IRC's Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) Project is one attempt to tackle the problem of high sexual violence incidence and lack of services for survivors of sexual violence. Since its inception in September 2002, the project has established three sexual assault centres in Sierra Leone that enable survivors of sexual assault to access appropriate, quality services and care following an incident of rape or other form of sexual assault. The project is implemented in partnership with various Government and non-government agencies.

The Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA) is a unique collaboration among eleven of the world's leading non-governmental human rights organizations to give protection to human rights defenders worldwide. The Martin Ennals Foundation now calls for nominations for the 2006 Award. For more details, see www.martinennalsaward.org, where you can also submit nominations online.

Mango is extending training to several new countries for the first time, including: Pakistan, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Sierra Leone. Each course is designed to meet the needs of different groups of NGO staff - some for financial staff, some for managers. More detailed course outlines for each of our core courses are available on request.

South African entrepreneur, Mark Shuttleworth, established the Shuttleworth Foundation in October 2000 with the belief that education is the key to unlocking the creative and intellectual potential of South African youth, allowing them to live the dream that ‘anything is possible’. The foundation’s main goal is to improve the quality of education in South Africa by investing in projects which offer unique and innovative solutions to educational challenges in an African society with a focus on science, technology, entrepreneurship and maths.

From Thursday, 29 September until Wednesday, 26 October there will be an on-line Global Forum involving the Global HRE listserv and six regional listservs. The topic will be the position of human rights education (HRE) vis-à-vis other "educations", such as education for democratic citizenship, peace education and global education.

A decade ago, Ubuntu was a word that shook apartheid South Africa. Today, it is a word that may be keeping Bill Gates awake at night. Ubuntu is an African word that is one of the founding principles of the new South Africa, and it also is the name of a new computer operating system developed by South African Mark Shuttleworth and his company Canonical. The word "Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language," writes Archbishop Desmond Tutu in "No Future Without Forgiveness." It means "you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have." Ubuntu Linux calls itself the "Linux for human beings.

African governments are half-heartedly liberalising their telecom industries and will stymie investment and innovation in the world's fastest-growing markets unless they change their ways, industry experts said. Africa's cell phone industry is booming, with subscriber numbers expected to hit 100 million by the end of the year from 40 million in 2002, and is arguably the continent's biggest business success story since gold was discovered in the 19th century. But with less than one in 10 people owning a phone and much fewer surfing the web, the poorest continent still lags behind the rest of the world and experts say fully-fledged competition is crucial to bridge the gap.

On 28 September 2005, free expression advocates in dozens of countries around the world will mark the third annual International Right to Know Day to call attention to the importance of access to information in democratic societies. Founded by the Freedom of Information Advocates (FOIA) Network, an umbrella group of 90 civil society organisations, International Right to Know Day aims to raise awareness about the need for governments to respect the right of citizens to access information held by public bodies. Access to information, or freedom of information, is seen by many as the key to strengthening participatory democracy and ensuring people-centred development. Thanks largely to the efforts of civil society organisations, more than 60 countries have enacted access to information laws, more than half of them in the last decade.

National campaigns and coalitions in Senegal, Australia, the UK, India, Germany, Ireland, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and many other countries are mobilising to lobby their ministers and parliamentarians ahead of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong this December. Plans include a European lobby in Brussels, and mobilisations at the Summit of the Americas in Argentina and at the WTO General Council meeting in Geneva.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites proposals from researchers for possible inclusion in its new multinational working group (MWG) on the theme of Africa and its Diasporas. The changing composition and geography of Africa's Diasporas, and the shifting re-composition of all aspects of the linkages between these diasporas and the continent, is one of the thematic areas at the core of the current intellectual agenda of the Council. The MWG is the flagship research vehicle employed by CODESRIA for the promotion of multi-country and multidisciplinary reflections on critical questions of concern to the African social research community.

The Africa Water Journalists Network seeks to promote dialogue, information exchange and coverage about water issues among African journalists. Its website provides news and information, and a database of more than 1,000 journalists who have joined the network. A blog allows journalists to share comments and opinions on various water-related issues.

Reacting to the intimidation and humiliation of a radio journalist by tribal elders in Kakua, the capital of the southern district of Bo, RSF has urged the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) to uphold the rule of law and remind traditional chiefs that the country is meant to be reconstructing along democratic lines. "Kakua's traditional chiefs are not supposed to have police or judicial powers," the organisation said. "Radio Kiss 104 FM's ordeal shows that political party influence over tribal structures poses a danger to democracy. UNAMSIL's mandate includes protection of human rights so it should ensure that the rule of law is respected throughout the country and that journalists do not have to submit to local clans."

Advocates of changes to land ownership in African countries often promote increased privatisation of land rights, giving ownership to individuals. This contrasts with traditional tenure systems which keep key land rights, including the right to sell, in the community.

By all accounts, the Bisasar Road Landfill in Durban is an unsavoury place. Plunked in the middle of an Indian suburb more than 20 years ago, the site spreads the odour of rotting garbage over the surrounding community and emits thousands of tonnes of harmful methane gas into the atmosphere each year. Strange as it may seem, though, the stench may turn out to be the smell of money - if a controversial carbon financing deal signed last year between the city and the World Bank gets off the ground. At the inaugural Carbon Expo held in Cologne last June, Durban's Landfill Gas to Energy project became the first in Africa to be financed through an emerging global market in carbon credits.

Trouble is brewing at newly established tobacco company, Alliance One Tobacco [Malawi] Limited where employees have petitioned their management to fire a consultant, accusing management of racism. The employees, in the petition, say the consultant, Simon Wray should leave the company within 24 hours and asked management to stop favouring whites at the company. But the Human Resources Director Paulette Kamkwende said that the incident that gave rise to the accusations has since been resolved. The accusations come barely a month after Dimon and Stancom Tobacco companies, two major tobacco companies merged to become Alliance One Tobacco [Malawi] Ltd.

This paper produced by DFID argues that social exclusion deprives people of choices and opportunities to escape from poverty and denies them a voice to claim their rights. This policy paper describes how DFID intends to build upon the work it has undertaken tackling social exclusion in Latin America and Asia, and ways it can enhance the work it has recently begun in Africa. The paper looks at the challenges posed by social exclusion, and the ways governments, civil society and donors can help to tackle them.

Six major US foundations have pledged US$200 million to strengthen higher education institutions in seven African countries. The money will be spent over the next five years in Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. Part of the initiative is an effort to dramatically increase access to the Internet in universities there. The commitment signals the re-launch of the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, set up in 2000 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Ford, MacArthur, and Rockefeller Foundations.

The Zambia Academy of Science, launched on September 16, will promote excellence in research and strengthen the country's capacity for science-led development, says its president. "The academy will also provide advice on specific scientific problems presented to it by the government and its agencies as well as the private sector," added Mwananyanda Lewanika in an interview with SciDev.Net.

The 2004 Uganda Human Rights Commission report is out and its major recommendation is that torture should be criminalised. According to the report, torture in the country is very serious and is not even declining significantly. While calling upon the state to ensure that all acts of torture falls under criminal law, the report also urges that they should be punished by appropriate penalties. Operatives of security agencies are viewed as major offenders in this regard.

Following two separate violent demonstrations, youths of the county have resolved to pursue peaceful co-existence by committing themselves to ensuring that the county remains peaceful. According to a release, the Bong County Youths made the promise at the end of a six- month Community Training Program in Gbarnga. The training program was implemented by the Development Education Network of Liberia, DEN-L, and funded by United States Aid for International Development (USAID) and the Liberia Transition Initiative, (LTI).

Bowing to huge international pressure, major pharmaceutical companies have made significant efforts to make their patented antiretroviral drugs available in Africa while ensuring that they – not generic manufacturers – maintain market control in the continent. Globally, the ARV market accounts for less than 3% of pharmaceutical sales worldwide and Africa’s portion of this has been negligible. However, with the World Health Organisation’s campaign to get three million people on ARV treatment by the end of this year (the 3-by-5 campaign), there has been a scramble to ensure improved supplies. The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has also made cash available for some of the continent’s poorest nations to buy ARV drugs.

A local consortium of pro-democracy and human rights organizations, under the aegis of Coalition Against Corruption (CAC), has challenged the Chairman of the National Transitional Government of Liberia, Charles G. Bryant, to face Liberia’s corruption pandemic squarely by inaugurating domestic mechanisms. In a letter to Chairman Bryant, CAC said: “We want to encourage you to go beyond this courageous act, by ensuring that the needed domestic anti-corruption mechanisms are put into place: a National Anti-corruption Prosecutor’s Office, a Law on Access to Public Information and a Special Anti-corruption Law, making corrupt practices in the public and private sectors felonious.”

As European Union trade chief Peter Mandelson prepares to kick off a new phase of trade negotiations in the Caribbean this week, trade groups are asking the bloc to shelve regional agreements in order to avoid a "development disaster". The Britain-based Traidcraft and the Kenya-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) EcoNews Africa say the bloc's current proposals would require developing countries to open up their markets rapidly to European corporations, threatening jobs, industries, government revenues and public services in some of the poorest countries in the world. Both organisations are members of a 'Stop EPA' campaign launched in October last year.

The adoption of an international treaty against forced disappearances at the United Nations is a great step forward in the fight against this crime, said Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists, the International Federation of Human Rights and Human Rights Watch. The four human rights organizations called on all U.N. member states to ensure that the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance is quickly adopted by consensus in the U.N. General Assembly. All countries should ratify the treaty as soon as possible.

A group of unidentified armed men in military uniform crossed into Chad from Sudan early on Monday, killing 36 herders and stealing livestock, the Chadian government said. In a statement on Tuesday, the government said the attack took place in the village of Madayouna in the Ouaddai region of eastern Chad. "The riposte by the armed forces stationed in the region was rapid," the statement said. Seven of the assailants were killed and eight detained, one of whom later died in detention, it added. Two Chadian soldiers were killed and five injured.

Seventeen employees of Zimbabwe's state-run oil procurement company have been suspended following investigations into the theft of tens of thousands of litres of fuel, the Sunday Mail has reported. The state-run newspaper, quoting unnamed sources, said 38 000 litres of petrol and diesel had disappeared on one day recently and that millions of litres could have been stolen since the beginning of the year. The oil depot has had to cancel night shifts in an attempt to prevent theft. The stolen fuel had supplied the black market, where it sold for prices way above those set by the government, the newspaper said. It had also been smuggled into neighbouring countries

Will the MDG targets be met if current development trends continue? Not according to the 2005 Human Development Report (HDR), which cites inequality as the issue of prime concern in the fight against poverty. The report argues that economic development alone will fail to produce sustained poverty reduction. The focus needs to be redirected towards improving equality - narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor, men and women and eliminating regional disparities.

A new association of widows in Swaziland hopes to raise greater awareness of the plight of women who have lost their husbands to AIDS. "We grow in numbers daily - the epidemic is creating a nation of widows," said Lindiwe Vilakati, a member of Litsemba Lebafelokati (SiSwati for "Hope of the Widows") Association. "In a sense, we are the worst sufferers of AIDS," said the chairwoman, Nonhlanhla Nene. "The main activity of our association thus far has been the burial of our members." Sandwiched between its giant neighbours, South Africa and Mozambique, the small kingdom of Swaziland has the world's worst HIV/AIDS rate, with close to 40 percent of adults infected. Widows who do not succumb to AIDS contracted from their husbands often live out their lives in dire poverty.

A senior United Nations official has given a damning assessment of the Sudanese government's efforts to bring peace to Darfur. Special UN advisor on preventing genocide Juan Mendez said Khartoum had done little to disarm militias or end the "culture of impunity" there. He said Sudan's authorities remained in denial about the extent of the problem. Mr Mendez was speaking after his second trip to Darfur, where the conflict has displaced more than two million people.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe had wife- battering charges against his spokesman George Charamba thrown out to avoid damaging his office's reputation, it has emerged. Government officials said Mugabe's office covered up charges that Charamba had allegedly assaulted his wife, Rudo, during a row over a missing gun on February 24 last year. The incident allegedly took place at the couple's Mandara home in Harare. Charamba is said to have a black belt in karate. The officials said the case was dropped against the will of police commissioner Augustine Chihuri after Mugabe intervened.

A new publication shows how Sudanese women, in their diversity and spirit of unity, are defining the critical development agenda for the country in the coming decade. "Towards Achieving the MDGs in Sudan: Centrality of Women's Leadership and Gender Equality" endeavors to provide a permanent record of some of the historic actions by Sudanese women on the agenda for peace and development, within the spirit of global partnership.

Since the end of the Cold War, international efforts to end civil conflict in Africa, Latin America and Asia have included efforts on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants. Successful DDR programs have been seen as an important component of peace-building to reestablish legitimate governance and to prevent the recurrence of future conflict. In this working paper, CGD Non-Resident Fellow Jeremy Weinstein, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, analyzes for the first time what determines the success of post-conflict demobilization and reintegration.

Namibia has commissioned a second uranium mine despite strong opposition from human rights and environmental groups who fear it could pose an ecological hazard. The Langer Heinrich Mine, 80 km east of the coastal town of Swakopmund in the protected Namib Naukluft Park, was officially opened last Thursday. The mine is wholly owned by Australian exploration and development company Paladin Resources, which got a government go-ahead last month after being awarded a 25-year mining licence by the Ministry of Mines and Energy.

At least 700 people have registered more than once to vote in Tanzania's semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, the head of the local electoral body said on Tuesday. "More names are likely to be discovered," Masauni Yussuf, the chairman of the Zanzibar Electoral Commission, said in the statement. "We are still going on with the verification exercise.". On 30 October, Tanzanians are to elect a new national president, parliament and ward councillors. Voters in Zanzibar and the neighbouring island Pemba will also choose a local president and parliament.

Teachers and administrators of Burundi's primary schools faced logistical problems on Monday as hundreds of thousands of primary school students lined up to enroll for the first time for the 2005-2006 school year which the president promised would now be free. "We will not be able to cope with the increases," Donat Hatungimana, a primary school teacher in the capital, Bujumbura, said. The ministry projects that some 2,400 extra teachers and 2,400 new class rooms will be needed.

Pambazuka News 222: The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on Women’s Rights in Africa: From ratification to the realisation of African women’s human rights

Pambazuka News has been supporting the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights Coalition (SOAWR). Ahead of a conference co-convened by the African Union (AU) and SOAWR to be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia between 27 and 30 September,
this edition consists of editorials written by SOAWR members and updates about the progress of the campaign from across the African continent.

The conference seeks to chart out the next steps for the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women. With 13 countries having ratified the Protocol, attention needs to shift from a focus on campaigning for ratification to strategies for domestication and implementation for rights realisation by African women and girls.

The conference will take place at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It will bring together 40 senior staff from women’s organisations, research institutions, African governments and the AU. Key outputs will include a conference communiqué and a booklet on strategies for implementation. It is expected that the conference will influence implementation strategies within the AU and at least twelve African countries.

Background

On July 11, 2003, the Heads of State and Government of the AU adopted the Protocol. A year later, Heads of State and Government of the AU adopted the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa in which they undertook to sign and ratify the Protocol by the end of 2004. Ongoing campaigns and pressure by the AU and NGOs have since contributed to the ratification of the Protocol by 13 countries namely Cape Verde, Comoros, Djibouti, Gambia, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa.

The Protocol legitimises the struggles for gender equality and the promotion and protection of women’s human rights as an African struggle. Despite its imperfections, it is a potential force for freedom and justice for African women. If properly harnessed, it could serve as an effective empowerment tool for African women. Empowering African women, who make up more than half of the continent’s population, will have a positive multiplier effect that will end with happier, healthier and wealthier African families.

As more countries ratify the Protocol, the challenge shifts from ratification to domestication, implementation and rights’ realisation. From experience with the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and national legal frameworks, a number of obstacles will stand in the way of harnessing the potential force of the Protocol. At the societal level, the strength of patriarchal (interpretations of) culture, tradition and religion, the co-existence of multiple legal systems and the public/private dichotomy continue to disempower African women. At an organisational level, the weakness of the African women’s movement and key alliances and partnerships within it continue to mitigate against African women’s empowerment. At the national level, gender machineries in several African countries are characterised by powerlessness and poor resources.

Furthermore, there is little awareness about the Protocol and the standards that it sets for Africa. This fact is compounded by the low use of international human rights instruments and the poor record of compliance of States Parties to these instruments. The Protocol itself does not contain sanctions for non-compliance. And uncertainties abound regarding the merger of the Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Court of Justice of the AU. It is as yet unclear how the merger will affect the AU’s capacity to promote and protect human rights. In addition, countries will also have to make a declaration accepting the competence of Court to receive individual complaints before their citizens enjoy its protection.

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SMS messages in support of the Solidarity for African Women's Rights campaign:

1. Thanx 4 the update. Its gd progress. I'll share the information with my colleagues. Tanzania

2. Hooray 4 the gd news. Uganda

3. Youth dev't forum uganda do recommend the ratification of women's rights in africa and world over,and we do commit ourselves to advocate for it and stand, Uganda

4. Great news! Thanks 4 the hard work sisters, South Africa

5. Great News. We should continue our fight for more ratification. DRC

6. I am in support of the ratification of the protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Nigeria

7. African leades: Walk the talk on women's rights. Ratify and implement. Kenya

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Contents

* Challenges of Domestication: The Protocol To The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on The Rights of Women in Africa

Once 15 African countries have ratified The Protocol To The African Charter On Human and Peoples' Rights On The Rights of Women in Africa, its provisions will have to be included in country-level legislation. This is the next challenge facing the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights Campaign, says Sarah Mukasa, who assesses some of the potential stumbling blocks inherent in the domestication process. “It is imperative that strategies adopted for this campaign take into account these factors and prepare for the resistances that will surely come,” she warns.

* HIV/AIDS – A challenge to the successful implementation of the protocol

HIV/AIDS poses an enormous challenge to gender equality in Africa, states Elize Delport. She writes that The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa has the potential to ensure the development of a strategic human rights response specifically suited to those most affected by the pandemic – the women of sub-Saharan Africa.

* Regulation of information during conflict situations: The role of women

If women are to participate fully in brokering peace, in decision making, and in post conflict reconstruction, it is imperative that they work in partnership with all forms of media at their disposal to raise awareness, to ensure participation of women of all ages, to influence policy decisions, and to ensure accountability on the part of governments, NGOs, and international organizations, writes Amie Joof- Colé?

* Strategies for civil society organisations in moving from ratification to implementation in West Africa

Most West African countries have signed and ratified international and regional instruments on women's rights, notes Aminata Dieye. But despite the legal arsenal, statutory inadequacies and weaknesses translate into continued existence of discriminatory provisions. It has become crucial, she argues, that organisations are better mobilised and more vigilant so that change in African women's lives becomes a reality. (French version also available)

* Who will Bell the Cat? Restoring Rights to African Women

Macro-economic reform, armed conflict and weak democratic political institutions are some of the limitations to enacting laws that protect women. A strong political will by African governments against these forces is crucial for the enforcement of laws that protect women, writes Eve Odete.

* Women and the MDGs

In 2000, 189 world leaders signed the Millennium Declaration and committed to "free all men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty". As a result eight Millennium Development Goals were formulated with a target to half poverty by 2015. The 2005 World Summit of the UN General Assembly will be held from 14-16 September to review progress towards these goals. Karoline Kemp examines what the MDGs say about gender and how they relate to African women.

* Women’s rights: Campaign updates from around Africa

HIV/AIDS poses an enormous challenge to gender equality in Africa, states Elize Delport. She writes that The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa has the potential to ensure the development of a strategic human rights response specifically suited to those most affected by the pandemic – the women of sub-Saharan Africa.

Introduction

The HIV/AIDS pandemic arguably poses the greatest threat to the promotion and attainment of gender equality in Africa. It has the power and potential to nullify each and every human right and to erode any development gains. Conversely, the AIDS virus can only flourish when socio-economic rights like the right to adequate health care and proper nutrition are violated. It is only if the rights to equality and non-discrimination are violated, that the virus can take advantage of the social, political and economic vulnerability this creates to flourish unabated among women. Far from being merely a health issue, the pandemic is now recognised as a human rights and development crisis. Gender inequality is at the root of this crisis.

The statistics are alarming and clearly expose gender fault lines:
In sub-Saharan Africa, approximately 23 million adults aged 15-49 are living with HIV/AIDS. Of these 57 % (13.1 million), are women. This region is burdened with the highest HIV prevalence rates and displays the most disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women and girls. In 1985, roughly half a million women and half a million men were living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the number of women living with HIV/AIDS relative to men has increased every year. Particularly affected are young women aged 15-24, who are currently more than three times more likely to be infected than young men.

The impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls

Gender roles and relations have a significant influence on the course and impact of the HIV/ AIDS pandemic. It is acknowledged that HIV/AIDS poses a greater threat to the lives and futures of women and girls. Gender inequality and power imbalances between women and men in every society heightens the vulnerability of women to infection and leaves them with heavier burdens when HIV/AIDS enters households and communities.

Research shows that being a female or male influences how a person experiences and responds to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Gender influences include:

? Individual risk and vulnerability to HIV infection:
? The experience of living with HIV/AIDS;
? The impact of an individuals HIV-related illness and death within a family or community; and
? Responses to the pandemic at the individual, community and national level.

Understanding the influence of gender relations on the ability of individuals and communities to protect themselves from HIV and effectively cope with the impact of AIDS, is crucial for expanding the response to the epidemic.

The centrality of gender inequality to the pandemic

The United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) convened in June 2001 marked a critical turn in the awareness of the international community around the centrality of gender inequality and discrimination to the pandemic. On this occasion, delegates from 180 countries acknowledged that gender equality and the empowerment of women are fundamental elements in reducing the vulnerability of women and girls to HIV/AIDS.

In the Declaration adopted at the UNGASS, States committed themselves to a wide range of actions to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic, many of which address its gender dimensions. States are called upon to review the social and economic impact of HIV/AIDS at all levels of society, especially on women and the elderly, particularly in their role as caregivers, and in families affected by HIV/AIDS and address their special needs. States committed themselves to intensify efforts to challenge gender stereotypes and attitudes, and gender inequality in relation to HIV/AIDS, encouraging the active involvement of men and boys. Furthermore, the Declaration calls for national strategies to promote women’s full enjoyment of their human rights and for the elimination of discrimination against women. However, the question the Declaration leaves open is what women’s human rights actually are in the context of the pandemic.

In an innovative publication entitled ‘Turning the tide – CEDAW and the gender dimensions of the HIV/AIDS pandemic’, UNIFEM explains how, as a blueprint for women’s human rights, CEDAW is a critical tool for assisting us to understand what gender equality and the elimination of discrimination will require. In many of the critical areas for addressing HIV/AIDS from a gendered perspective - whether it is access to health services, care and care-giving, women’s leadership and participation or the ability to negotiate safer sex - CEDAW provides the guiding human rights principles and directives for action which, if realised, can turn the tide of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa has the potential to build on the framework that CEDAW provides and to ensure the development of a strategic human rights response specifically suited to those most affected by the pandemic – the women of sub-Saharan Africa.

The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa

Explicit reference to HIV/ AIDS in the Protocol is limited to Article 14, which deals with health and reproductive rights. This article provides that:

“1. States Parties shall ensure that the right to health of women, including sexual and reproductive health is respected and promoted. This includes:

d) The right to self - protection and to be protected against sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS;
e) The right to be informed on one’s health status and on the health status of one’s partner, particularly if affected with sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, in accordance with internationally recognized standards and best practices…”

The implementation of these provisions is likely to be fraught with practical and ethical difficulties. Given the vast body of research that points to the gender and human rights dimensions of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it is rather unfortunate and disappointing that the Protocol seemingly reverts to the out-dated approach of classifying the pandemic merely as a health issue.

While issues of gender and HIV/AIDS are not explicitly mainstreamed in the text of the Protocol, all is not lost provided we make every effort to ensure that issues of gender and HIV/AIDS form an integral part of our implementation strategies. Many articles in the Protocol provide appropriate responses to, and protection against, the ravages of the pandemic.

Mainstreaming issues of gender and HIV/AIDS in our implementation strategies

As a starting point, aspects of the pandemic for which the Protocol has special relevance should be identified. The key responses that are required in terms of the Protocol should then be set out. In addition, reference should be made to the guiding articles of CEDAW and relevant General Recommendations formulated by the CEDAW Committee.

This exercise should provide tools to support efforts to integrate a rights-based approach into programmes, policies and strategies to respond to the gender dimensions of the pandemic.

Building on the strategy suggested by UNIFEM in ‘Turning the tide – CEDAW and the gender dimensions of the HIV/AIDS pandemic’, the following may serve to illustrate this approach:

Gender inequality and safer sex

The challenges

Power imbalances and inequalities between men and women render many women unable to negotiate safer sexual practices with their partners. Such imbalance and inequality may stem from family structures, economic relations, differences in education and experience, exposure to violence and cultural expectations. In unequal relationships, women demanding safer sex may risk impoverishment or assault. Social norms dictate that women should be passive and compliant in sexual relations. The right to decide how and when sex takes place is regarded as a male prerogative. There are numerous constraints on a woman’s ability to engage only in sexual relations and practices that she chooses or desires. The autonomy needed by a woman in order to negotiate safer sex, depends on the realisation of her right to equality in many different areas of life.

The provisions of the Protocol, if effectively implemented and enforced, provide protection and guidance in the following ways:

Inequality within the family

Power imbalances within family relations often stem from forced marriages, male ownership and control over family resources and legal impediments to women obtaining divorce.

Article 6 of the Protocol obliges States Parties to ensure that women and men enjoy equal rights and are regarded as equal parties in marriage. In this regard, appropriate national legislation must be enacted to ensure, amongst other things, that:

? Marriage will not take place without the free and full consent of both parties;
? The husband and wife must, by mutual consent, choose their matrimonial regime and place of residence; and
? During her marriage, a woman will have the right to acquire her own property and to administer and manage it freely.

Article 7 of the Protocol obliges States Parties to enact appropriate legislation to ensure that women and men enjoy the same rights in cases of separation, divorce or annulment of marriage. Such legislation must provide men and women with the same rights to seek separation, divorce or annulment of a marriage and with the right to an equitable sharing of the joint property deriving from the marriage.

Early marriage of girls

Early marriage is regarded as a major factor in increasing women’s vulnerability to HIV. Marriage to an older man creates significant imbalances between husband and wife in terms of experience, authority and economic autonomy. The situation is exacerbated when a girl leaves school in order to marry and/or falls pregnant at an early age. Early marriage poses a serious threat to the health, education and employment prospects of girls.

Article 6 of the Protocol obliges States Parties to enact and enforce legislation to set the minimum age of marriage for women at 18 years. The further requirement that no marriage takes place without the free and full consent of both parties, has the potential to protect against forced marriages. The requirement that every marriage should be recorded in writing and registered in accordance with national laws in order to be recognized, may provide additional protection against early and forced marriage.

Early marriage may be seen as a harmful practice which negatively affects the human rights of women and which are contrary to international standards. In this case, Article 5 of the Protocol obliges States Parties to take all necessary legislative and other measures to eliminate such practices, including the creation of public awareness in all sectors of society regarding harmful practices through information, formal and informal education and outreach programmes.

Early marriage often goes hand in hand with violence against women. Article 4 of the Protocol obliges States Parties to take appropriate and effective measures to enact and enforce laws to prohibit all forms of violence against women in public or private, including unwanted or forced sex. States Parties are also obliged, through curricula and social communication, to eradicate elements in traditional and cultural beliefs, practices and stereotypes that legitimise and exacerbate the persistence and tolerance of violence against women.

Other initiatives and best practices

When exploring ways to include issues of HIV/AIDS in a Protocol implementation strategy, one may consider current initiatives and research that provide useful guidelines and recommendations in this regard. As time is not on our side, it makes sense to utilize existing information rather than to reinvent the wheel. Examples of current initiatives and research are:

The UN Task Force on Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa

The Task Force on Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa was convened by the United Nations Secretary General in 2003. This Task Force identified key actions to reduce prevalence rates among girls and women. These actions include:

? Protecting female school enrolment figures;
? Protecting girls and women from the direct and long-term risk of HIV infection as a result of violence;
? Protecting the rights of women and girls to own and inherit land;
? Addressing gender norms, violence, stigma and discrimination as potential barriers to women’s access to care and treatment; and
? Collapsing the bridge of infection between older men and younger women and girls.

The Task Force indicated that strategies were required to:

? Strengthen the legal and policy frameworks that support women’s rights to economic independence;
? Challenge the social norms and values that contribute to the lower social status of women and girls and condone violence against them;
? Ensure access to health services and education; and
? Empower women and girls economically.

Women and HIV/AIDS: Confronting the crisis – a joint report by UNAIDS/UNFPA/UNIFEM

This recent report provides valuable direction in charting the way forward and prioritising areas of intervention. The report stresses that, in each area, women and girls, especially those living with HIV/AIDS, must be involved in interventions. It has identified the following actions that must begin without delay:

? Support positive women and their organizations and networks;
? Make AIDS money work for women;
? Ensure that adolescent girls and women have the knowledge and means to prevent HIV infection;
? Ensure equal and universal access to treatment;
? Promote girls’ primary and secondary education and women’s literacy;
? Recognise and support home-based caregivers and AIDS patients and orphans;
? Promote zero tolerance of all forms of violence against women and girls; and
? Promote and protect the human rights of women and girls.

Conclusion

The time has come for those promoting and protecting the human rights of women in Africa to mainstream issues of HIV/AIDS in all areas of activity. With the Protocol, CEDAW and other initiatives providing strategic direction in this regard, this task will be made far easier.

* Elize Delport is director of Mhalva Consulting Services.

* Please send comments to

Sources
UNAIDS/UNFPA/UNIFEM 2004 Women and HIV/AIDS: Confronting the crisis
UNAIDS/WHO assessments 2004
UNDP 2001 HIV/AIDS – Implications for poverty reduction
UNGASS Declaration of Commitment 2001
UNIFEM 2001 Turning the tide - CEDAW and the gender dimensions of the HIV/AIDS pandemic
University of Pretoria Centre for the Study of AIDS 2002 Whose Right?
United Nations Secretary-General Task Team on Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa 2004 Facing the Future Together
Many relevant documents may be found at www.unaids.org

Most West African countries have signed and ratified international and regional instruments on women's rights, notes Aminata Dieye. But despite the legal arsenal, statutory inadequacies and weaknesses translate into continued existence of discriminatory provisions. It has become crucial, she argues, that organisations are better mobilised and more vigilant so that change in African women's lives becomes a reality. (French version below)

The adoption in July 2003 in Maputo of the protocol on women's rights has inspired hope in thousands of African women who fought for more than a decade for social justice and gender equity in African societies. This hope was strengthened by the adoption of the Solemn Declaration on gender equality of 2004, reaffirming the commitment of heads of state to make the protocol effective through its coming into force in 2005. Three ratifications remain outstanding before the protocol can come into force. Moreover, the commitment of African heads of state to take appropriate steps to enable the launching of campaigns "aimed at ensuring the coming into force of the Protocol before 2005" has not been followed by concrete actions. In fact, the ratifications are taking place slowly.

What justifies this slowness? What's happened to the mobilisation of women for the effectiveness of the protocol? Does rallying at a continental level suffice to implement the protocol? What strategies are there at national level for the implementation of the Protocol once it comes into force?

The situation of women's rights in francophone countries

It is now abundantly clear that since the Beijing Conference of 1995, civil society organisations, more specifically women's movements, have worked together to make women's rights in Africa effective. In fact, African women have pushed African governments, through a variety of actions and activities and with the support of the UN's specialised institutions, to adopt new laws and to put in place measures aimed at promoting and protecting women's human rights.

Most West African countries have signed and ratified international and regional instruments on women's rights and reiterated the principle of equality in their Constitutions. For instance, upon adopting her new constitution, Senegal highlighted, among other things, the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, the African charter on human rights, in general the principal instruments for the protection of women's rights. In this same scheme of things, she revisited the issue of rural women's rights, particularly that of access to land, which constitutes one of the biggest obstacles to the effectiveness of women's rights.

Over and above that, reforms have been added to the Penal Code through the adoption of the 1999 law defining as criminal offences domestic violence, sexual harassment, female genital mutilations, and paedophilia, as well as more precisely defining the criminal nature of rape and paedophilia.

The December 2004 ratification of the African Charter's Protocol on Women's Rights in Senegal was a direct result of the protracted mobilisation of women in the wake of the 1995 Beijing Conference. In fact, it must be said that preparations for Beijing gave Senegalese women the opportunity to come together for a common cause: respect for women's rights. The tangible outcome of this mobilisation was the participation of civil society organisations in drawing up the 1997 Women's Plan and in its evaluation in 2003.

This situation is manifest in the other countries of the sub-region that have adopted measures to augment the protection of women in marriages or against certain offences and infringements affecting women and girls' physical integrity. These are, among others, personal and family laws (Benin, Burkina Faso, Togo), the law on rape (Burkina Faso), sexual harassment (Côte d'Ivoire), female genital mutilations (Burkina Faso, Togo, Côte d'Ivoire), etc.

However, notwithstanding the existence of a legal arsenal, there are still statutory inadequacies and weaknesses in these countries due to the continued existence of certain discriminatory provisions. This state of affairs is caused by the fact that African states have difficulty implementing the different texts and conventions they have signed and ratified.

Obstacles to the implementation of treaties and conventions

Implementation of treaties or conventions presupposes the incorporation of these various texts in national legislation, the setting up of institutional frameworks, regulatory measures and an appropriate mechanism for the monitoring and evaluation of related performance indicators. The October 2005 ministers' meeting on the appropriation of the African Heads of State's Solemn Declaration to be held in Senegal, is an opportunity to put in place implementation and evaluation procedures for the protocol. In order to achieve this, the involvement of organisations like WILDAF, Solidarity of African Women (Femmes Africa Solidarité), Equality Now, Femnet, Accord, African Leadership Forum, etc., which have worked for the adoption of this Declaration, is indispensable.

Subsequent to the Beijing Conference, we observed heightened interest by civil society organisations, which denounced and proposed measures for the respect of women's rights. Similarly, women's networks rallied at the continental level to ensure that the protocol becomes a reality.

We have however noted reduced vigilance in women as far as the monitoring of gains is concerned. For instance, women in Senegal have relaxed due to the retreat of the female social movement since the change of government in 2000 and yet there are threats caused by the rise of religious fundamentalism weighing on what has been gained (Dr. Sarr, 2005). In fact, when women's movements agitated for joint parenthood, religious groups made a stunning entry onto the scene by proposing Sharia-based laws on personal status. That prompted the head of state to react by declaring that the laws governing the family will not be modified. By cutting the ground from under these Islamic groups, the Senegalese head of state effectively blocked proposed reforms to make the laws on the family conform to regional and international texts on the protection of women's rights.

This attitude shows how difficult it is to implement ratified texts and will constitute an obstacle to the incorporation of the measures spelt out in the protocol into Senegalese national legislation. On top of that there are socio-cultural pressures that require long-term efforts to socially conscientise and mobilise African societies.

Another important aspect affecting the effectiveness of women's rights in our societies is the fact that women's movements in West Africa are running out of steam. We note as a matter of fact that there is no changing of the guard in women's movements due to the fact that, in a context defined by increasing poverty, youths (girls and boys) are more preoccupied with looking for jobs than committing themselves to rallying for a common ideal.

In the context of the implementation of this protocol, the participation of youths is indispensable if we want continuity in advocacy.

Strategies for civil society organisations

The participation of African civil society organisations in the promotion and protection of women's human rights was a major act of the people's commitment to take control of their destiny. In fact, without this participation, the process of equality in our societies would not make progress. This critical mass of women and men needs to be maintained so as to avoid losing steam.

Good practices exist in the various countries and we should document them and share the information through the networks.

Work being done at the continental level must continue at national level to give more weight to our actions. In some cases only members of networks are involved in the process of implementing the protocol and yet the greatest number of women is in rural settings.

Appropriation of the Protocol by rural women is imperative if we want to obtain the adherence of all sections of the African populace. For that, efforts to conscientise the elected local leadership, traditional chiefs, and political and religious leaders are key to making the protocol effective.

In countries that have been subjected to armed conflicts, reconstruction and setting up of a legal framework must have as its reference the protocol. Rwanda can be taken as an example for African countries that have experienced internal tensions. In fact, Rwanda is a practical example of a country undergoing reconstruction, which has been able to set up strategies through a system of quotas for women's participation in decision-making structures.

It is now abundantly clear that women's organisations have already embarked on such work to ensure that women's rights are respected, but it has become crucial, in a context where poverty, wars and famine undermine hope, that organisations are better mobilised and more vigilant so that the change introduced in African women's lives becomes a reality. In order to achieve this, the protocol constitutes the most complete mechanism to make the promotion and protection of African women's human rights effective.

* Aminata Dieye is a program director at RADDHO (La Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l'Homme), an organization that monitors human rights.

* Translated from French by Andrew T. Manyawu ([email protected])

* Please send comments to [email protected]

References

Heads of State's Solemn Declaration on equality between men and women, Addis Ababa 2004

Ministry of the Family, Social Development and National Solidarity: final evaluation of the National Action Plan for women, October 2003

The African Human and People's Rights Charter's Additional Protocol on Women's Rights

Dr. Sarr, F. (2005) « Les femmes ont baissé la garde » in Magazine Continental no. 39, June 2005

Wildaf West Africa, Newsletter no. 20, October 2004

De la ratification à la mise en ?uvre du Protocole à la Charte Africaine des droits de l’homme et des Peuples relatif aux droits de la femme : quelles stratégies pour les organisations de la société civile ?
Aminata Dieye

L’adoption du Protocole à la Charte Africaine des droits de l’Homme relatif aux droits de la femme en juillet 2003 à Maputo a suscité l’espoir de milliers de femmes africaines qui se sont mobilisées plus d’une décennie pour l’instauration de la justice sociale et l’équité de genre au sein des sociétés africaines. Cet espoir a été renforcé par l’adoption de la Déclaration solennelle des Chefs d’états africains sur l’égalité de genre en 2004 qui réaffirme l’engagement de ces derniers à rendre effectif le Protocole par son entrée en vigueur en 2005.

A moins de quatre mois des échéances, il reste encore trois ratifications avant l’entrée en vigueur du Protocole. En plus, l’engagement des Chefs d’états Africains à prendre des mesures appropriées pour le lancement de campagnes « visant à assurer l’entrée en vigueur du Protocole avant 2005 » n’est pas traduit concrètement en actions. En effet, c’est d’une manière lente que s’effectuent les ratifications.

Qu’est qui expliquent ces lenteurs ? Qu’en est-il de la mobilisation des femmes pour l’effectivité du Protocole ? La mobilisation au niveau continental suffit-elle pour la mise en ?uvre du Protocole ? Quelles stratégies adoptées au niveau national pour une mise en ?uvre du Protocole, une fois entré en vigueur ?

Voilà autant de questions qui vont nous permettre de partager nos réflexions sur l’entrée en vigueur du Protocole et sa mise en ?uvre.

La situation des droits de la femme dans les pays francophones

Il n’est plus à démontrer que depuis la Conférence de Beijing en 1995, les organisations de la société civile, d’une manière spécifique, les mouvements de femmes ont travaillé ensemble pour rendre effectif les droits de la femme en Afrique. En effet, à travers différentes actions et activités, avec l’appui des institutions spécialisées de l’ONU, les femmes africaines ont poussé les gouvernements africains à adopter de nouvelles lois et à mettre en place des mesures visant la promotion et la protection des droits humains des femmes.

La plupart des pays de l’Afrique de l’Ouest ont signé et ratifié les instruments internationaux et régionaux relatifs aux droits de la femme et réaffirment le principe de l’égalité dans leur Constitution.

Par exemple, le Sénégal, en adoptant sa nouvelle constitution a mis en exergue, entre autres, la Convention sur l’élimination de toutes les formes de discrimination à l’égard des femmes, la Charte Africaines des Droits de l’Homme, d’une manière générale les instruments majeurs pour la protection des droits de la femme. Dans cet même ordre d’idées, elle est revenue sur les droits des femmes du monde rural, notamment l’accès à la terre qui constitue un des obstacles majeurs pour l’effectivité des droits de la femme.
A cela, s’ajoutent les réformes apportées au Code Pénal par le vote de la loi en 1999 incriminant les violences domestiques, le harcèlement sexuel, les mutilations génitales féminines, la pédophilie et précise le délit le viol en le définissant et la pédophilie.

La ratification en Décembre 2004 du Protocole à la Charte Africaine relatif aux droits de la femme au Sénégal est due à la longue mobilisation des femmes au lendemain de Beijing 1995. En effet, il faut reconnaître que la préparation de la Conférence de Beijing a permis aux femmes sénégalaises de se retrouver autour d’un même combat : le respect des droits de la femme. Cette mobilisation s’est concrétisée à travers la participation des organisations de la société civile à l’élaboration du Plan de la femme en 1997 et à son évaluation en 2003.

Cette situation est visible dans les autres pays de la sous-région qui ont adopté des mesures pour le renforcement de la protection de la femme dans le mariage ou contre certains délits et infractions qui affectent l’intégrité physique des femmes et des filles: il s’agit, entre autres, du Code de la personne et de la famille (Bénin, Burkina Faso, Togo), loi sur le viol ( Burkina Faso), le harcèlement sexuel (Côte d’Ivoire), loi sur les mutilations génitales féminines (Burkina Faso, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire) etc.

Cependant, des vides et insuffisances juridiques persistent au niveau de ces pays par la présence de certaines dispositions discriminatoires malgré l’existence d’un arsenal juridique. Cette situation s’expliquent par la difficulté des Etats africains de mettre en ?uvre les différents textes et Conventions signés et ratifiés.

Les obstacles à la mise en ?uvre des traités et conventions

La mise ?uvre des traités ou conventions supposent l’incorporation de ces différents textes dans la législation nationale, la mise en place de cadres institutionnels, de mesures réglementaires et un mécanisme approprié pour le suivi et évaluation des indicateurs de performance relatif à cela.

La réunion des ministres pour l’appropriation de la Déclaration Solennelle des chefs d’Etats africains qui va se dérouler en Octobre 2005 au Sénégal pour la mise en ?uvre de la Déclaration Solennelle des Chefs d’Etats africains en collaboration avec la CEA est une occasion pour poser les actes de mise en ?uvre et d’évaluation du Protocole à la Charte Africaine relatif aux droits de la femme. Pour ce faire, l’implication des organisations comme WILDAF, Femmes Africa Solidarité, Equality Now, Femnet, Accord, African Leadership Forum, etc. qui ont travaillé pour l’adoption de cette Déclaration est incontournable

Nous avons observé un engouement des organisations de la société civile, au lendemain de la conférence de Beijing, qui ont dénoncé et proposé des mesures pour le respect des droits de la femme. De la même manière, les réseaux de femmes se sont mobilisés au niveau continental pour que le Protocole soit une réalité.

Cependant, nous avons noté une baisse de la vigilance des femmes quant au suivi des acquis. Par exemple au Sénégal les femmes ont baissé la garde avec le recul du mouvement social féminin depuis la survenue de l’alternance politique en 2000 alors qu’il y a des menaces qui pèsent sur les acquis à cause de la montée du fondamentalisme religieux (Dr. Sarr, 2005). En effet, lorsque les mouvements de femmes se sont mobilisés pour la parenté conjointe, des groupes religieux ont une entrée fracassante en proposant le Code du statut personnel basé sur la Charia. Cela a suscité la réaction du Chef de l’Etat qui a affirmé que le Code de la famille ne sera pas modifié. En coupant l’herbe au pied à ces groupes islamistes, le Chef de l’Etat sénégalais a du coup bloqué les réformes proposées pour rendre conforme le Code de la famille avec les textes régionaux et internationaux relatifs à la protection des droits de la femme.

Cette attitude montre toute la difficulté de mettre en ?uvre les textes ratifiés et va constituer des obstacles pour l’incorporation des dispositions du Protocole à la législation nationale sénégalaise. A cela s’ajoute les pesanteurs socio-culturelles qui nécessitent un travail de longue haleine de conscientisation et de mobilisation sociale des sociétés africaines.

Un autre aspect non négligeable qui intervient pour l’effectivité des droits de la femme dans nos sociétés c’est l’essoufflement des mouvements féminins en Afrique de l’Ouest. En effet, nous notons qu’il n’y a pas de relève dans le mouvement féminin du fait que les jeunes (filles et garçons) sont plus préoccupés à chercher du travail dans un contexte de pauvreté accrue qu’à s’engager et se mobiliser autour d’un idéal commun.
Dans le cadre de la mise en ?uvre de ce Protocole, la participation des jeunes est incontournable si nous voulons la continuité dans les actions de plaidoyer et de conscientisation.

Quelles stratégies pour les organisations de la société civile

La participation des organisations de la société civile africaine dans la promotion et la protection des droits humains des femmes a été un acte majeur de l’engagement des populations pour la prise en charge de leur destin. En effet, sans cette participation le processus d’égalité dans nos sociétés ne connaîtrait pas d’avancées. Cette masse critique de femmes et d’hommes a besoin d’être entretenu pour éviter l’essoufflement.
Les bonnes pratiques existent dans les pays et il s’agit de les documenter et de partager les informations à travers les réseaux.

Le travail qui est entrain d’être mené au niveau continental doit être relayé au niveau national pour donner plus de poids à nos actions. Dans certains cas, seuls les membres des réseaux sont plus impliqués dans le processus de mise en ?uvre du Protocole à la Charte Africaine alors que la plupart des femmes sont en milieu rural.

L’appropriation des femmes du monde rural du Protocole est impératif si nous voulons atteindre l’adhésion de toutes les franches de la population africaine. Et pour cela, un travail de conscientisation des élus locaux, des chefs traditionnels, des leaders politiques et des religieux est important pour rendre effectif le Protocole.

Dans les pays qui ont connu des conflits armés, la reconstruction et la mise en place de cadre juridique doivent prendre comme référence le Protocole à la Charte africaine sur les droits de la femme. L’exemple du Rwanda peut servir d’exemple aux pays africains qui ont connu des tensions internes. En effet, le Rwanda constitue un exemple de bonne pratique d’un pays en reconstruction qui a su mettre en place des stratégies à travers des quotas pour la participation des femmes aux instances de prises de décision.

Il n’est plus a démontré que les organisations de femmes ont déjà entamé ce genre de travail pour le respect des droits de la femme, mais il est aujourd’hui crucial, dans un contexte où la pauvreté, les guerres et la famine minent l’espoir des populations, que ces organisations fassent preuve de plus de mobilisation et de vigilance pour que le changement entamé dans la vie des femmes africaines soit une réalité. Pour ce faire, le Protocole à la Charte africaine sur les droits de la femme constitue le mécanisme le plus complet pour rendre effectives la promotion et la protection des droits humains de la femme africaine.

Références :

Déclaration Solennelle des chefs d’Etats sur l’égalité entre les hommes et les Femmes, Addis Abéba 2004

Ministère de la famille, du Développement social et de la solidarité nationale : Evaluation finale du Plan d’action national de la femme, Octobre 2003

Protocole Additionnel à la Charte Africaine des droits de l’Homme et des Peuples relatif aux droits de la femme
Dr. Sarr, F. (2005) « Les femmes ont baissé la garde » dans Magazine Continental no 39, juin 2005

Wildaf West Africa, Newsletter no 20, Octobre 2004

In 2000, 189 world leaders signed the Millennium Declaration and committed to "free all men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty". As a result eight Millennium Development Goals were formulated with a target to half poverty by 2015. The 2005 World Summit of the UN General Assembly will be held from 14-16 September to review progress towards these goals. Karoline Kemp examines what the MDGs say about gender and how they relate to African women.

“Without progress towards gender equality and the empowerment of women, none of the MDGs will be achieved.” - From the Gender Equality & the Millennium Development Goals website

Source: http://www.mdgender.net/resources/monograph_detail.php?MonographID=21

What do the Millennium Development goals say about gender?

The framework of the MDGs is comprised of 8 goals, 18 targets and 48 indicators. Although the achievement of all goals will benefit women both indirectly and directly, there are a number of objectives that pertain specifically to gender. Goal 3 aims to “promote gender equality and empower women.” The target is to “eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015.” The indicators for this particular goal include the ratio of girls to boys in primary, secondary and tertiary education; the ratio of literate women to men, 15 to 24 years old; the share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector; and the proportion of seats held by women in national parliament. In addition, the MDGs endeavor to improve maternal health, by reducing “by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio” (Goal 5). The attempts to combat HIV/AIDS (Goal 6) also make special note of women, as gender equality cannot be reached in environments affected by the pandemic. Key indicators include the HIV prevalence among pregnant women aged 15-24 years and contraceptive prevalence rates, among others.

Source: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mi/mi_goals.asp

What is the status in Africa on the progress of these particular goals?

There are a number of ways of measuring the MDGs goals for girls and women, and the level of education for girls is one of these. UNDP statistics show that there has been a decline in the gap between girls’ and boys’ enrolment ratios for primary schools in the 1990s, and by 2000 the proportion of girls to boys in primary schools was over 90% in more than half of the countries in Africa. In some areas the enrolment of girls is greater than that of boys’, while in other countries these numbers are much lower (one third or below). Female literacy is yet another way to measure the MDGs as they relate to gender. In Africa, the rates for female literacy rose in proportion to male literacy throughout the 1990s. While many improvements have been made in these areas, the MDG targets for female enrolment and literacy will not be made by their desired date.

Source: http://www.undp.org/mdg/mdgreportinafrica.pdf

The number of women in wage earning employment (non-agricultural) has risen only nominally in Africa, increasing from 31.5% to 35.8% over the years 1990 to 2003 in Sub-Saharan Africa and 18.9% to 21.5% in Northern Africa. There are a number of reasons for this, but the low integration of women into the monetary economy as compared to men is directly related to educational opportunities. In addition, the disproportionate representation of women in the informal economy and as unpaid laborers contributes to these numbers, which are directly affected by socio-cultural and political attitudes towards women.

Involvement of women in parliamentary seats is a measurable statistic of gender equality and women’s empowerment. According to the UNDP, these numbers have increased in Africa between the years 1990 and 2005. In Sub-Saharan Africa the percentage of women in parliamentary seats in the single or lower house only increased from 7.2% to 9.0% in 1997 and have finally reached 14.2%. In Northern Africa these percentages have been 2.6, 1.8 and 8.5, respectively. Some African countries have made provisions to enforce quotas in regards to the numbers of women in parliament, which has resulted in a number of countries with high numbers of women in government. This involvement is important to reaching MDGs because women in these positions have the potential to influence policy making.

Source: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mi/goals_2005/goal_3.pdf

Maternal health is another measurable statistic, and UNDP reports show that in Sub-Saharan Africa, problems in pregnancy and childbirth cause the death of at least 250 000 women each year, which is the highest in the world. High fertility rates and the low rate of care by skilled health providers during pregnancy and births remain impediments to the goal of decreasing maternal deaths, which will most likely not be met by its projected date.

The pandemic of HIV/AIDS has many effects, least of all its consequences for women and their families. Of the over 40 million people living with HIV, more than half are in Africa, and at least three quarters of AIDS related deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Women who are poor, or have little or no education - those without much power in society – are most vulnerable, and in many parts of Africa, teenage girls are at a proportionately higher level of risk. While some African countries are combating the pandemic with education, a crucial part of its elimination, others face a wall of silence perpetuated by “silence, shame, stigma and superstition.” This is one area of the MDGs that will most definitely not meet its targets - even if new infection rates drop, as many as half of the young people in the most seriously affected areas of Africa face the risk of AIDS related deaths. Indeed, the pandemic has not only become the leading cause of death in Africa, it has reversed the development of many of its countries.

Source: http://www.undp.org/mdg/mdgreportinafrica.pdf

How do these specific goals relate to the women of Africa?

While it is key that gender equality and the empowerment of women are featured prominently in any undertaking towards development, and that these issues are addressed in the Millennium Development Goals, some would argue that they do not go far enough. Hilda Tadria, Senior Regional Advisor for the African Center for Gender and Development at the UN Economic Commission for Africa offers her critiques in an interview with the Development Gateway. She maintains that the largest challenge in achieving gender equality has more to do with socially accepted cultural beliefs and ideologies that uphold male privilege than with educational or economic goals. The goals will only be met once the interdependent and related inequalities of gender, such as unequal power relations and violence are addressed. These two examples alone may be said to be at the root of unequal access to resources, which can then potentially create dependence and poverty, and can lead to abuse in any number of manners. Tadria argues that if gender were key to the MDGs then each target would include gender related issues, and that while judging the access of girls and women to education and government may be some indication of equality, it does not go far enough. She proposes that all of the Millennium Development Goals would be met more successfully if they attempted to reinforce women’s rights in regards to property ownership, control of reproductive rights and freedom from violence.

Source: http://old.developmentgateway.org/node/130685/special/gender/InterviewHi...

The 2005 World Summit of the UN General Assembly will be held from 14-16 September. What will be its impact on the MDGs?

This summit aims to review progress since the Millennium Declaration, which was adopted by Member States in 2000. Policy decisions and reforms necessary for movement on these goals will be undertaken with the hope of revitalizing the MDGs. Priority areas for action include the development of national development strategies, each taking into account the clusters of policy, which include gender equality, the environment, rural development, urban development, health systems, education and science, technology and innovation.

In addition, financial assistance to development must be addressed, specifically by the meeting of pledges already offered by donor countries. In terms of trade, the Doha negations should be fulfilled, with Member States providing duty and quota free market access for all exports to Least Developed Countries. Debt Relief is also a priority, with the goal of reaching 2015 without an increase in debt ratios. Other goals include the efforts made to prevent terrorism, disarmament and non-proliferation, reduction in prevalence and risk of war and the adoption of a resolution to set out principles for use of force. The right of freedom to live in dignity will be met through the policies of the “responsibility to protect,” the increase of human rights bodies and the implementation of a Democracy Fund. In addition, the goal of strengthening the United Nations will be addressed, specifically through reform towards the adaptations to the needs and circumstances of the 21st century.

Source: http://www.un.org/largerfreedom/summary.html

* Compiled by Karoline Kemp, an intern with Fahamu.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Concerns over the impact of current Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations between African countries and the European Union are mounting. Henning Melber warns the EU trade bureaucracy not to dismiss these concerns lightly, lest they be conceived as “an integral and active part of a new scramble for Africa, in which the EU competes with the US and China to gain access to and/or secure control over markets and resources primarily for their own interests.”

This commentary summarises some recent concerns that current trends in the EU trade policy towards African countries with special reference to the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) could do more harm than good and undermine future efforts towards regional collaboration. An earlier intervention of a similar nature (published in “Development & Cooperation”/D+C, no. 3/2005; see also for a related argument the commentary in “Pambazuka News” no. 197) had provoked the public disapproval of the former Director-General for Development at the EU Commission. In a reader’s letter to the journal, Dieter Frisch “had a bone to pick” with the author and did “not at all like the way that Melber calls the EU’s development-friendly and contractually negotiated EPA policy ‘anything but helpful’” (D+C, no. 7/2005). It is indeed necessary to discuss the substance and relevance of such arguments and concerns further.

Hence follows another effort to present a critical overview, which simply compiles and articulates in a hopefully concise way the reservations expressed by agencies and stakeholders in the current process, who tend to disagree with the view and approach of the trade department in Brussels. They reflect that despite the former EU official’s expressed trust in the “development-friendly and contractually negotiated EPA policy” others involved in the process draw markedly different conclusions. These deserve to be taken as seriously as the affirmative views - also and in particular by those who consider and advocate (if not even propagate) the current EU initiative as a step in the right direction.

Under the paradigm of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) a newly structured economic reality gains momentum. It organises trade relations in a way which requires questioning. This is the simple purpose of this overview, which continues to challenge the likely effects of the currently designed and pursued EPAs as anything but supportive (or helpful, for that matter) to the interests of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) member states.
EUs New Role: WTO, EPAs and regional integration
The EPAs negotiated between the ACP states and the EU not only seek to modify the Cotonou Agreement entered into with all ACP countries as a collective entity by means of separate sub-regional negotiations (which would even allow for bilateral agreements with individual countries instead) but also aim towards compatibility between EU–ACP trade relations and the WTO. But while the Cotonou Agreement, which was ratified in April 2003 and replaced the Lomé Convention, allows for negotiating alternatives to the EPAs, the EU Commission continues to pursue the one-track avenue EPAs stand for.

It might be worthwhile to recall the original objectives for EPAs from article 1 of the Cotonou Agreement, namely to honour that cooperation should “be centred on the objective of reducing and eventually eradicating poverty consistent with the objectives of sustainable development and the gradual integration of the ACP countries into the world economy”. But as a team of the German Development Institute (GDI) in a report on the prospects of the EPA negotiations for Tanzania at an early stage of the negotiations pointed out: “Trade liberalisation does not translate automatically into benefits -especially not in least developed countries, let alone for the poor - if this is not actively supported by and embedded in a whole range of other policy matters. How trade liberalisation can be made pro-poor is not outlined in the ‘EPA concept’.”

The EU uses the EPA negotiations to push through agreements on a number of sensitive matters (such as investment, procurement and competition policy) that were rejected by developing countries at the WTO negotiations during 2003. EPAs are about much more than only the suggested reciprocity within a narrowly defined WTO compliance: non-tariff barriers, such as environmental standards or sanitary and other provisions related to an EU consumer protection policy are crucial issues in the negotiations. This is enough reason to provoke fear that such agreements would reduce the policy space for African governments. It does not help to counteract such suspicions as long as even a high-ranking EU official such as Karl Friedrich Falkenberg (European Commission Director/Trade Directory General, Directorate C – Free trade agreements, Agricultural trade questions, ACP, Bilateral trade relations II) recognises in a briefing paper (“Trade Negotiations Insights”, vol. 3, no. 4/2004) “the right of countries, or rather regions, to regulate economic activity in their territory” and accepts the “idea of a preference in favour of local competition”, when he adds at the same time “provided it is not to be a discretionary one”.

The negotiations on future EPAs introduce serious implementation problems and a negative impact on regionalism within the ACP group and its African member states. Regional organizations within Africa are likely to have capacity problems when entering the negotiations. The matter is complicated further by the fact that all these regions present a mix of LDCs and non-LDCs. A likely result is the further fragmentation of the process of regional integration and a further side-lining of LDCs. Even at a high level Conference on European Development Cooperation at The Hague in September 2004, which discussed extensively the EU links to the South, concern surfaced about the EU position on trade liberalisation. As the summary report stated: “Everybody supported the call for a high level of flexibility in the EPA negotiations. Room should be created for asymmetrical trade relations, meaning that developing countries should be allowed to protect their markets against foreign competition on a temporary basis.” But as experience so far suggest, the EU trade commission seems determined to pursue its much stricter and less compromising course further.

EU Policy, EPAs and SADC

The negotiations by the EU aim at separate accords with each region, and no country may negotiate in more than one bloc. As such, SADC is reduced to seven countries (half of the member states) under the EPA negotiations. It is not far-fetched to see that there is an inbuilt conflict between regionalism as it exists and the negotiations of new multilateral processes. Countries might differ over the advantages between benefits from the continued protection of regional arrangements or the creation of individual preferential access within other trade agreements, but if regionalism is considered as a problem or obstacle towards further global harmonisation under the WTO, it stands little chance of being a viable point of departure for strengthening the South within the global trade arrangements.

The EU-SA free trade agreement, negotiated during the second half of the 1990s, has already had a highly divisive effect on the Southern African region. It entered into a preferential trade relationship with one country and thereby enhanced differences resulting from existing conflicts of interest among the national economies within the region. The fact that this affected directly the “satellite states” in the customs union (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland) was initially overlooked and understandably so the initial non-consultation of these countries was anything but a confidence building measure. South Africa herself, the monetary zone, the South African Customs Union (SACU) and SADC are already not in harmony at any time and less so given the effects of the free trade agreement on regional economic matters.

Hence the EU intervention adds more friction and the beneficiary effects of the FTA for South Africa cannot be used as a convincing argument in favour of more free trade policy with other – less industrialised – countries. South African interests and benefits are not identical with regional ones. Regional integration would have to include the interests of the junior partners in the neighbourhood. The political economy of such regionalism is a constantly negotiated arrangement, with shifting boundaries and changing coalitions of interests. But it clearly has to aim beyond the immediate gains of the sub-imperialist centre, as which South Africa is not only perceived but as which it is at least economically indeed acting under an aggressive expansion into African markets.

The EPA process does not seem to strengthen an alternative route, re-focussing on regional consolidation as a first step. SADC members had to make a choice to negotiate either within the East and Southern African (ESA) bloc or as a SADC Group. Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and Tanzania opted to negotiate with the EC under the SADC configuration. It is revealing that the recommendations by the GDI study referred to above were then based on the assumption that Tanzania would negotiate in the East African bloc along side Kenya and Uganda. Meanwhile, Tanzania ultimately decided to join the SADC configuration.

SADC – EC EPA negotiations were officially launched on 8 July 2004 in Windhoek in the presence of EC Commissioners Danuta Hübner and Poul Nielson. Botswana’s Trade Minister acted as SADC coordinator. South Africa - which as mentioned had entered the FTA with the EU in 1999 as Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement, since it was not considered as an ACP member country due to its more advanced economic status - participated in an observatory and supportive capacity. A Joint Roadmap was adopted, but criticism of the divisive EC approach (subdividing the countries of the sub-region into different SADC and ESA blocs) and the efforts to eliminate preferential trade clauses, which exist under the Cotonou Agreement for the LDCs, was increasingly articulated since then.

A Working Paper by The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek warned in mid-2004 that implementing EPAs as currently designed “violates the originally formulated requirements of the EU according to which ACP countries should have been treated depending on their different development status. This principle was already disregarded when negotiating the EU-South Africa FTA, where the EU locked-in BLNS countries in the same tariff structure as South Africa, without granting them improved market access.” The author sees the risk that EPAs imply a loss for LDCs “when opening their markets without receiving anything substantial in return”. Interesting enough, even South Africa’s Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel - known as a strong key player within the current trade liberalisation schemes - summarised the scepticism among Southern African countries in a lecture at the University of Sussex on 2 December 2004, when he stated: “Greater transparency of intentions would also be helpful – the EU’s request for Africa to divide into groups to negotiate … does little to help Africa coordinate its trade policies - thereby reinforcing the legacy of our colonial economic relationships.”

EPAs and Policy Coherence

Paul Goodison and Colin Stoneman have in an article in the “Review of African Political Economy” (vol. 31, no. 102) maintained “it would be an act of foolish optimism to expect integrity or honesty in the EU’s trade policy towards southern Africa and the wider ACP group”. Instead, as Cosmas Ochieng and Tom Sharman summarise in their report “Trade traps”, published with the London based advocacy group Actionaid International, the EPA initiative during its initial negotiations “has created new regional groupings that are inconsistent with, and undermine, existing African economic and political blocs. Reducing regional integration to trade liberalisation undermines the broader socio-economic and political objectives of existing bodies.”

For many, the outcome of the wider trade offensive, as represented in a combination of NEPAD, the EPAs and the US-American Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is not encouraging. Referring to the likely effects for African economies, Margaret Lee warns in an article to the “News from the Nordic Africa Institute” (no. 3, 2004): “Anticipated costs include revenue losses, possibly resulting in the worsening of the regional debt situation; de-industrialization; increased unemployment; increased poverty; fragmentation of export and tariff regimes; loss of export competitiveness; undermining of local agriculture and industrial production arising from US and EU dumping; more trade diversion than trade creation; and undermining existing regional economic integration strategies.” And an IDS briefing paper by Christopher Stevens and Jane Kennan in mid-2005 comments upon the argument that EPAs will foster regional integration: “that there will be a significant effect – but a negative one”.

The report tabled by Actionaid International diagnoses that: “EPAs threaten African fiscal stability and public spending. They introduce investment agreements … that would undermine African policy choices. EPAs threaten African regional integration and lack an independent dispute settlement mechanism.”

Ochieng/Sharman therefore appeal that “European Union member states must revise the European Commission’s EPA negotiating mandate to withdraw the demand for reciprocal trade liberalisation” and stop “negotiations on investment, competition policy and public procurement”. They furthermore urge the European Parliament to “launch an investigation into the European Commission’s approach to the EPA negotiations and to exercise effective oversight over the Commission’s negotiating mandate, tactics and processes” while beginning “to immediately examine all possible alternatives to EPAs”.

Conclusion

It might be considered as “anything but helpful” to question “the EU’s development-friendly and contractually negotiated EPA policy”, as Dieter Frisch had put it in his letter. But it reflects the view of a variety of stakeholders in and observers to the current process, who would not agree with the label “development friendly” without further convincing evidence and results pointing in that direction. Instead, they wonder like Paul Goodison (in the “Review of African Political Economy”, vol. 32, no. 103) if the EU trade commission under Peter Mandelson offers a “new start or old spin” - and tend for the moment to conclude the latter.

The leaked documents from the Brussels headquarters of the EU trade department (and disclosed among others by an article in “The Guardian” on 19th May 2005), which showed that Peter Mandelson had initiated a public relations campaign in response to the British government’s critical position on the current format of the EPAs with the aim to counteract the “major and unwelcome shift” in the UK approach, did anything but eliminate such reservations.

As a recent assessment by the British advocacy group Christian Aid summarised: “for more than 20 years, ACP countries have been forced to liberalise their markets to such an extent that many now have economies that are more open than Europe’s. They are already integrated - often harmfully - into the world market. So any new trade agreement between ACP countries and Europe must both help them to improve and diversify what they produce and export, and allow them to protect themselves from imports. In the meantime, EPAs in their current form will do neither.”

The EU trade bureaucracy and its representatives would be well advised not to dismiss such concerns lightly. After all, they would not like to be conceived as an integral and active part of a new scramble for Africa, in which the EU competes with the US and China to gain access to and/or secure control over markets and resources primarily for their own interests, while the partnership talk serves as the necessary cosmetics and lip service. The EU-ACP process unfolding with the EPA negotiations is in its current format unable to meet the criteria for coherence with other fundamental principles of development paradigms and policies of the EU and its member countries, such as support to regional integration as a priority. In times of an intensified rivalry between the haves among the countries in this world to consolidate their particular interests within the regions of the have-nots, EU policy risks a loss of the positive image established and consolidated during various rounds of Lomé treaties earlier on.

To illustrate the case, one only needs to take note of the speech the Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa delivered on 31st August 2005 at the headquarters of the African Union, in which he explicitly took EU policies to task and warned of the devastating consequences of further globalisation. As he added: “I urge African leaders to think afresh about the place of our continent in a rapidly globalising world”. Governments and officials of EU member countries sharing responsibility for “the economics of failure” (Christian Aid) as it currently unfolds under the label of EPAs pursued by the trade directorate in Brussels ought to do the same.

* Dr. Henning Melber is Research Director at The Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden. This text is a short version of an input paper presented to the Second Expert Workshop “From Individual Action to a Common Strategy? EU policy on sub-Saharan Africa”, organised by the Development and Peace Foundation, 20/21 September 2005 in Bonn.

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Citizens beware! The UN Word Summit, formerly known as the ‘Millennium+ 5 High-Level Meeting’, scheduled to convene in New York next week, is in grave danger of failing to adequately address the world’s most pressing challenge and it’s greatest injustice - global poverty. Only an unprecedented show of human solidarity on a global scale could favorably tip the outcome of the Summit. The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) had some limited success in achieving this during the G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland in July. Building on this limited but positive result, countless millions of concerned citizens are now playing a critical part in a much greater challenge - ensuring that the UN World Summit keeps its focus on poverty eradication.

The 60th anniversary of the United Nations in September this year has re-ignited debate over reform of the organisation. But, asks Nicola Bullard, is reform of the organisation really a priority? Bullard debates the issue of the UN’s relevance for social movements, arguing that perhaps the issue is not about reform, but about joining with social movements and communities to build the political and institutional tools so that "we the peoples" can be transformed into an active part of global democracy.

"Ask not what you can do for the United Nations but what the UN can do for you," with apologies to John F Kennedy.

When US president George W. Bush announced that he would invade Iraq, with or without the support of the United Nations Security Council, he repeatedly drew attention to the weaknesses and failings of the United Nations. In effect, he threw down the gauntlet to the UN and, in so doing, inadvertently revived debate about the role of the UN and especially the need to reform and "strengthen" the UN as a foil to US unilateralism.

This debate has become even more alive in the lead up to the UN's 60th anniversary in September this year. It has been fuelled by scandals over the oil for food programme, allegations of nepotism and corruption, release of the high-level report on global security and jockeying for seats in the proposed expanded Security Council. Throughout, the US has maintained an attitude of belligerence and self interest: an attitude underscored in a recent report "American Interests and UN Reform" which confirms the US' lack of vision when it comes to the UN. President Bush's decision to appoint John Bolton as his ambassador to the UN, despite failing to get approval from the Senate, indicates that this posture will continue.

The UN has been in need of reform from the day it was founded because of its "fatal flaw": that the Security Council institutionalises the post-World War 2 balance of power. Throughout the Cold War era, East-West politics were played out in the UN, and were particularly evident in the functioning of the Security Council. Along with its veto power in the Security Council, the US has always used its financial leverage to serve its interests inside the UN. Nonetheless, despite the power plays, stand-offs and bureaucratic sclerosis, there remains a considerable degree of support for the UN amongst some governments, especially those for whom "one country one vote" in the General Assembly is the rare opportunity to be heard on the international stage.

The UN also has many supporters amongst NGOs and some sectors of civil society who believe it has the potential to curb excesses of power, redress injustices and to form the basis of democratic global governance. Some support it simply because their own existence is tied to the fate of the UN.

The prospect of a reformed, democratic and powerful UN is, of course, very tempting: not only as a means of reining in the US but because the global problems of violence, war, inequality, environmental degradation, exploitation and insecurity, desperately need concerted, international action.

Four reasons why UN reform is not the priority

But before we jump on the "save the UN" bandwagon, we should ask the simple question: is the UN worth saving? Whose interests does it serve? Would a "reformed" UN have the capacity to deal with pressing global concerns? Where is the potential for democratising the global system when the main sources of the "democracy deficit"- the market and militarised, globalised capitalism - are outside the UN system? Is it realistic to imagine that the UN could "control" the market and curtail the world's superpower? And, most importantly here, what sort of reforms, if any, would address the concerns of peoples' organisations and social movements, especially those struggling for basic rights such as land, water, work, housing, health and education?

Given the enormity of the power imbalances in the global system, I do not believe that reform of the United Nations is where we should be focusing our efforts. This conclusion is based on an assessment of the present situation, of which there are four important characteristics.

First, the inter-state system on which the United Nations was founded has changed radically in the past 15 years resulting from the processes of economic integration and globalisation in the post-Cold War era, and where US hegemony has no challenger. The consequences of this for UN reform are significant given that states themselves have unequal economic and political power and, as economic integration deepens, fewer and fewer possibilities to shape their own economic and political destinies.

Second, states are no longer the main interface between their citizens and the world beyond their borders. This function is now shared by transnational corporations and financial markets, the Internet and the media, all of which contribute to transforming the consciousness of citizens about their location in a global system. The borders of the nation state no longer exclusively define our physical, political, economic and psychological horizons.

Third, many of the proposed reforms of the United Nations system, such as an expansion of the Security Council or establishing an Economic Security Council, do not address the underlying balance-of-power dynamic that shapes all decisions of the UN -- that is, the balance of power between the US and the rest of the world, and between the globalised capitalism and citizens. Until these fundamental imbalances are resolved, the United Nations will be nothing more than the ineffective "conscience" of the world.

Fourth, the foundations of the United Nations - the Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and all the derivative human rights conventions - are potentially powerful tools for emancipation. However, while the UN has been exemplary in establishing norms, it has failed, almost without exception, to develop effective instruments to monitor and prosecute states, institutions, individuals and corporations that fail to meet their obligations to uphold individual and collective rights. (1)

Finally, it is impossible to build the superstructure of international democratic governance when the basic conditions for peoples' democracy are so lacking. Creating new means for social movements (2) to defend their rights within an international and universal framework would provide a more solid foundation for the long-term project of global democracy.

Therefore, I suggest that the starting point for democratising the international system is not reform of the UN but instead to find innovative and effective ways to guarantee that social movements have the means available to them at the local, national and international level to defend and protect their rights. That is, rather than using our time and creative energies on cosmetic reforms, we need to find the means by which social movements can use human rights as a tool in their daily struggles and, by doing this, build democracy from the bottom up.

What’s wrong with the UN?

The extent to which the United Nations is now lumped together with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as apologists for neo-liberal globalisation and United States imperialism should not be underestimated. Nor should the validity of the experience that leads many social movements and activists to that conclusion.

Since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the founding of the UN, many Third World countries have seen their sovereignty subverted by Cold War rivalries, often played out in the global political space of the Security Council and the United Nations, and their economies gutted by structural adjustment programmes imposed by the IMF and the World Bank.

In the early 1990s, the UN tried to capture the goodwill unleashed by the end of the Cold War to build a new international agenda of cooperation and common values. Throughout the decade, the UN sponsored a series of summits, dealing with everything from the environment to racism. (3)

The agreements reached in these unwieldy and frequently contentious conferences established a new set of international norms, based on the human rights declarations but elaborated and expanded to include key concerns, such as gender, environment, development and indigenous rights. Each of these summits has been followed-up with five-yearly reviews, often revealing the weakness of government implementation and even resulting in a dilution of previously agreed commitments. (4)

As the 1990s rolled into the 21st century, many of the previously agreed values that underpinned the United Nations -- such as multilateralism and the universality and indivisibility of rights -- were systematically attacked and undermined by right-wing governments and ideologues, as well as by corporations and the financial markets. Indeed, as the speed of global economic integration accelerates and as transnational corporations and finance capital seek to conquer every aspect of human activity, the possibility of achieving human rights, let alone the right to development or peoples' democracy, became an even more distant hope.

To make matters worse, the United Nations propagates the view that it is possible to give "globalisation a human face" by mitigating the worst excesses of market failure without addressing the causes of these excesses.

The scepticism about the UN is deep and justified. For, so long as the Food and Agriculture Organisation advocates genetically modified organisms (GMOs) under pressure from agri-business; so long as the UNDP promotes public private partnerships in basic services such as health and water under pressure from services industry; so long as the UN fails to sanction Israel for repeatedly abusing General Assembly resolutions; and so long as the United States is able to stand outside the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, the UN (and indeed all international institutions) will be seen as simply another arm of US and corporate domination.

Should the UN be fixed?

Efforts by the UN to present itself as the only thing standing between US unilateralism and chaos are at least partly motivated by organisational self-interest. The fact is that we already have "chaos" (if by this we mean war, poverty, and amoral economic and political systems) and we already have US unilateralism (although this is nothing new - the opportunistic use of unilateralism and multi-lateralism is a long tradition of US foreign policy).

There is no reason to believe that either a "strengthened" or a "reformed" United Nations would make any difference given that any reforms or increased powers will be subject to what is effectively a US veto (by one means or another). From the viewpoint of the UN however, reforms are necessary simply to hold on to what they have. Or, as the Prince reflects in Guiseppe di Lampedusa's Il Gattopardi "If we want things to stay the same, they are going to have to change." (5)

Faced with this record of failure, why should social movements - who are already over-stretched with their own struggles for land, water, food, shelter, work, social security, freedom from oppression and self-determination - spend their time "saving" the UN?

Reform to do what?

However, rather than be accused of throwing out the emancipatory baby with the reformist bathwater, it might be useful to ask whether a "reformed" UN would be useful for social movements.

This raises two questions: (i) what is the basis and character of the relationship between social movements and the United Nations and (ii) how could the UN be used to advance the interests and demands of the impoverished and marginalized who comprise the vast majority of "we the peoples."

To start answering these questions in a very tentative way, let's consider what "we the peoples" means 60 years after the words were first written. (6)

In 1945, "the people" were exclusively the subjects of the state, and all the ensuing institutional and legal constructions were based on a monogamous relationship between the state and its citizens.

These days, we are all "global" citizens in so far as global processes, such as the all-encompassing market, effect us all. However, we are far from being global citizens in terms of rights, either at the national level or at the international level, not least because the market effectively obliterates or subordinates any notion of universal rights by placing everything - whether it's water or knowledge - in the economic realm.

Nonetheless, as mentioned above, we are living in a time when our collective consciousness of being global citizens has never been greater. The global social justice, anti-war and alter-mondialist movements tap into and reinforce this consciousness, and it is here that we should look to build the foundations of global democratic governance.

"We the peoples" in the 21st century is a powerful idea because it is a self-definition that arises out of this consciousness, one which is generated and reinforced by collective action and solidarity. The elegant opening words of the UN Charter have become alive and manifest in the diversity of social movements and NGOs that constitute the "movement of movements." (7)

The "movement or movements" includes the global justice, anti-war, anti-globalisation, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist movements. It includes workers and women and migrants and peasants and young people and indigenous peoples and all who are struggling for peace and justice. It defies a single category or morphology and encompasses the local and the global, the vertical and the horizontal. It displays a tremendous capacity to create its own organisational forms and processes based on an ever-widening commitment to pluralism and democracy.

What, then, does this have to do with the UN?

Or, to put the question another way, what is the relationship between the emerging (potentially democratic) political and social "culture" of, say, the World Social Forum (as the most visible representation of the "movement of movements") and the declining (and increasingly undemocratic) culture of inter-state elite diplomacy represented by the United Nations.

Or, to put it yet another way, is the 1950s inter-state model of the General Assembly where everyone wears a suit and diplomats rule, relevant to the multi-coloured "assemblias" of the multitude?

Or, more concretely and positively: Does the essence of the United Nations and the universalism of the Declaration of Human Rights, speak to us in new ways?

The question is potent for social movements, which are, by definition, engaged in the struggle for rights. Whether farmers defending their right to seeds, women demanding control of their own bodies, landless claiming land, or unemployed marching for work and a living wage, social movements exist because people organise and mobilise to defend or demand their rights.

In most cases, achieving their demands is only one aspect of the organising and mobilising effort. Social movements also give identity and voice to sectors of society that are marginalized, silenced and forgotten. This is as true of the dalits in India as it is of the homeless in Europe. Transformation of social, and hence power, relations is inherent in the mere act of organising those parts of society that "polite" society (and that, almost by definition, is the part of society that runs the UN) would sooner forget.

In their day-to-day struggles, social movements use the language of rights and responsibilities to pursue their demands, often borrowing from the UN declarations to provide a legal (as well as a moral) base for their claims. The common language of rights also cuts across and (potentially) unites the masses or multitudes. However, in terms of translating the language of rights into actions and results, there are profound weaknesses. While the UN is exemplary at establishing norms in all areas, from the right to development to gender equality, it is particularly weak when it comes to establishing the means for their implementation.

The power for this resides exclusively with the state, yet the state itself is subordinated to the market. The political will and the economic means to "progressively realise" human rights have been decimated by the market, the "economisation" of social policy and the commodification of public goods and services. In a market economy, rights exist only for those who have the means.

Therefore, social movements struggling for their rights find themselves confronted not only with the failings of the state, but also with the formidable task of overcoming the power of the market and global capital.

Clearly, both the state and the United Nations are out of kilter with the realities of a globalising world where power operates through diffuse and unaccountable processes such as the financial markets, transnational corporations, and the media. State power in the Hobbesian sense still exists, but in the age of globalised capitalism hegemony can be exercised through many channels and often with profoundly undemocratic effects. (8)

Hardt and Negri argue that we should learn from the past. "Just as it was illusory in the eighteenth century to repropose the Athenian model on a national scale, so too today it is equally illusionary to repropose national models of democracy and representative institutions at an international scale." (9) They suggest that rather than generating reform proposals, we must develop "experiments for addressing our global situation." (10)

Much of the discussion about reforming the UN system misses the point about the current construction of power and, more importantly, how social movements themselves are attempting to restructure and redefine power. It is not the task of the social movements to build international institutions, no matter how "democratic" they might be. The work of the social movements is to shift power or - as the Zapatistas would have it - to redefine power.

The universal rights scripted within the UN system provide an invaluable tool for social movements as they confront the market, the state, landowners, the militia, international financial institutions and corporations. In Bolivia, for example, the language of "rights" - such as the right to water, the right to self-determination, and sovereignty over resources - are powerful mobilizing tools that have been used to great effect by the farmers, indigenous, workers and urban poor to redress wrongs and reclaim rights. And it is powerful because it taps into deeply held beliefs and emotions.

It is difficult to imagine what sort of institutional reforms would be useful in this struggle. What use would be an expanded Security Council to the coca farmers of Bolivia? Would an Economic Security Council defend the peoples' resources against the multi-nationals? It seems most unlikely. However, the still potent and universalising morality of the human rights discourse is one aspect of the United Nations that must be defended because it can be a genuinely powerful tool (albeit largely rhetorical) for social movements in their struggles.

Experiments for addressing our global situation – some suggestions

We have the elements of a common global agenda amongst social movements, regardless of their sectoral or geographic concerns. This agenda includes rolling back the powers of the corporations and the financial markets, reasserting public services and community control of water, forests, land and natural resources, eliminating debt and expanding economic and social policy space at the national and local level. In the framework of "deglobalisation" (11) this is seen as "deconstructing" the power of the markets and the institutions of neo-liberalism and "reconstructing" communities and livelihoods, local economies, nature and culture. In an attempt to manage this huge agenda, human rights could be an entry point.

But first, the responsibility for protecting and promoting human rights must be extended beyond the states to include corporations, business entities, financial markets, militias, and the international financial institutions. This is not based on a belief that these entities are "reformable" or that they can be "socially responsible" but simply because we need legal mechanisms with binding rules and enforceable penalties to curb the power of those who are presently virtually unaccountable.

As a starting point, the initiative to create the "Norms on the responsibilities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights" through the Commission on Human Rights deserves our support, but the campaign also needs to be greatly strengthened to counter the current attempts to weaken or destroy it. Kofi Anan's appointment of John Ruggie as Special Representative on "human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises" is an ominous sign given that Ruggie's main claim on the job is his experience as architect of the Global Compact, the UN's non-binding and non-enforceable "code of conduct" which is widely regarded as a corporate "bluewash".

Although it would be politically and, one would hope, legally useful to expand the ambit of human rights to include corporations, approaches based in international law are just one element of a larger strategy that must be based in building movements and campaigns at every level to resist power and to regulate and roll-back financial markets and corporations. However, doing this in the framework of rights can potentially build a unity that is not possible in campaigns based on defending sectoral interests (for example workers or peasants) or ideological positions.

Similarly, elements of the Universal Declaration provide the "language" to defend and "de-commodify" human rights such as food, water, health and education. Indeed, work being done in the Commission on Human Rights (should it survive the swingeing reforms proposed by the Bush administration) by the special rapporteur on the right to food provides a powerful case for a complete transformation and de-commodification of agriculture and food production. (12)

The Commission's work on human rights and trade, debt, intellectual property, health and housing, amongst others, is equally useful.

However, the challenge of bringing those who operate comfortably in the quasi-legal world of international human rights together with the social movements remains. Indeed, as professor of international law Yash Ghai observed "a major weakness of the human rights movement has been the inability to involve the masses as subjects rather than objects of rights."(13)

Therefore, the task is not to "reform" the United Nations but to join arm in arm with the social movements and communities to build the political and institutional tools so that "we the peoples" can, ourselves, fulfil the promises made by the UN 60 years ago. Our work is to transform "we the peoples" from being the objects of an imaginary benevolent state to "we the peoples" who are the active subjects in building global democracy.

How to do this could be one of the common agendas for discussion at the World Social Forum and in the many local and national forums that are blossoming across the world. It is not an abstract proposition, but one that can and must be based in concrete campaigns and struggles. It would be a lot more interesting and useful that (yet) another session on the Millennium Development Goals, and almost certainly a more effective way to achieve them.

* Nicola Bullard is a senior associate with Focus on the Global South.

* A short version of this paper was published in "ONU: droits pour tous ou loi du plus fort? Regards militants sur les Nations Unies," CETIM, Geneva, 2005. Contact Julie Duchatel for more information [email protected] or visit their website http://www.cetim.ch/fr/publications_details.php?pid=115

* Please send comments to [email protected]

References;

1. The International Criminal Court may prove to be an exception, however the fact the United States refuses to recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC is evidence of the US' willingness to put narrowly defined national interests ahead of all else. Unsurprisingly, the recent report "American Interests and UN Reform" refers continually to the need to prosecute war criminals but makes no reference to the ICC.
2. In this paper, the term "social movements" is used in a descriptive and non-theoretical way to denote groups that are organised to defend and claim their rights, in particular social, economic and cultural rights. The list is long, but includes women, indigenous, "sans papiers" and migrants, landless, communities, workers and unemployed, and so on.
3. The list is long: World Summit for Children (1990), the World Conference for Education (1990), the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (1992), the World Conference on Human Rights (1993), the International Conference on Population and Development (1994), the Fourth World Conference on Women (1995), the World Summit for Social Development (1995), the UN Conference on Human Settlements (1996), the World Food Summit (1996), the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (2001) plus a string of "+5" and "+10" follow-up conferences. See Alison van Rooy, "The Global Legitimacy Game: Civil Society, Globalisation and Protest,' Palgrave, London, 2004, page 20.
4. For example, at the WSSD +10 in Johannesburg in 2002 there was significant "backsliding" with corporations making major inroads into the sustainable development agenda by pushing for the adoption of "solutions" such as "public private partnerships." Similarly in the women's and population review conferences, a great deal of political energy was spent simply maintaining a minimal line on reproductive choice in the face of the reactionary onslaught from the US and the Vatican.
5. Guiseppe di Lampedusa, "Il Gattopardo,"1958, quoted by Jose Saramago in "The Least Bad System is in Need of a Change," Le Monde Diplomatique, August 2004.
6. The opening lines of the Charter of the United Nations says: "We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourges of war, which twice in our lifetime have brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and the worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small and, to establish conditions under which respect for justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom."
7. Notwithstanding the need to update the Charter to incorporate gender, environmental sensibilities.
8. For example, the financial markets were able to force Brazil's popular, but as yet unelected, presidential candidate Lula de Silva to adopt market friendly economic policies even before the election was contested.
9. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, "Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire," The Penguin Press, New York, 2004, page 307
10. Ibid, page 305
11. What is deglobalisation?
12. "The Right to Food: Report submitted by the special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Zeigler, in accordance with the humans rights resolution 2003/25," Commission on Human Rights, E/CN.4/2004/10, 9 February 2004
13. Yash Ghai, "Human Rights and Social Development," Democracy, Governance and Human Rights Programme Paper Number 5, UNRISD, Geneva, October 2001, page 43.

The armed conflict in Darfur has entered a new phase. Violence, insecurity, banditry activities and the commission of serious crimes are increasing. The conflict progressively transforms into low-intensity war and evolves into a situation of perpetual instability and lawlessness. All parties to the conflict bear responsibility for the current situation.

"African journalists also expect from all WSIS stakeholders, active participation in the implementation of the Geneva Plan of Action, including paragraph 24 related to Media. This involves acting to create conditions conducive to increasing the availability and effective mobilisation of the necessary resources to finance the implementation of this specific part of the Plan of Action. This is of crucial need for the rapid and full integration of African media into the Information Society and the international media landscape."

STOP PRESS: Pambazuka News has won the non-profit category of the sixth annual Highway Africa awards for the innovative use of new media. The awards are given annually at the Highway Africa conference in Grahamstown, South Africa, to recognize and promote the creative, innovative and appropriate use of new media technology in Africa. In the individual and non-profit category recognition is given to communications which find innovative ways to overcome the limitations of the existing African infrastructure.

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Solidarity for African Women's Rights (SOAWR), a coalition of groups across Africa campaigning for the popularization, ratification and domestication of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, welcomes the Republic of The Gambia's ratification of the Protocol. While pleased with the addition of the 13th country to the ratification process, SOAWR still urges the remaining 40 countries that have yet to fully endorse the Protocol to do so immediately and without reservation.

With your help the Ghana National Coalition against the Privatisation of Water (NCAP) has successfully forced several water companies to withdraw their bids on the Ghana water privatization project and stalled the project for four years. Now, we are calling on you again to take one more action to stop the remaining bidding companies from taking over Ghana’s water.

The UN summit, billed as one of the largest single gatherings of world leaders, will prove to be an exercise in futility if its primary focus on poverty and hunger eradication is subverted by other extraneous political issues, according to development experts, senior U.N. officials and representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The original objective of the summit, which runs Wednesday through Friday, was to review progress made by the world's poorer nations on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set in 2000. A pledge to halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 was a high priority on the agenda. But this objective seems to have been overtaken by other political priorities.