Developmental Governance

Developmental Governance is as a multisectoral process product of multi-stakeholder interactions (public institutions, private actors, civil societies, individuals,…) at different territory levels (local, national, regional, continental and international) for a Rebuilding of the State in Africa.

The development is seen here as a long and complex process at the core of which is the human being, which does not come from outside and cannot be decreed.

It objectivizes in particular in the way from a system of social, economic and political rules based on personal relations and not-written codes, to a system established on strong institutions, impersonal law and endogenous appropriate written law.

The African Charter on the Democracy, Elections and Governance adopted in 2007 and the Tunis Consensus on Development Effectiveness (adopted by African Stakeholders on november 2010 with the strong coordination of NEPAD and AfDB) particularly testifies of this last dimension at the continental level.

How to explain the success of the concept of Developmental Governance? What is its genealogy? How to articulate through it, the inheritance of African traditions and proactive action for an appropriate and legitimate development? What relevant indicators for evaluation? Many questions which AGI will respond to, based on advances of reflection. Some elements may already be offered to some of these questions.

1) The concept of Developmental Governance is, at first, the product of the will of African stakeholders (francophone, Anglophone lusophones and Arabs) stemming from varied social sectors (public, private sector, civil society, traditional and religious authorities, local actors of the African Diaspora), and at different territory levels (local, national, transboundary, regional, continental and international) all involved in the Rebuilding of the regulation of African public space, to produce an African vision and to re-appropriate their future on the basis of a reflexive and critical inventory of fixtures of their past, of their current situation and of an inheritance of common values..

Through this notion, “Africa weaves its own mat” and attempts to “no longer sleep on the mat of others” (Ki-Zerbo, 1993.

In this sense, the concept of Developmental Governance is shared, proactive and not only reactive, unlike the meanings of Governance which have preceded it.

2) Governance is beside conceived in a holistic perspective, integrating good governance - understood here as economic and financial governance - as well as democratic governance.

Aside from these, environmental and natural resources governance, urban governance, corporate governance and e-governance, are designed as vectors and catalysts of the change of State/society relations in Africa.

Similarly idea: African institutions and mechanisms carrying these sectoral governance issues (AU, RECs, ECA, ADB, NEPAD, APRM, the African civil society organizations,..) both contribute, within the framework of an African Governance Architecture - in elaboration under the leadership of the of the African Union’s Commission - to the formalization of operational contents of Developmental Governance.

Three associated main themes already emerge from this notion:

* the necessary articulation between democracy and Human Rights;

* the economic and social transformations;

* the articulation between human security and sustainable development of Africa.

Each of these themes illustrates the aspiration of the peoples of Africa, because developmental governance has no meaning without the respect for Human Rights, search for individual and collective material welfare, conservation of a peace and security environment as well as their interactions.

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