KIMIHURURA - A regional meeting on the popularization and ratification of the African charter on democracy, elections and governance for East African countries opened at Prime Holdings in Kigali Thursday.

The three-day workshop is jointly organized by the African Union department of political affairs in collaboration with the government of Rwanda. It mainly seeks to generate ideas on how to speed up the ratification and application of the charter by AU member states.

"The essence of this charter resulted from the observation that it is unconstitutional changes of government that are the basic cause of insecurity, instability and violent conflict in Africa," explained Christine Nyatanyi, the state minister in charge of community development and social affairs.

"We have encountered and continue to encounter some challenges within the governance process," stressed Julia Dolly Joiner, the AU Commissioner for political affairs.

"It is within the ambits of this spirit of democratic construction and reconstruction that AU Heads of States adopted this charter," she added.

She revealed that this meeting follows others that were held in Namibia and Lesotho last year. Another one – a consolidated West, North and Central regions meeting – was held in Bujumbura, Burundi in March 2008.

The AU Commissioner said that the need to hold a number of regional meetings to enhance active participation of all in taking the charter forward and ensuring ratification by member states was a key outcome of the Namibia meeting.

The objectives of the Kigali meet include sensitizing decision makers and other key stakeholders on the value and contents of the charter and developing a common perspective on how ratification will contribute to governance.

It is also looking to establish a common perspective on actions to be taken at regional and national levels towards ratification and, contributing towards the continental framework for action on popularization, ratification and application of the charter.

While noting that signing and ratification of the charter was a major challenge, it was also observed that it was borne from the major challenges that affect African states.

These include the problem of unconstitutional change of government, building a firm foundation for peace and security. Nurturing and consolidating democratic governance and citizen participation.

Credible elections, promoting sustainable human development and human security and combating corruption were also highlighted in addition to promoting gender equality in democracy and development.

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, the deputy director of the Millennium Campaign officiated the last session of the opening day.

The meeting also drew participants from the AU, UNDP, PAP, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) among others.

Ends