Deepening African regional governance: An assessment of the Pan African Parliament´s capacity to attract and grow legislative competence

An HSRC Policy Dialogue which will investigate political and institutional challenges relating to the legislative competency of the Pan African Parliament. While the paper focuses on the PAP, it is hoped that this presentation will show some of the greater issues facing regional governance and regional integration in Africa.

Institutionally, while there are arguments for or against legislative transformation, one major issue that needs attention is the level of preparedness by regional parliaments to take up the complicated task of law making and the responsibilities required in terms of specialisation, research and knowledge competencies, resource and capacity generation. Moreover, these institutional and political dimensions should also be taken into a broader consideration of the composite character of Trans National Regional Organisations (TNRO) in general and the African regionalism environment in particular. For instance, the AU is an equally new development with huge capacity and competency challenges, also state systems in Africa is very diverse and as such collective initiatives are very difficult to manage.
For more information ...