Many scholars and critics have commented on the African Union’s (AU) financial dependence on external partners. As Oyoo Sungu said: “The AU has the bark of a bulldog, and the bite of a poodle. This is because it’s yet to become independent financially—and ultimately, politically.” Who really owns the AU agenda and, more importantly, its human rights institutions, such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR), and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC)?
While human rights institutions receive operational money from the AU, they receive very little funding for their programs. For example, for the 2016 budget for the AfCHPR, the operating budget was financed by Member States while the program budget was 100% funded by donor partners.
To combat this issue, in 2011 former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo proposed to raise money through taxes on airline tickets, text messages and hotel stays. However, countries whose main income derived from tourism criticized the proposal for focusing on the tourism sector while ignoring the oil and mineral sectors. Since then, the AU has made several decisions to move closer to financial independence. For example, during the January 2015 Heads of State and Government Summit, leaders made decisions on the report of alternative sources of financing the African Union and highlighted the need for an appropriate scale of assessment for Member States’ contributions. In the end, the leaders decided that: a) Member States would fund the operational budget at 100%; b) Member States would fund the program budget at 75%; c) Member States would fund the Peace support the operations budget at 25%.
