The end of the cold war had pulled down the proxy cover for leadership and administrative inadequacies in and around Africa. The implication of this is in form of new sets of challenges for the continent and its leadership, in terms of devising concerted and workable strategies for combating the myriads of problems the continent has faced. For a continent that has remained volatile and vulnerable to external factors and factions, the need has emerged over the years, to initiate a process capable of operationalising emerging paradigms, concepts and new attitudes as a means of increasing the capacity of the continent to deal with its own problems by responding appropriately to the challenges posed by globalisation and the new world order. In practical terms, it is imperative that a strategic framework informs Africa’s engagement with the rest of the world. Such an agenda, must in turn, evolve within the framework of an African collective solidarity on issues of socio-economic development, integration, security and stability, democratisation and human rights. 

Within these broad challenges, the Africa Leadership Forum, as a continental civil society organisation has been able to locate a central role for itself. In consultation and active collaboration with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the ALF organised a series of consultative meetings culminating in the May 1991 Kampala Forum. This forum, which was attended by over 500 participants from Africa and other parts of the world, brought together presidents and peasants, professors and students, trade union leaders and employers of labour. The result of this meeting is the adoption of a comprehensive proposal for a Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Co-operation in Africa, (CSSDCA). This is known as the Kampala Document. 

The Kampala Document, in part, stipulated that peace, security and stability are inseparable conditions and basis for development and co-operation in Africa. 

The Kampala Document also provides a framework for collective action and for co-operation on continental, regional and international basis. It provides for co-operation among African states, between South and South, and between North and South; economic integration of African states in the African Economic Community; Joint development of common natural resources; inter-dependence based on beneficial co-operative relations with other developing and industrialised nations; supra-nationality based on the need to devolve certain key responsibilities to continental institutions. 

Although the CSSDCA was modelled after the Helsinki Process in Eastern Europe, it has been defined and shaped by the specific realities of the African environment. The CSSDCA process, thus has charted an invaluable course and mechanism for Africa’s development based on self-reliance, effective and responsive governance, regional integration and international co-operation. Over the years, the CSSDCA proposal, often described as Africa’s Magna Carta, has won the support of numerous Africa states and especially non-governmental Organisations, influential individuals and opinion leaders. It however, failed to garner the very crucial support from the Organisation of African Unity, OAU. The inability to secure the adoption of the CSSDCA proposals by the continental body itself was however, largely a result of the phobia the process has excited in vulnerable countries across the continent, which feared the process might provide an instrument for curbing their free reigns. This is to say that within the continental body itself, there is no concerted opposition to the process itself. And, the two countries that have overtly opposed it have done so purely on matters of national policy. 

However, while the Kampala Document had not received the kind of instant applause it deserves at the OAU level, it has nevertheless become a veritable resource base for policy formulation in some countries and within some regional or sub-regional organisations. For instance, the South African defence policy was largely informed by the provisions of the CSSDCA. Similarly, the SADC Inter-State Committee on Defence also drew largely from the Kampala Document. The OAU Secretary-General’s initiative on conflict management was also largely informed by security and stability calabashes of the CSSDCA. The Entebbe Joint Declaration of Principles, as signed by the US President Clinton and the Greater Horn region in March, 1988 also drew in large measure from the CSSDCA. All these indicate a various acknowledgement that the CSSDCA as a process has provided the much-needed compass for policy definition on the continent. Drawing from this conviction, the ALF has also adopted the Kampala Document as the guiding document for its activities. Other NGOs, Inter-governmental organisations, IGOs as well as governments have equally found the document profound and useful. Consequently, for almost a decade, and as an abiding commitment, the ALF has continually striven to broaden the base of acceptance and support for the CSSDCA, both in Africa and beyond. >>>continue