The African Union Commission (AUC) through the African Governance Architecture – African Peace and Security Architecture (AGA-APSA) Secretariat held a workshop to engage in the formulation of a comprehensive AGA-APSA Citizen Engagement Strategy. AGA platform members; Regional Economic Communities (RECs); selected youth, women and Civil Society Organisation (CSO) representatives and experts; AUC departmental gender and youth focal persons; democracy, governance and human rights experts; and AGA-APSA Secretariat staff attended the workshop that took place from 22 to 26 August 2022 in Nairobi, Kenya.
The overall goal of the workshop was to evaluate and review the Youth Engagement Strategy (YES) and Women Engagement Strategy (WES) and to develop a CSO’s component to inform the development of a comprehensive Citizens Engagement Strategy. The workshop participants conducted an impact assessment of the existing AGA-YES and WES and worked on developing a comprehensive Citizen Engagement Strategy that will incorporate the revised youth, women and gender strategies.
The youth and women strategies have been instrumental in mainstreaming youth and women participation in democracy and governance however, the evaluation revealed some challenges encountered during implementation, which include the lack of financial and technical support; institutional capacity gaps; and entrenched inhibitive social cultural attitudes towards youth and women. These challenges have been a hindrance to effective and meaningful engagement of citizens, particularly youth and women. The five-day workshop concluded with the development a roadmap and timeline for the consolidation and finalization of the Draft AGA-APSA Comprehensive Citizen’s Engagement Strategy.
The Training for Peace (TfP) Programme has been one of the recognized key knowledge and capacity-building partners of the AUC, particularly for youth in governance and peace processes. The TfP Programme at ACCORD is an initiative funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
