On 25 April, the Preparatory Committee for the Inclusive Political Dialogue (PCIPD) handed out its conclusions to President François Bozizé, initiating the 45 day period to organize the actual dialogue.

On this occasion, François Lonseny Fall, the UN Special Representative to the General Secretary, congratulated President Bozizé for the political will he demonstrated during the preparation phase and for his constant support to the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (CHD) who worked with the PCIPD. Mr Fall also reiterated the “UN determination to pursue its efforts in this important step in the life of the Central African nation”, which he hopes, “will encourage the rise of a lasting peace, necessary for a sustainable and appropriate development in the country.” Continue Reading »

17 April 2008
CAR’s historic security sector reform seminar came to a close Thursday evening with President François Bozizé declaring that the government would work to abide by the timeline established by participants. Continue Reading »

15 April 2008
CAR’s security sector reform seminar concluded its second session on Tuesday, completing presentations on the state of the country’s security and justice services and breaking into working groups focused on initial reform proposals. Continue Reading »

The government of the Central African Republic (CAR) will launch an historic, four-day seminar on security sector reform on Monday (14 April 2008), demonstrating the country’s willingness to move beyond its tumultuous past and advance the development objectives set out in its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. Continue Reading »

Important achievements have been made in the inclusive political dialogue initiated at the end of 2007 to put an end to the recurrent violence in the Central African Republic. Over the last three months, the dialogue’s Preparatory Committee (CPDPI) has managed to bring together all major political and military actors as well as reach consensus on the need to find a political solution to the country’s divisions.

All rebel movements, including the Popular Army for Democratic Restoration (APRD), which only joined the CPDPI last month, have committed to sit with the government, opposition parties and civil society in order to open a constructive dialogue. The committee’s final document will set general conditions for the dialogue and will be officially delivered to President François Bozizé in the coming days. This hand-over will mark the end of the preparatory stage and the beginning of the actual dialogue. Continue Reading »

Professor Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions visited the Central African Republic to inquire into extra-judicial executions in the recent past.

In his preliminary report, he states that “Up until very recently Government forces were burning entire villages to the ground and summarily executing large numbers of people. As of today, these abuses have fallen dramatically. But while President Bozizé has shown that he has the power to prevent the military from committing human rights abuses, it is still too early to conclude that the Government has definitively turned a new page.” A final, detailed report will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in June. We are posting his full statement below. Continue Reading »

Legislators in the Central African Republic (CAR) have unanimously approved a new law guaranteeing refugees protection and many other fundamental rights. The National Assembly adopted the Law on the Status of Refugees last Thursday, some six months after the draft was given a green light by the government’s Council of Ministers. Continue Reading »

Throughout much of Sub-Saharan Africa, incomes have risen considerably since the 1980s, albeit from a very low level. Calls for increased long-term development aid are now more frequent than ever.

In the Central African Republic, however, these trends have moved in the opposite direction. Incomes have hardly risen in more than 20 years, and development aid has fallen by about 60 per cent in real terms since 1985.

While poor governance is often cited as a reason for this development, CAR does not score any worse on governance indicators than most other African countries. Continue Reading »

The World Bank recently published the Worldwide Governance Indicators for 212 countries and territories over the period 1996–2006, for six dimensions of governance:

• Voice and Accountability
• Political Stability and Absence of Violence
• Government Effectiveness
• Regulatory Quality
• Rule of Law
• Control of Corruption

For the Central African Republic, the ratings have improved since 2003 in most dimensions, but overall governance in CAR is still rated as very poor. CAR performs best on the ‘Voice and Accountability’ dimension. There is also minor improvement in the ‘Government Effectiveness’ and ‘Control of Corruption’ values. However, the indicator for ‘Absence of Violence and Political Stability’ deteriorated sharply over the last 12 months.

The individual data sources underlying the aggregate indicators are drawn from a diverse variety of survey institutes, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations. The Bank has a cool interactive website that lets you analyse and compare the six aggregate indicators and the underlying data sources.

Click here to download the governance fact sheets for CAR