Africa
to further build and nurture sustainable and innovative local-based economy systems to
empower the economic capacity in order to make the citizens capable of cooperating with the
African economy for long-term success; this program as follows:
a. Leveraging and promoting local African brands domestically and internationally by
adding values and innovation that benefits Africa’s economy as a whole;
b. Expanding the coverage and increasing funding of reskilling programs in digital and
innovative working models in partnership with domestic and international NGOs in
the relevant field;
c. Establishing a cohesive national strategy for attracting foreign capital into Africa in
partnership with provinces, while maintaining high standards for corporate
governance and transparency;

ARTICLE 5
Regional and Multilateral Cooperation
1. Recommends Members to dispatch three parliamentary legislators annually to engage in
multilateral diplomatic talks moderated by South Sudan to bolster governance in the African
region through collaboration; the scope of the summit includes but is not limited to:
a. Upholding the policy of good governance, without infringing on the sovereignty of
any member
b. Decreasing corruption
c. The issue of human rights
d. The issue of ethnic and/or armed conflict
e. Current developments in participating countries, such as but not limited to: New
policies and affairs regarding
i. Corruption rates
ii. Armed conflict
iii. Human rights
iv. Democracy/Freedom of civilians
v. Public Infrastructure
2. Recommends Governance Advancement Chamber (GAC), a program as an attempt to
promote and assist the importance of developed bureaucracy systems specifically as an
adjustment to good governance to improve public service and integrated policy on respective
countries; it also enhances the proper reformation of public administration and as a catalyst of
Agenda 2063, it follows:
 a. Introducing the proficiency of workshop to civil servants by coordinating major
sessions and conferences to acknowledge the cause, effect, and vision of good
governance including the fight against corruption, capacity building of civil society,
and progress in terms of achieving good governance,
b. Engaging proliferation of discourse by inviting expertise, AU policy makers, and
relevant government figures in collaboration with Non-Governmental Organisation
(NGO), volunteers, and related entities to all layers of society to highlight the
importance of active participation, and cohesive collaboration of regional and
national governments,
c. Emphasising the data transparency by implementing National Periodical Report
(NPR) for all the implementations done by the national government through check
and balance system and respective evaluation. It will also assess the compatibility
with existing African Union instruments and national policies regarding bureaucracy
transformation.
3. Encourages NGOs to instill a sense of participatory democracy in their projects like schools
by
a. Empowering said people in projects
b. Providing them opportunities to exercise democracy
4. Recommends Road to Good Africa (RGA) program as an effort in increasing active, capable,
and cohesive civil society, promoting the importance of good civil responsibilities and
improving the contributions of civil societies to their respective government, the program is as
follows:
a. Engaging in campaigns and announcements by collaborating with relevant
Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and international societies such as The
African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) in building capability on civil
responsibility, implementing participatory facilities, and other essential capabilities
needed for better participation of civil society.
b. Establishing education centers and aspiration collection facilities in marginalised
areas by collaborating with UN Bodies such as the United Nations Development
Program (UNDP). Providing inclusive education and access in participating in
development of good governance;

ARTICLE 6
Non-intervention policy
1. Supports the use of elections and petitions to encourage citizens to practice democracy in their
nations by allowing them to vote if they are willing to implement AU projects;
2. Approves citizens of a nation to receive leaflets with succinct information on the projects to
allow them to further understand what might be implemented;
3. Trusts those who are eligible to vote whether they agree or disagree with implementing AU
projects under the following standards not limited to;
a. Legal age of 18,
b. Citizens of the nation,
c. Any gender,
d. Any social class,
4. Strongly requests governments to implement African Union projects if majority of the votes
are for the implementation of projects;

ARTICLE 7
 Enforcement of Past Resolutions

1. Recommends the Implementation of Clear Sanction Mechanism in African Peer Review

Mechanism (APRM); the APRM has some built-in sanctioning mechanisms, but it builds
predominantly on soft law. High-level attendance has been poor, reviews have been short,
and the feedback imbalanced, consisting mostly of leaders praising each other’s achievements
(Turianskyi & Chisiza, 2018). Peer review and peer best practices are some of the most
effective considerations in decision making for achieving good governance, hence making it
valuable for countries to remain a member of APRM. Thus, it is important for the African
Union to implement a peer pressure sanction mechanism to effectively bring non-compliant
members to order. In The mechanism is as follows:
a. Severity of non-compliance: will be judged by APR Forum standards and is
negotiable by Member States, understanding that each country has different capacity
to participate in APRM;
b. First Level Sanction: Calling out non-compliant members of APRM by the
Committee of Participating Heads of State and Government (APR Forum); this is
done through reports, press releases, and forums;
c. Second Level Sanction: Implementing “naming and shaming” sanction by suspending
non-compliant members through declaring their status as inactive, effectively
suspending them. Member States would be given a chance to negotiate further
commitment and implementation of APRM with the APR Forum after Second Level
Sanction, to avoid falling to Third Level Sanction;
d. Third Level Sanction: Revokement of APRM membership.