AU Monitor

Through the provision of high quality, timely information, news and analysis, the AU Monitor aims to strengthen African civil society and citizen engagement with the African Union (AU) and its organs in the interest of promoting peace, justice, equity and accountability. The AU Monitor has a vision of a people-driven African Union that is accountable to African civil society and citizens.

In order to bridge the gap between civil society organisations and the AU, the AU Monitor provides information, training and a platform for advocacy. The objectives of the AU Monitor are to provide:

• Up-to-date news, information and analysis on the African Union, its proceedings and decision making, and in-depth research on salient pan-African issues.
• A platform to highlight civil society advocacy campaigns before the African Union and its organs and enable coordinated engagement with the AU
• Training on the concepts, values and institutions of pan-Africanism.

The AU Monitor was established in January 2006 by Fahamu in response to a pressing need expressed by civil society organisations who sought to engage the debate around and challenge the Sudanese bid for chairmanship of the African Union. As it became clear that the services provided by AU Monitor continued to be extensively sought by civil society organisations across Africa, Fahamu solicited funding from Oxfam GB and the Open Society Institute to expand the work of the AU Monitor to meet these needs.

The AU Monitor is currently available on-line through:

• A regularly updated blog
• An AU Monitor column in Pambazuka News
• An RSS feed both from the AU Monitor blog and in Pambazuka News to enable people to have content displayed on other websites or fed directly into a news reader where every update of information is immediately transmitted
• An AU Monitor subscriber list.

In addition to providing news and information, the AU Monitor produces special reports of relevance to its mission. These reports are published in the AU Monitor and in Pambazuka News. Download the special issue of Pambazuka News on the United States of Africa.

Hawa Ba of Fahamu issuing an African Citizen’s Passport to Hon Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, foreign minister of Senegal during an AU Summit in Accra