Steady Growth Will Help AFRICA Realize UN Millennium Goals, Says World Bank

Steady Growth Will Help Continent Realize UN Millennium Goals, Says World Bank

UN News Service (New York)
NEWS
14 November 2007
Posted to the web 15 November 2007

A new report released by the World Bank shows that many African economies are experiencing the faster and steadier growth needed to reduce poverty, one of the eight ambitious targets known as the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that the world has pledged to try to achieve by 2015.

“After years of stop-and-start results, many African economies appear to be growing at the fast and steady rates needed to put a dent on the region’s high poverty rate and attract global investment,” the Bank said upon the release of its Africa Development Indicators 2007.

The new report, released in Johannesburg today, reveals that growth in Africa has averaged 5.4 per cent over the past 10 years, which is on par with the rest of the world.

“The ability to support, sustain, and in fact diversify the sources of these growth indicators would be critical not only to Africa’s capacity to meet the MDGs, but also to becoming an exciting investment destination for global capital,” said the Bank’s Vice President for the Africa Region, Obiageli Ezekwesili.

The report finds solid economic performance across the continent in the period from 1995 to 2005, which contrasts with the economic collapse of 1975-1985 and the stagnation of 1985-1995.

It also shows that performance among countries varied greatly with 2005 growth rates ranging from 30.8 per cent in Equatorial Guinea to a decrease of 2.2 per cent in troubled Zimbabwe. Nine countries had growth rates near or above 7 per cent, the minimum needed for sustained poverty reduction.

“Africa has learnt to trade more effectively with the rest of the world, to rely more on the private sector, and to avoid the very serious collapses in economic growth that characterized the 1970s, 1980s and even the early 1990s,” John Page, Chief Economist for the Africa Region, said concerning the report’s findings.

While the report cited significant long-term gains for sub-Saharan economies, it warned that the region remains volatile – a condition that has dampened investment. “Avoiding growth collapses is key to accelerating progress toward the MDGs in Africa,” Mr. Page stated.

The report is based on more than 1,000 indicators covering economic, human and private-sector development, governance, environment, and aid.

Paying Farmers to Protect the Environment?

Paying Farmers to Protect the Environment?

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Rome)
PRESS RELEASE
15 November 2007
Posted to the web 15 November 2007
Rome
Carefully targeted payments to farmers could serve as an approach to protect the environment and to address growing concerns about climate change, biodiversity loss and water supply, FAO said today in its annual publication The State of Food and Agriculture.

The report however cautions that payments for environmental services are not the best solution in all situations, and that significant implementation challenges remain.

“Agriculture employs more people and uses more land and water than any other human activity,” said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf in his foreword to the report. “It has the potential to degrade the Earth’s land, water, atmosphere and biological resources – or to enhance them – depending on the decisions made by the more than two billion people whose livelihoods depend directly on crops, livestock, fisheries or forests. Ensuring appropriate incentives for these people is essential.”

Population growth, rapid economic development, increasing demand for biofuels and climate change are putting environmental resources under pressure throughout the world. For instance, agriculture is expected to feed a world population that will increase from six to nine billion by 2050.

One of the important reasons for environmental degradation is the perception that many of nature’s services are free – no one owns them or is rewarded for them and farmers have little incentive to protect them. In addition, subsidies that encourage the production of marketed goods at the expense of other ecosystem services can aggravate their degradation.

Incentives

Current incentives tend to favour the production of food, fibre, and increasingly, biofuels, but they typically under-value other beneficial services that farmers can provide, such as carbon storage, flood control, clean water provision or biodiversity conservation.

Farmers can provide better environmental outcomes, but they need incentives to do so. Payments for environmental services represent one way of increasing incentives to adopt improved agricultural practices–and even to offset pollution generated in other sectors.

However, “payments may also have adverse impacts on poverty and food security in some cases, should they result in a reduction in demand for agricultural employment or increases in food prices,” noted Dr Diouf.

Carbon sink

Farmers will need to play an important role in mitigating the effects of climate change, the FAO report said.

Agriculture plays an important role as a carbon “sink” through sequestering and storing greenhouse gases, especially as carbon in soils, plants and trees. Less deforestation, planting of trees, tillage reduction, soil cover increase and improved grassland management could, for example, lead to the storage of more than two billion tonnes of carbon in around 50 countries between 2003 and 2012.

“Well-designed payments for environmental services are one way to help farmers to change land-use practices and make farming more environmentally friendly,” said Leslie Lipper, Senior Environmental Economist. “These are payments for real services farmers can provide, much like farmers are paid for the rice or coffee they produce.”

Payment programmes

The report says payments can take a variety of forms as voluntary transactions involving farmers, communities, taxpayers, consumers, corporations and governments. They could be direct payments by governments to producers or indirect transfers, such as consumers paying extra for a cup of shade-grown coffee beans.

Hundreds of payment programmes for environmental services are currently being implemented around the world, mainly as part of forest conservation initiatives. “But relatively few programmes for environmental services have targeted farmers and agricultural lands in developing countries,” the report said.

“If properly designed, payment programmes for environmental services might also benefit many of the more than one billion poor people in developing countries that live in fragile ecosystems,” Lipper said. This requires careful targeting as well as measures to monitor delivery of environmental services.

AfDB President And U.S. Treasury Secretary Call for Intensified Public Private Partnerships

AfDB President And U.S. Treasury Secretary Call for Intensified Public Private Partnerships
African Development Bank (Tunis)

NEWS
22 November 2007
Posted to the web 23 November 2007
Accra
The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group President, Donald Kaberuka and the United States Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson have called for intensified Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the development of infrastructure in Africa.

Messrs Kaberuka and Paulson made the call on Monday at the Ghana Stock Exchange in Accra during a panel discussion with a cross section of the banking, finance and private sector executives.

They emphasized the need for African countries to promote PPPs to sustain current levels of economic growth and highlighted how African governments, the private sector and donors could accelerate the financial sector’s development. Noting that the economic reforms had paid off in Africa, the two called for more resources to sustain the development of infrastructure.

President Kaberuka further emphasized the Bank Group’s role in the area of infrastructure. He also expressed the need to use Diaspora remittances as source of financing for the continent.

At the Akosombo Hydropower Station, which provides about 68% of Ghana’s electricity requirements, President Kaberuka and Secretary Paulson held round table discussions with government authorities led by the Finance and Planning Minister, Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, on infrastructure financing. Africa’s development hinges on infrastructure and there is a need to mobilize more resources and ensure the effective implementation of projects, they said.

At the press conference, the US Treasury Secretary highlighted the significant change and progress made by Africa in economic reforms and development. He also emphasized, with satisfaction, the catalytic role played by the African Development Bank in this process.

During the visit, Secretary Paulson and President Kaberuka paid a courtesy call on President Kufuor and empathized with him over a recent accident in which the Ghanaian President escaped unharmed. They commended Ghana’s achievements in the areas of poverty reduction, investments and infrastructure.

President Kaberuka later held discussions with the Finance Minister on a host of bilateral and current issues, including the need to speed up project implementation, public and private sector collaboration as well as infrastructure development.

New Africa Command Will Promote Security, Spur Development

New Africa Command Will Promote Security, Spur Development

United States Department of State (Washington, DC)
NEWS
15 November 2007
Posted to the web 15 November 2007

By David McKeeby
Washington, DC
Helping Africans confront security challenges in their region long has been a priority of the United States, say senior U.S. officials. But the military’s new Africa Command (AFRICOM) also will prove an essential tool in continuing an equally long-standing commitment to helping communities across the continent strengthen governance, improve health care and meet economic development goals.

In November 14 congressional testimony, however, Stephen Mull, acting assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, said that in meetings with leaders from Africa and Europe, he continues to encounter many misperceptions about AFRICOM, established by the Defense Department in February as the newest of its six geographic divisions to monitor security threats. (See related article.)

Mull was joined by Ryan Henry, principal deputy under secretary for policy at the Defense Department, and the AFRICOM commander, Army General William “Kip” Ward, at a House Armed Services Committee hearing, to dispel the prevailing myths about the new command, such as the notion that AFRICOM represents a “military takeover” of U.S. foreign policy toward Africa.

AFRICOM’s purpose, said Mull, is to build strong military-to-military partnerships in the region. By doing so, it will support and complement, not overshadow, aid programs offered through American embassies by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Henry said the United States spends $9 billion a year through the State Department and USAID to help Africans deliver medical care, promote trade and new business opportunities and build more effective governance structures. In contrast, he said, the United States spends only $250 million a year for security assistance programs — half of which goes directly to supporting the African Union’s peacekeeping mission in Sudan.

Like other military commands monitoring Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Ward said, AFRICOM will coordinate its activities with embassies in the region. But in doing so, the new command also will use an innovative new organizational structure that brings together military and civilian experts from across the U.S. government to formulate and exchange new policy ideas with their African partners.

“When coordinated and nested in this manner, AFRICOM’s contributions can help African countries effectively address threats such as political instability, terrorism, human rights abuses, cross-border trafficking and international crime,” Mull said.

Another myth, the officials said, is that AFRICOM represents a move by the United States to place a large troop presence in Africa.

While the United States is in discussions with several African nations on a possible headquarters for the command, no new bases will be established, said Henry. Unlike other U.S. military commands, he added, AFRICOM will have a relatively small staff that is able to “reach back” to the United States for resources if needed.

This structure, Ward said, reflects AFRICOM’s mission to work with regional organizations such as the African Union and its regional economic communities, the nations of Africa and their citizens to provide the tools and training needed to solve regional security challenges before they grow into international crises.

A third myth is that AFRICOM is geared exclusively to fighting terrorism and countering a rising Chinese presence at the expense of other challenges facing the region.

“The United States, China and other countries share a common interest in a stable, secure and rising Africa,” Henry said. “And though we may differ on the means, we look forward to cooperating with China as a responsible international stakeholder to achieve that end.”

While helping governments combat terrorists will be one mission, Ward highlighted several other ongoing activities in the region that illustrate AFRICOM’s future, including joint medical training programs that provide aid to poor communities, training African troops to serve as peacekeepers, and the recently established Africa Partnership Station — a U.S. Navy ship in the Gulf of Guinea that serves as a “floating school” for military and law enforcement personnel from across the region. (See related article.)

“It begins with understanding our African partners’ definitions of their own environment and interests and understanding the complexities of the diverse countries and cultures across the continent,” said Ward. “Appreciation of their perspective will allow us to jointly identify ways and means that address both African and American interests.”

Prepared remarks from Mull, Henry and Ward are available on the House Armed Services Committee Web site.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

U.S. Business Leader Calls for Private-Public Sector Dialogue

U.S. Business Leader Calls for Private-Public Sector Dialogue

Corporate Council on Africa (Washington, DC)
DOCUMENT
15 November 2007
Posted to the web 15 November 2007

By Maurice Tempelsman
Cape Town
Dialogue between the public and private sectors in Africa is not only more possible but more necessary than ever before, Maurice Tempelsman, chairman of the board of directors of the Corporate Council on Africa, told the opening of the CCA’s U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Cape Town, South Africa. Tempelsman is also chairman of Lazare Kaplan International Inc., a diamond cutting and polishing company.

It is my great privilege formally to welcome you all to this historic gathering—-the first of the Corporate Council on Africa’s regular biennial summits to be held on African soil.

And although we are at the southernmost tip of the continent, the embrace of our hosts; the beauty of both the land and its people; the vibrancy of its spirit; all these confirm that we are , indeed , on African soil. Thank you, Cape Town, for hosting us here, where South Africa began its unique and extraordinary journey in democracy with Nelson’s Mandela’s first steps to freedom—-a journey that, while not easy, has defied the cynics and the skeptics and thus symbolizes, to my mind, the broader journey on which the continent as a whole has set course.

Of that journey, as many others, women are the unsung heroes ; and in extending our thanks I would like to acknowledge and honor one such woman, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who heads the host country’s delegation. Those of us lucky to know her can testify to her public forcefulness when circumstances demand it; but we appreciate her most as somebody who, without pomp and often without publicity, simply gets things done. She helped get this summit done, and for that among many other things, Madame Deputy President, we are most grateful. I must also single out South Africa’s Minister of Trade and Industry, the Honorable Mandisi Mpahlwa, for his extraordinary support.

My responsibility this evening is to do no more than set the stage; and in that context I think I owe it to this audience to cast my gaze briefly back towards history – the history out of which the Corporate Council emerged and ultimately became what it is today, the pre-eminent body that speaks for those who generate nine-tenths of U.S. investment in Africa.

As all in this audience will know, Africa’s independence was born during the Cold War, and in many ways became hostage to that broader geopolitical saga. There were many sides to this saga, of course, but among them were opposed systems of economic governance – one which encouraged private capital accumulation and investment, the other which reserved those vital functions to the state. In the abstract this debate was a serious and indeed a legitimate one, made weightier by those other, vital, sometimes contradictory human impulses that too often escape the economist’s models – the impulse to justice, to equality, to freedom, to social order. But the lives of people, and of nations, are not lived in the abstract, and we know the clear verdict of history on this particular economic debate –with all the qualifications and caution – with all the humility – one must bring to any historical verdict.

I mention the need for humility because with the end of the Cold War came an era of what I would call market triumphalism – a belief that free markets and free trade would not only prevail, but provide answers to many if not all of the messy questions that had bedeviled political life in previous times. And let me make my view perfectly clear : the achievements of markets, and their potential to harness human energies and human imperfections alike, are extraordinary; they are enduring; and they remain fundamental , not only to the logic of modern economic growth, and indeed to the logic of modern life as a whole – they are fundamental also to our efforts to alleviate poverty, expand opportunity, and extend the benefits of modern life to all the world’s citizens. The recognition of these fundamentals – the recognition that in today’s world private initiative and private capital surpass the importance of public initiative and public capital in recycling savings, investment and resources around the globe – this recognition helped give rise to the Corporate Council on Africa some fourteen years ago, and remains a motive force as it grows from strength to strength.

But we at the Corporate Council would also be the first to acknowledge that free markets cannot provide an answer to everything, or even to most things – to acknowledge that the laws of politics, in all their complexity and sometimes confusion – have not been, and cannot be, repealed by the abstract laws of economic logic. We could not fail to acknowledge this, focussed as we are on a continent that contains within it the fullest measure of human complexity, human possibility, and human reality. Africa has from its origins been a mentor to humanity; and I think it today continues to educate us, among many other things, on the balance between theory and practicality.

So I see, and I welcome, an emerging maturity of vision, where government’s proper and essential role in ordering social and political affairs is aligned with the private sector’s dynamic role in creating wealth and leveraging entrepreneurial energy. Economics is the realm where these spheres most obviously overlap, but it is hardly the only one, nor is it is as easy as it once was to distinguish where economics ends and other disciplines begin – if “disciplines” is itself even the right word anymore. In this fluid context, fruitful dialogue between the public and private sectors is not only more possible than ever before, it is all the more necessary. And thus I am a true believer in the value of institutions like the Corporate Council which exist to sponsor such dialogue, and of gatherings such as this one to give expression to it.

This summit in particular comes at a time not only of maturing vision, but also of maturing relations between Africa and the rest of the world, America included. A fresh generation of leadership on this continent, embodied in so many of the men and women around the room, is ensuring that Africa’s fate is no longer hostage to strategic calculation in faraway foreign capitals, but hostage instead to the wisdom – and sometimes, it must be said, lack of wisdom, here as much as on any other continent – of decisions in the houses of state, houses of justice, and, yes, the houses of commerce too, here at home. (From personal history I know all too well that among the things that come with real independence is the inability to blame others for your own mistakes.) Nor, to the extent foreign political capitals matter – and of course they do, just as foreign financial capital does – are they all the same as they once were. The rise of new powers, from China to India to Brazil to those in Africa as well, creates obvious challenges to the United States and opportunities for Africa – but also, I would argue, subtler challenges to Africa and opportunities for my own country. We are all in uncharted waters, and as a long-time sailor, I am familiar with the fine balance between anticipation and apprehension that this brings.

Taking this summit from its normal confines within American borders – taking it to this continent, at this time – is therefore not only the right thing to do, it is the wise thing to do. Thanks to technology, Africans and Americans can now deal with one another largely unconfined by the old divisions of time and distance. Thanks to current history, including the unfolding history of Africa’s emergence, we can also now deal with one another free of the old distortions of ideology or geopolitical conformity. As a businessman I know there is much that we can gain from one another. As a human being I know there is much that we can learn from one another.

It does not fall to me, nor would I presume in any event for an audience of this caliber , to provide some laundry list for mutual success in our dealings, or even of issues to be mutually addressed in our dialogue. One look at the program of themes and workshops on offer at this summit demonstrates that the organizers and sponsors have done a salutary job in putting us on track. I offer you only our collective welcome as an organization, my personal thanks for your participation, and my confidence that we will do good work and enjoy ourselves in equal measure over the next 48 hours.

Women, Equality And the African Human Rights System

Women, Equality And the African Human Rights System

Fahamu (Oxford)
OPINION
13 November 2007
Posted to the web 15 November 2007

By Roselynn Musa

Roselynn Musa writes that despite the promises and the mobilisations by women from all over the continent, African women still lack adequate protection of their human rights. She argues that the root of the problem is the persistent lack of political will by governments to implement commitments to gender equality.

The 21st century marks a critical juncture in the promotion and protection of a human rights culture in Africa. As the world becomes more interdependent, regional systems of cooperation are playing an increasingly important role in the promotion and establishment of a positive international human rights order.

African states have committed themselves to various international and regional policy documents. The most significant international gender mechanisms are the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) of 1995, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the charter, hereafter), the International Conference on Population and Development’s Programme of Action (ICPD PoA), the African Union’s Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and the constitutive act of the African Union. In signing up to the MDGs, 191 governments resolved to promote gender equality as a goal in its own right, but also the empowerment of women in order to combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate sustainable development. NEPAD also stresses equality and enhances women’s rights through its African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). All these conventions and policy frameworks commit governments to address gender equality, equity and women’s empowerment. They are subject to periodic reviews to measure the extent to which they have been delivered.

Over the past year these reviews have generally shown that Africa has made some progress at all levels. Most countries have developed national gender machineries and policies, but the majority of their strategies have not been implemented. Despite all these promises and first-class commitments, African women are no better off than when they started. The promises have moved a shoe size further on, if at all. The stagnation in some respects and deterioration in others are worrying, particularly given the level of mobilisation of women and advocacy by women’s rights activists from all over the continent. At the root of the problem lies the persistent lack of political will on the part of African governments to implement commitments to gender equality.

This paper explores the relationship between the international and regional policy framework on women’s human rights in Africa and its actual implementation. It discusses the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (from here onwards referred to as the protocol), compares it with other instruments and highlights what makes it unique. It concludes with the challenges encountered in promoting women’s rights and recommends accelerated implementation of gender policy commitments in Africa.

The Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa

The protocol seeks to address the shortcomings of the international instruments that preceded it in addressing African women’s rights. It has proven to be a much-needed improvement on the way in which the AChHPR addressed the position of women in Africa. It applies CEDAW and BPfA in an African context.

The protocol has three sections. The first sets out its rationale and refers to both regional and international commitments on women’s rights. The second outlines the rights to be upheld by the protocol, and the third covers its implementation and addresses the procedures for adopting, monitoring and amending it.

The protocol is the first instrument to be developed by Africans for women in Africa. It builds on and strengthens other regionally negotiated issues that have been detrimental to women’s human rights. It challenges cultural behaviour and traditions that often violate the fundamental rights of women in Africa. The inclusion of articles concerning widows and inheritance rights is regarded as a breakthrough, for these are issues particular to African women which are normally swept under the carpet. And it gives women a line of defence on which to base their appeals in cases where they have been unsuccessful in challenging national discriminatory laws or practices.

The entry into force of the protocol reflects a growing awareness that women are equal members of society, and that they are participants and not simply beneficiaries in the development process. Prosperity on the African continent requires the promotion and protection of the rights of all African peoples, as well as adherence to the principles of gender equality and non-discrimination.

From the above it can be seen that the African Union has plans and programmes to ensure that its member states are part of the global effort to advance the principle of gender equality in Africa.

Enforcement mechanisms

At the national level, the procedure for domestication of CEDAW and the protocol is a major challenge. While several countries have acceded to CEDAW, many have not taken the extra step to domesticate it and make it part of their national laws. What this means in effect is that its provisions cannot be directly applied in national courts. States parties do not always have the political will to implement commitments made at the international level.

The challenges faced in implementing CEDAW are a good indication of those the protocol will face, from which important lessons can be drawn. The mandate of the CEDAW Committee is to monitor its implementation by the states parties which have ratified it, and this is done through periodic reports. Unfortunately this is one area that has not been taken very seriously by states parties. Many have two or more reports outstanding, while some have submitted none. This is a major challenge to the committee’s work.

While the process of reporting is thorough, to a great extent it remains in the hands of governments; NGO participation is weak. The examination of states parties’ reports is not intended to be adversarial, but should be done in a manner that promotes constructive dialogue between the states parties and the committee.

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights is an approach of last resort when all other domestic remedies have failed to provide satisfactory results. Pending the full establishment of the African Court, the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (the commission, hereafter) is seized with matters of interpretation arising from the application and interpretation of the protocol. The commission was established under Article 30 of the charter. Its primary responsibility is to promote and ensure the protection of human rights on the continent. Its four areas of mandate are: promotional activities, protective activities, the examination of state party reports and the interpretation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. It holds regular sessions twice a year in around April and November and can hold extraordinary sessions.

The commission has 11 part-time members. They are independent experts and act in their personal capacity rather than as representatives of their governments. The integration of the protocol into the implementation mechanism of the commission is consistent with the provisions of the charter itself. It will ensure that women whose rights under the protocol have been violated will have final recourse to the African Court to have their rights established and enforced. Furthermore, individuals other than the victims themselves, as well as human rights NGOs, can bring a complaint on behalf of the victims to the court.

One of the challenges facing domestication of the protocol is the multiplicity of legal systems in most African countries. While in a few countries international treaties, once ratified, automatically become part of national law, in most cases they have to be passed by an act of parliament to bring them into effect.

It is encouraging that the constitutive act of the reinvigorated African Union, which replaced the Organisation of African Unity, and the creation of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights has emboldened women’s rights advocates to press for more vigorous enforcement of international and regional commitments.

Unique features of the protocol

The protocol was drawn up after many other treaties and therefore has the advantage of hindsight. It was able to draw on the best parts of earlier documents while also dealing with issues they omitted. The protocol is closely modeled on CEDAW; there are more similarities than differences between the two. The differences are mainly in those areas that concern African women and that CEDAW mentions in the abstract or not at all. The protocol names specific rights and defines violence against women. Its definition of a woman is comprehensive and includes the girl-child. It is culture-specific and therefore very valuable in challenging negative cultural practices. Unlike CEDAW, the protocol places explicit obligations on states to set aside resources to eliminate discrimination against women and to punish people or organisations that practice it.

There was initially stiff resistance to the protocol on the grounds that women in Africa do not need a separate provision, and that a clause on non-discrimination against women in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights would suffice to take care of the women’s rights issues that were omitted from it. The charter is perhaps distinct from other regional systems of human rights protection in that it has specific provisions that address the rights of women. This is apart from the commonplace provisions on the rights to equality and freedom from discrimination characteristic of most international instruments of this kind. With regard to the rights of women, the charter provides that ‘The state shall ensure the elimination of every discrimination against women and also ensure the protection of the rights of the woman and the child as stipulated in international declarations and conventions’ (Article 18 (3)).

However, this provision has been regarded as too general, giving no substance to the rights of women, thereby placing these rights in a situation that has been described as a ‘legal coma’. Addressing the rights of women alongside those of children is also criticised. While recognising that both women and children have been victims of enduring violence, it raises the question of why the latter are equated with the former. Nevertheless, the charter is seen as creating the bedrock for the protection of women’s rights in Africa. It provides a basis from which states have to account for the status of women and the protection of their rights within national legal systems. And it enjoins African states to take positive steps to ensure that their national laws and policies seek or result in the attainment of these two primary goals. Since then there have been significant developments towards a more comprehensive legal regime for the protection of women’s rights in Africa, resulting in the drafting of the protocol to the charter.

The protocol can be a tool that forces states to prioritise legislative measures to eliminate harmful traditional practices. It provides a foundation on which human rights acquire legality in the African context, and a basis for assertions that African women’s rights to equality are no longer contested. What is critical at this point is to see greater dynamism from domestic courts, the charter and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in giving meaning and precedence to the protocol.

The protocol attempts to invigorate the charter’s commitment to women’s equality by adding rights that it omitted and by clarifying governments’ obligations. Only one of the charter’s more than 60 articles makes specific reference to women. These are some of its shortcomings:

• Its failure to define explicitly discrimination against women

• Its lack of guarantees concerning the rights of women to consent to marriage and equality in marriage

• Its emphasis on traditional values and practices that have long impeded the advancement of women’s rights in Africa.

Some of the most serious violations of women’s rights in Africa take place in the private sphere of the family and are reinforced by traditional norms and cultural values. Article 17 (2) and (3) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ rights states that every individual ‘may freely take part in the cultural life of his community’, and that ‘the protection and promotion of morals and traditional values recognized by the community shall be the duty of the state’. The only specific reference to women’s rights is contained in a clause concerning the family and the upholding of tradition, thereby reproducing the tension that plagues the realisation of women’s rights in Africa. Indeed, the charter has been interpreted as protecting customary and religious laws that violate women’s rights, such as their rights to equality and non-discrimination, to life, liberty and the security of the person, and to protection from cruel and degrading treatment.

The protocol recognises women as individual human beings rather than members of communities or families. It deals with discrimination in both the public and private realms and targets both direct and indirect discrimination. It also moves equality from an abstract concept to something that states parties are expected to take concrete measures to address.

Most importantly, however, the protocol offers a real remedy for women at the regional level. It gives women victims of human rights violations somewhere to turn, providing them with practical access to bodies which will understand the implications of their experience. But this potential will only be realised if states parties ensure that they protect women’s rights in practice and work to implement the commitments they have made.

The campaign: Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR)

While acknowledging the scale of the challenges, I also want to celebrate our achievements by recognising the efforts of Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR), a coalition that has been working tirelessly to advance the cause of the protocol.

SOAWR is a regional network of 26 civil society organisations and development partners working towards the promotion and protection of women’s human rights in Africa.[1] Since its inauguration in 2004, SOAWR’s main focus has been to get those countries that have not yet ratified the protocol to do so urgently, while at the same time encouraging those that have ratified it to domesticate and implement it at the national level. SOAWR also works to persuade countries that have ratified the protocol with reservations to remove harmful reservations that would constitute a denial of some of the most important freedoms and rights of women recognised in the protocol.

SOAWR has been using all the instruments at its disposal and has capitalised on every opportunity to move the campaign forward: writing petitions, direct advocacy with national and regional leaders, mobile phone SMS service, publications in different languages, AU pre-summit civil society forums, public forums, press conferences, coloured rating cards, and so on. SOAWR is currently documenting the advocacy strategies it has used in its campaigning. This was an idea which came from a meeting of SOAWR members immediately after the pre-summit activities they organised in Accra, Ghana, in June 2007. They decided to document their efforts to provide a clearer understanding of what was being done to encourage ratification and domestication of the protocol, and to offer inspiration and a means of action to the Africa-wide movement for the endorsement and domestication of the protocol.

I hope that SOAWR will continue to create a platform for debate and dialogue on the disjuncture between international instruments and their national implementation in Africa and to identify strategies that researchers, activists, and government officials can apply to bridge that gap. Gender activists should also join their voices to civil society coalitions such as SOAWR to continue calling for the removal of the structural barriers that face women.

Obstacles and challenges

The domestication and further ratification of the protocol have been slowed by a lack of political will. Even though most countries have established national gender machineries, these are weak and lack adequate authority, capacity, human resources and funding. This is coupled with inadequate skills in gender analysis among planners and implementers, and limited gender awareness within communities.

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which is an important tool in interpreting the protocol, is not yet fully functional. Even when it is, access to it by civil society organisations, which have been the main champions of the protocol, will be limited to those countries that have signed a declaration to facilitate such action.

Women’s participation in politics and decision making remains low, and this slows down their influence on governments to carry out their obligations under the protocol. Women’s access to justice is further inhibited by illiteracy and ignorance of their rights and how to access them. Some cultural and traditional practices continue to hold back progress in realising the provisions of the protocol.

Most of the human rights instruments set a ceiling and a floor as frameworks that women can use to combat discrimination in its many forms. However, these tools in themselves are not perfect. For example, the language employed in some of them is either too complicated or too broad or both; this could create problems of interpretation, especially at the national level. They also fail to address the issue of recourse in cases of non-compliance. It has been said that they can only bark because they lack the teeth they need to bite. The consequences of non-compliance and non-enforcement need to be built into them.

Another problem is the strategy of placing reservations on some key provisions. This negates the principle of women’s rights as first and foremost being inalienable, integral and indivisible.

One other obstacle that has been identified at the national level is that few lawyers are aware of the protocol and are therefore unable to cite it in support of their arguments. Not many law students take up courses in gender and the law where these are part of the curriculum, hence their ignorance about the protocol and other women’s rights instruments.

Lessons learned

Effective implementation of international human rights standards for women has depended so far on the will of individual states. Cultural and religious practices are often used to undermine the implementation of provisions concerning women’s rights. Reliance on the good will of governments to implement international agreements has not yielded positive results. CEDAW was seen as foreign, but even though the protocol is home-grown, our governments have not treated it differently as far as implementation is concerned.

Women’s empowerment requires a higher level of involvement by women in governance and decision making. Systemic and structural barriers that prevent them from participating in decision making at all levels need to be removed.

The media can play an important role in promoting equality. Women’s press and communications initiatives and the use of technology to promote women’s activities should be supported.

The proliferation of instruments has also been cited as a possible factor hindering compliance because each one requires a different reporting and accounting procedure, thereby placing a huge burden on states. There is also inadequate dissemination of information about these instruments at the local level.

A number of African states have bound themselves to international human rights instruments, but only a few have actually taken steps to make them enforceable within their countries. It seems that our governments ratify such instruments not because of a political commitment to their content, but because of political expediency and in order to maintain a good image. The failure to domesticate these commitments remains a big problem.

The multiplicity of laws in different countries is such that most countries will have to enact new legislation to domesticate the protocol after ratification. A number of countries that have ratified the protocol, such as South Africa and Mauritius, did so with harmful reservations, signifying their unwillingness completely to abandon practices that discriminate against women. The legitimacy of entering reservations on the treaties may be questionable because of the substance of such reservations.

Mainstream international human rights standards are defined in relation to men’s experiences and are stated in terms of discrete violations of rights in the public realm, whereas most violations of women’s rights take place in the private realm. The public/private dichotomy that is so detrimental to women’s rights continues to exist.

The drafters of the protocol were very much influenced by the contents of CEDAW as well as the work of the CEDAW committee. It is therefore obvious that to ensure effective implementation of the protocol, Africa should draw on the experience of the CEDAW committee.

Conclusion

It is evident from the preceding paragraphs that the adoption of the protocol is a significant development that will ensure the full integration of women’s human rights within the overall human rights framework in Africa. The protocol will allow both the African Commission and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights to elaborate how the rights recognised under it should be guaranteed in real-life situations.

The role of international instruments and other initiatives cannot be underestimated. Broad legitimacy beyond the nation state has created some leverage to pursue the gender agenda. However we are faced with growing failure to translate these instruments into reality in the domestic context. The gap between the commitments and their implementation is becoming ever larger, raising the question: what needs to be done? We should consider both individually and collectively what we can do to ensure that implementation takes place.

There is no denying that it is very important to have these commitments on paper as markers of progress. What is more important though is using them to ensure actual change in the lives of women. We have to be careful that the gains won in Beijing are not turned back.

Recommendations

There needs to be a specialist body similar to the CEDAW committee to monitor implementation of the protocol. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in its work to monitor the charter, has not paid enough attention to the protocol. Even though it has appointed a Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women, this office needs more human and financial resources to carry out its mandate effectively. States parties are bound by Article 26 of the protocol to report on progress in its implementation, but they are not likely to take this seriously if they are not required to report to a particular body specifically set up to monitor the protocol.

The teaching of women’s rights should be incorporated into the curriculum of law faculties as a core discipline, to ensure that lawyers leave school knowing not only national laws but also regional and international instruments that protect women’s rights.

Women’s rights organisations and coalitions such as SOAWR should be supported to monitor implementation of the protocol. They should be assisted financially to participate in commission meetings and to prepare shadow reports when country reports are being considered.

Steps should be taken to institute in full the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights without further delay.

Women should be encouraged to participate in political processes at all levels and in portfolios that have significant policy roles. Members of parliament also have an important role to play in passing legislation, initiating private members’ bills and demanding ministerial statements on obligations undertaken.

The media could also contribute by disseminating information on the progress of the protocol and its benefits to citizens so that they can demand implementation.

All the rights in the protocol are interrelated, interdependent and indivisible. Thus the violation of any one of them affects the enjoyment of all the others. Countries should be encouraged to ratify the protocol without registering reservations.

Our leaders and policy makers should resolve to change not only what is outside of them, but also what is inside them as far as attitudes to gender equality are concerned. With a redefined notion of power and equality we will be able to bring about change.

Roselynn Musa is the Advocacy Officer at the African Women’s Development and Communications Network, (FEMNET) in Nairobi, Kenya

Note

1 African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), Equality Now-Africa Regional Office, African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS), Women in Law and Development in Africa, Akina Mama wa Afrika, Inter-African Network for Women, Media Gender and Development (FAMDEV), Fahamu, Oxfam GB, Burkina Faso-Voix de Femmes, Djibouti-UNFD, Guinea Conakry-CPTAFE, Kenya-Coalition on Violence Against Women, FIDA-Kenya, Mali-AJM, Mozambique-Muhler Forum and FDC, Namibia-Sister Namibia, Nigeria-Women’s Rights Awareness and Protection Alternatives (WARPA) and HURILAW, South Africa-Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, Sudan-Strategic Initiative for the Horn of Africa, Education Centre for Women in Development, and the Babikar Badri Scentific Association for Women, Inter-African Committee on Harmful Traditional Practices, Ethiopia.

Bibliography

Arusa, M.K. (1998) Human Rights Protection in the African Regional System. Pretoria

Benedek, W. et al, (2002) Human Rights of Women. New York: Zed Books

Inter-Parliamentary Union (2003) Handbook for Parliamentarians: The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and its Optional Protocol. Geneva: UN Publications

UN (1995) ‘Platform for Action and the Beijing Declaration’. UN Department of Public Information, New York

Waldorf, L. (2004) Pathway to Gender Equality: CEDAW, Beijing and the MDGs. UNIFEM/German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development

Westhuizen, C. van der (ed) (2005) Gender Instruments in Africa: Critical Perspectives and Future Strategies. South Africa: Institute for Global Dialogue

World Bank Gender and Development Group (2003) ‘Gender Equality and the Millennium Development Goals’. Washington DC: World Bank <http://www.worldbank.org/gender/&gt;

Our Energy-Rich Dark Continent Africa

Our Energy-Rich Dark Continent
The Monitor (Kampala)

COLUMN
4 November 2007
Posted to the web 5 November 2007

By Muniini K. Mulera
Kampala
Few experiences have brought home Africa’s infrastructural challenges than a night flight I took from Johannesburg to London on June 10, 2005.

The British Airways Boeing 747 takes off from the Oliver Tambo International Airport in a northerly direction, leaving behind an endless sea of lights that showcase the wealthy expanse of gold-rich Gauteng.

The modern jet passenger enjoys the benefit of tracking his whereabouts as the plane makes its progress. A live map on a personal television screen reveals which city and country is 35,000 feet below you.

From the air, Johannesburg’s millions of glittering bulbs seem to merge with the millions of equally brilliant stars over Tshwane, known to some as Pretoria. No surprises so far. Fully 80 percent of South African households have electricity in their homes.

But soon all is darkness, interrupted by small clusters of light in the distance. Rancistown, Botswana’s second-largest urban centre comes into view. It’s much smaller than Jo’burg, of course, but it is brightly lit nevertheless.

Botswana, one of Africa’s most well managed states, is now counted among the upper-middle income countries. Yet even Botswana, like most of Africa, remains in the dark. Only about 24% of its citizens, the majority of whom live in the major towns, have access to electricity. Electrification has reached only 12% of Botswana’s rural areas.

The lights of Francistown soon disappear into the distance.

Then ahead and all around us, pure, pitch-black darkness that seems endless. We are over Zambia. Darkness. No surprise. Only 23% of Zambians, mostly urban dwellers, have access to electricity. Look! There in the distance! Lusaka. The pitch-black countryside makes its amber-coloured lights appear brighter than they probably are.

Darkness returns. But wait! Aren’t we over the Ndola-Kitwe-Mufulira-Chingola belt? Why do I see only a few scattered lights in this copper-rich area? Perhaps it is load-shedding night tonight.

Total darkness again, at once beautiful and frightful. We are over the Congo Free State, immortalised by Joseph Conrad in his Heart of Darkness, a tale set on the mighty Congo River, second longest in Africa. The skies are clear. No clouds. I should see Lubumbashi somewhere down there, my map says. I see nothing but darkness in this super-rich part of Africa.

Ahead is the River Congo, which drains a vast area of more than 1.6 million square miles, and has enormous but untapped hydro power. The Congo Free State, one of the richest territories on earth, has the potential to produce up to 55 gigawatts of electricity. It currently produces only 5 per cent of that. Only 6 percent of all Congolese have access to electricity.

The Inga dam which straddles the Congo River has the potential to light up the entire Great Lakes Region, Southern and Central Africa and parts of the West and North, without help from other dams of Africa. Now, I am not a fan of hydropower.

The vagaries of Africa’s climate make reliance on a steady flow of water a hazardous undertaking. Better to invest in alternative sources, such as solar, wind, thermal and nuclear energy. But for the moment, Africa has abundant hydro-potential, right there in the endless darkness below.

I am lost in these thoughts, as I peek through the window, into an infinite darkness that hides King Leopold’s ghost and those of his African heirs who have looted and left Congo and the rest of Africa in darkness. The Dark Continent is a reality tonight, not some eighteenth century European’s derogatory comment.

I see it all around me, for thousands of kilometers, over hours of fast jet flight, above the richest part of the world. The plane roars on, over Cameroon, 80% of whose population has no access to electricity. Then over Nigeria, oil-rich Nigeria, less dark than Congo, but dark still.

A country which has raked in over $400 billion from oil exports over the last 30 years, Nigeria should be better lit than I see. Whereas 40% of Nigerians have access to electricity, most of these are urban dwellers. Only 10% of the country’s rural households have access to electricity.

In fact these figures could be worse. The overall figure for Africa is 24%. In Kenya, 15% of the citizens have access to electricity. The figure for Tanzania is 7%, but only 2% of the rural population. Lesotho and Malawi, 6% each. Rwanda and Uganda, 5% each. Chad, 2%. You get the point, Tingasiga.

The plane roars on. I pick up a few flickering lights over northern Nigeria, reminding me of my childhood fantasies of Bacwezi herdsmen grazing their cattle by candlelight on mountaintops.

I wake up over Libya. I must have fallen asleep somewhere over the vast desert that is Niger. Just as well. I have been spared thoughts of tens of thousands of Africans trekking on foot across the extremely cold, dark and treacherous desert on their way to Europe, in search of jobs.

Libya is bathed in lights, the entire desert country seemingly lit by millions of terrestrial stars. We fly over the large shining port city of Tripoli before bidding a fond farewell to Africa.

Soon we are over southern Europe, its hundreds of millions of street lights visible everywhere. Not even the clouds can hide the luminous truth beneath.

But I am still thinking about the trillions of dollars worth of gold and oil and natural gas and rubber and diamonds and copper and uranium and bauxite and silver and water and timber and wildlife and…… the list is endless.

All that wealth is owned by hundreds of millions of bright Africans at home and in the Diaspora with the potential to transform our great continent. Notice how everything in Africa always seems to have potential? But if Europeans can do it, we can do it. Of that I am certain.

Economic Progress in Africa was Focus of Secretary Paulson’s Trip

Economic Progress in Africa Focus of Secretary Paulson’s Trip

United States Department of State (Washington, DC)
NEWS
13 November 2007
Posted to the web 14 November 2007

By Charles W. Corey
Washington, DC
Economic progress in Tanzania, South Africa and Ghana — including infrastructure development and job creation — will be the focus of U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.’s trip to the emerging market countries November 13-19.

While in Africa, the Treasury secretary also will deliver a major address to the Corporate Council on Africa’s U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, and attend a G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors, according to Ahmed Saeed, deputy assistant secretary of the treasury for Africa and the Middle East.

Briefing reporters on Paulson’s trip November 9 at the U.S. Foreign Press Center in Washington, Saeed identified Tanzania, South Africa and Ghana as places where “sound governance and good economic polices have, over the last half decade and longer, had profound positive economic consequences.”

All three countries are enjoying “robust track records” of economic growth dating back at least five years, he explained. After implementing positive economic reforms, they exemplify the “good financial and economic news stories that are now emerging from Africa,” he said.

There are parts of Africa, Saeed said, “where there has been real poverty alleviation — particularly in those countries [Tanzania, South Africa and Ghana] that have done the right thing when it comes to economic policy.”

Along with the good news on Tanzania, South Africa and Ghana, he cautioned that there are still “numerous challenges” in today’s Africa that “we all know” and of which we must remain aware.

Saeed said the continent is seeing its “highest growth rates and the lowest inflation levels in 30 years.” The growth in economic policy management “seems to be quite widespread,” he said, with 23 of 48 countries seeing record high growth levels that seem to be trickling down.

“The last four years we have seen average per capita income growth of 3.8 percent, and … the [International Monetary Fund] is projecting 4 percent per capita income growth for this year,” he added.

While in Africa, Paulson is expected to talk about issues that are directly related to economic and financial performance. “He is going to talk about the critical role played by infrastructure … the importance of having a sound and robust financial structure” and of spreading the benefits of growth and sustainable development, Saeed said.

While in Tanzania, Saeed said, Paulson is expected to travel to a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) farm outside Arusha that is a sustainable community focused on land conservation. He also will hold talks with the Tanzanian finance minister that will include discussion of a $698 million Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact that Tanzania is expected to sign with the United States early next year, Saeed said.

Before leaving Tanzania, Paulson also is expected to meet with East African Community (EAC) finance ministers from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Kenya to talk about regional capital market integration and how that could foster further economic development across the region. Paulson also will visit the A to Z Textiles mosquito net factory, which is generating jobs and participating in President Bush’s anti-malaria initiative for Africa.

In South Africa, Paulson will be the keynote speaker at the Corporate Council on Africa’s U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Cape Town. While in that country, he also will meet with local bankers, participate in a G20 meeting and visit the Khayelitsha Cookie Company, which is creating important job opportunities, especially for women.

In Ghana, Paulson will visit the Ghana Stock Exchange and participate in a round table discussion with bankers from Ghana and elsewhere in the region. He also will meet with President John Kufuor to review Ghana’s economic progress and then travel to Akosombo Dam, where he will talk about the critical role infrastructure plays in the African development process. “Akosombo Dam is the source of more than 50 percent of Ghana’s energy,” Saeed reminded the reporters, and, as such, is an important source of economic development.

The overarching theme of Paulson’s trip, Saeed concluded, is to “shine a light on those changes that are taking place in Africa, have been taking place for some time in terms of implementing fundamentally sound economic policies, and those changes which are now bearing fruit … and talking about how we can partner with those who have a real commitment to reform.”

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

African Development Partners to Review Partnership

Development Partners to Review Partnership

BuaNews (Tshwane)
NEWS
15 November 2007
Posted to the web 15 November 2007
Algiers
African countries and their partners among developed nations have agreed to review their partnership to include taking urgent steps in terms of financial aid, grants, debt settlement and more equitable global trade.

The agreement was reached earlier this week at the Ninth Africa Partnership Forum (APF), which showed that Africa’s challenges were not impossible provided that the political will expressed was put into practice.

The forum, which began last week, agreed that urgent steps had to be taken or Africa would fail to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The eight MDGs are:

• Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

• Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

• Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

• Goal 5: Improve maternal health

• Goal 6: Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases

• Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

• Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

The substantial efforts made so far by Africa’s partners, especially the Group of Eight most developed nations, remained below expectations of Africa and the commitment made by the international community, the participants concluded.

They also called for increased public aid to development, which had dropped lately, stressing that such financing needed long-term commitments.

It was necessary to facilitate African countries’ access to new grants and low interest loans to enable these countries to avert the vicious circle of debt.

The participants also noted that Africa had fallen short of expectations concerning the fight against corruption, in spite of the efforts exerted by African States in the promotion of good governance.

Representatives of the African Union, the European Commission as well as those of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and development countries unanimously underlined the “persistence of gaps and deficiencies in the devices of the fight against corruption”.

They called on African States “to assume their responsibilities” in this regard. The developed countries’ contributions in this field, the Norwegian representative said, would be to grant technical aid and assistance in the legal field in order to help recover embezzled funds.

Embezzlement remained an obstacle to poverty alleviation and the development of democracy, the participants noted, adding, however, that despite these deficiencies, Africa was experiencing progress in the field of good governance in recent years.

The Rights of Indigenous Peoples

The Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Fahamu (Oxford)
OPINION
13 November 2007
Posted to the web 15 November 2007

By Korir Sing’oei Abraham

Korir Sing’Oei Abraham argues that Africa’s opposition to the adoption of rights for indigenous peoples — who are often nomads or hunter gatherers — has largely been informed by misconceptions and myths. He points out that the right to self-determination sought by these marginalised groups has been recognised by the AU as being consistent with the principles of a country’s territorial integrity.

It is late July 2006. A study and information visit by the Working Group of Experts on Indigenous Populations – part of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (the commission, hereafter) – is under way in Uganda. Uganda is one of the few African countries whose constitution boasts an extensive human rights regime of civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural rights.

The visit, designed to disseminate the findings of a report by the commission in 2004 on the status of indigenous peoples in Africa, and thereby to engage in constructive dialogue with government officials and civil society in Kampala, is confronted with an insurmountable obstacle. A leading member of the Ugandan delegation overseeing the visit – Rosette Nyirinkindi, the head of the African Union division in Uganda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs – is of the view that the visit’s objectives are contrary to the spirit of the country’s constitution, which seeks to foster peaceful coexistence among Uganda’s communities. According to Nyirinkindi, a seasoned diplomat who had previously served in her country’s mission in New York, the Ugandan constitution identifies all 56 ethnic communities residing in the country as indigenous. Therefore to set apart and focus on some of these communities to the exclusion of others, as the commission report had done, was a flagrant breach of Uganda’s constitutional and policy commitment to equality and a short cut to ethnic strife.

This is the classic scenario that confronts advocacy of indigenous rights in Africa. To raise indigenous issues in the continent demands that one respond to the question of to whom precisely indigenous rights may be ascribed. This then invites myriad other inquiries, including the usefulness of this distinction in promoting human rights and the link with the question of national integrity. This article will address some of these issues, and I hope give voice to the millions of pastoralists and forest communities who self-identify as indigenous people in Africa.

The context

It is difficult to analyse the question of indigenous rights in Africa without engaging with the question of statehood, and it is impossible to address the latter without considering its dubious origins. The colonial enterprise in Africa, marked by domination and annexation of territory, was masterminded by Leopold, the Belgian monarch, and Bismarck, the German chancellor. It reached its peak in the Berlin conference of 1884, which was convened ostensibly to regulate trading relations between European powers but ended by legislating for the partition of Africa. The result was the dismemberment of the continent into 53 multi-ethnic and odd states with no basis in scientific or social rationality save that of resolving territorial disputes between the colonisers. This certainly lends credence to the fledgling movement for the unification of Africa.

Colonialism was based on the ethnocentric belief that the morals and values of the European coloniser were superior to those of the colonised African. It involved egregious racial discrimination linked to pseudo-scientific theories that were buttressed by the Christian religious zealotry of the 17th and 18th centuries. This form of social Darwinism, that placed white people at the top of the animal kingdom ‘naturally’ in charge of dominating non-European indigenous populations, found a strong philosophical justification in the works of the German philosopher Hegel, amongst others. He claimed that sub-Saharan Africa was an ancient utopia which had remained shut up within itself: ‘the land of childhood, which lying beyond the day of self-conscious history, is enveloped in the dark mantle of night’. Its isolated character, argued Hegel, originated not merely in its tropical nature but essentially in its geographical condition. Hegel claimed that upland negroes continued to exist in a state of consciousness which he termed ‘the infancy of humanity’, hence the juridical concept of discovery that informed colonial property relations with conquered people’s territories.

The post-colonial state in Africa, emerging from this colonial artifice, reluctant to remodel itself, and having solidified the colonial boundaries through the ancient international legal principle of uti possidetis,[1] is fraught with weaknesses which have manifested themselves in serious ethnic conflicts, poor governance, wanton inequalities and chronic poverty. Indigenous rights in Africa must be assessed and asserted from this context.

Indigenous rights and people in Africa

While it is undeniable that the West ravaged and looted the entire continent through slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism, the disproportionate disadvantage dispensed by these forces upon some communities in Africa is vehemently denied. Why is it so hard to appreciate that the Maasai, who lost over one million acres of grazing land in Kenya’s vast Rift Valley to the British, today constitute one of the poorest communities in the country? Does it take rocket science to appreciate that the expulsion of the Batwa from the Bwindi and Mgahinga National Parks in Uganda to pave the way for the protection of the mountain gorilla, a key tourist attraction, has led to the near-decimation of this hunter-gatherer community? Does one need to ask what contributes to the penury of the Herero in Namibia, whom the Germans butchered en masse and used as guinea pigs at the turn of the 20th century?

The worst part of the nightmare is that rather than pave the way for the reconstruction of Africa’s political and economic order, the departure of the colonialists ushered in a new set of black dominators who, taking advantage of the instruments and institutions of the colonial state, proceeded to plunder and loot the continent of its resources and completely closed the door to restitutive justice.

Contemporary public policy makers in Africa ignore the shame of colonialism and make vigorous attempts to construct a reality based on the ‘national interest’ rather than communitarian pursuits, which they consider provincial and therefore sectarian. It is this subsuming of identities, and its conflation with equality for all, that is largely responsible for the denial of indigenous rights.

Indigenous rights are considered a domain of rights which seeks to dislocate national priorities for communitarian purposes and does not fit the logic of state-centred development. That some communities have refused to align their interests with national development priorities is seen as failing to take on the responsibility and demands of progress. This view is part of a classical contention that disputes the relevance of recognising diversity in divided societies, a move that hegemonises the state. A critical analysis of indigenous rights and their beneficiaries would demonstrate the fallacy of this objection.

First, indigenous rights are grounded in the general notion of the universality of rights within a multicultural context as endorsed by the Vienna Declaration of 1993. That declaration unequivocally reaffirmed the inherent dignity and unique contribution of indigenous people to the development and plurality of society, and called for their full inclusion in the life of the state. It is therefore anathema to question the place of indigenous rights in the national discourse, for the two can comfortably coexist and support each other; the substantive inclusion of marginalised groups in national processes gives the latter broader legitimacy. By reinforcing the state where it would otherwise be absent, the promotion of indigenous rights, such as self-determined local governance and development, can lead to peace.

Second, indigenous rights must be seen as enabling substantive equality, thus spreading light to a group of people previously not reached by the transformative premise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While non-discrimination is held up as a jus cogens,[3] the fact that it is still difficult to achieve equality for all means that marginalised groups, be they women, children, minorities or indigenous groups, have to pursue strategies that go beyond formal equality to attain the promise of dignity for all people. Some have questioned how effective non-discrimination provisions are as a bulwark against the human rights deficiencies experienced by indigenous groups. Professor Kingsbury of New York University has argued, for instance, that the existing mechanisms have completely failed to deal adequately with the concerns of indigenous groups, and have merely served a symbolic and didactic purpose, hence the demand for more specific mechanisms.

Third, the collective conception of rights has often seemed to be a child of a lesser god within a human rights system that has historically pitted civil and political rights against economic, social and cultural rights. Collective rights, which are central to the struggle of indigenous people the world over, have suffered from being poorly articulated, which has prevented them from being regarded as the norm. Thanks to Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the progressive jurisprudence that has flowed from the Human Rights Committee on this article, a lot of ground has been laid for the protection of group rights to land and development, among other things. The rich array of solidarity rights provided for under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the charter, hereafter), which lend themselves well to the cause of indigenous peoples, is thanks to Keba M’Baye, the Senegalese jurist. His appreciation of the dynamics of African society inspired the document. In his 1972 monograph on the rights to development – Le Droit du Developpement comme un Droit de l’Homme – borrowing significantly from Karel Vasak, UNESCO’s director, M’Baye articulates solidarity rights to include the right to development, the right to peace, the right to an environment, the right to ownership of the common heritage of humankind, and the right to communication.

Thus, the notion of indigenous people and rights in Africa must be understood not merely in terms of a dictionary definition that emphasises people’s origins. The modern understanding of the term ‘indigenous peoples’ focuses on the lived experience of systemic marginalisation, discrimination, cultural difference and self-identification, in line with the emerging practice of the commission. The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) and the Working Group on Indigenous Issues of the commission have argued that:…the issue of indigenous peoples revolves around the assertion that certain marginalized groups are discriminated against in particular ways because of their particular culture, mode of production and subordinate position within the state and that state legal and policy frameworks have been impotent at addressing these challenges. This is a form of discrimination which other groups within the state do not suffer from. It is legitimate for these marginalized groups to call for the protection of their rights in order to alleviate this particular form of discrimination.[4]

The notion of indigenous people in Africa also overlaps with the concept of minority rights, another problematic but less controversial term in the continent.

Africa’s opposition to the adoption of standard-setting mechanisms and norms for indigenous peoples has largely been informed by misconceptions and myths. In 2006 an assault on the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, led by Namibia and Botswana within the African group in the UN, caused the General Assembly to postpone its decision on the declaration, thereby holding in abeyance substantive recognition of indigenous rights under international law. When the African Union’s assembly of heads of state and government met in Addis Ababa a year later, they justified the position of the African group on the grounds that indigenous rights as elaborated in the declaration would affect territorial integrity. The question that baffles many is whether the Batwa in Uganda, the Endorois in Kenya or the Bushmen in Botswana have designs to create their own separate states. Is it not obvious that the right to self-determination sought by these groups is one that can empower them and lead to their recognition and enhanced participation in public affairs? The Katanga v Zaire communication of 1976, which established that a variant of self-determination that ensures the inclusion of marginalised groups within a state is consistent with the principle of territorial integrity, was reiterated nearly 20 years later in the Ogoni v Nigeria decision by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

The term ‘indigenous people’ should therefore be used in a practical way, to draw attention to and alleviate the particular form of discrimination from which communities suffer. In the African context these communities are almost always nomadic or hunter gatherers. By identifying with the term, they feel that the particularities of their suffering can be better articulated and can lend themselves to the protection of international human rights law and moral standards. The adoption of a flexible bundle of rights attributable to indigenous groups, rather than a constant struggle to achieve unanimous agreement on terminology (which has been elusive over the last two decades of discussion within the UN on indigenous rights) seems to me to offer a real possibility for appreciating indigenous peoples’ rights in Africa.

A cry from the dark: living on the fringes

Groups that self-identify as indigenous live a peripheral existence. Most governments in Africa do not have disaggregated data or indicators to monitor the social, economic and political status of indigenous people. How then can they track progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals if the poorest of the poor are not even properly recognised? A major concern is that many states will focus on the bottom line of reaching the MDGs, rather than the matter of who reaches them or how. This risk was noted in the Human Development Report of 2003.[5]

Take the Twa in Burundi, Rwanda, DRC and Uganda, for instance. Their lifestyle and the rate of deforestation has kept them moving for decades and left them vulnerable – falling through the cracks of a modern social and legal system which would normally secure tenure on both their lands and livelihood assets. Growing pressure to preserve the few remaining rainforests in the most densely populated countries of the Great Lakes region means that they find themselves excluded from their traditional habitats. The Rwandan state has for decades been tightening its control over forest areas, driven by the need for more protective conservation policies, the growth of the tourism industry and security concerns along its borders with DRC, Burundi and Uganda. The Batwa have been the most affected by these measures, which have uprooted them from their traditional lifestyle and means of earning a living. They have been unable to make a successful transition to a sedentary life and a market economy.

Most indigenous communities, including the Twa, were never compensated when expelled from the ‘protected areas’ or ‘state reserves’ they used to live in, due to their traditional marginalisation and to flawed legal and policy frameworks. As a result, their living conditions have degenerated further. Today, most Batwa lead a shockingly impoverished existence. A recent report by a UK charity called the Forest Peoples Programme predicts that the Twa are in danger of extinction unless massive and concerted action is taken to reverse their decline.

Such is the state of many other groups of indigenous people, both pastoralists and hunter gatherers, from the Barabaig in Tanzania to the Tuareg in Mali.

The road less traveled

Indigenous rights, shunned by politicians across the continent, have found solace in an unlikely quarter: the judiciary. Reputed to be incorrigibly corrupt and inefficient, judiciaries across the continent have yet to be acknowledged as bastions of justice for the weak. It is here that the struggle for recognition and respect for indigenous rights has been most vociferously waged. From Botswana to Kenya, South Africa to Uganda, courts have become the theatre for dramatising the plight of indigenous people and the sheer scale of their destitution. In Kenya, a toothless goat was produced to persuade a court of allegations of environmental genocide perpetrated against the indigenous Il Chamus community. In Botswana, hundreds of members of the Basarwa community, clad in their colourful traditional attire, endured a 200-day hearing to demonstrate that they were indeed a recognisable group, contrary to the state’s assertion. Judicial proceedings have been used with mixed results to seek land restitution for an indigenous group in South Africa, halt state displacement of the Ogiek from the Tinet forest in the Rift Valley of Kenya, procure provision of social services for the Benet in Uganda, stop a multinational mining company from procuring a land concession in the Magadi area of Kenya for soda ash production, and secure language rights in Namibia.

Disappointingly, just as in the days of Brown v Board of Education at the height of the civil rights movement in the United States, when the Supreme Court issued judgments in favour of desegregation but racist and belligerent states refused to implement them, African governments have been reluctant to embrace with open arms the decisions of their own judiciaries. The government of Botswana, for instance, side-stepped the decision of its constitutional court and refused to allow the Basarwa to return to their hunting livelihood in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. A year after the Kenyan constitutional court held that a constituency should be created for the Il Chamus in Baringo to ensure their participation in policy making, no action has been taken. A similar state of affairs prevails in Uganda, where two years after consent judgment was entered allowing the Benet rights to graze and farm the land they occupy, there has been no action by the administration to back up the court’s decision. In a continent that professes respect for the rule of law as a central tenet of its constitutional order, the failure to implement judicial decisions is a mocking indictment of Africa’s commitments to good governance and democratic ideals.

Undeterred, indigenous groups have seized on regional mechanisms to develop standard-setting precedents on indigenous rights, but their attempts have yet to bear fruit. In 2006 the Bakweri lands claim against the Cameroonian government was defeated when the commission declared the communication inadmissible. Indigenous people in Africa wait with bated breath for the commission’s decision with respect to the Endorois communication against the Kenyan government, which seeks the restitution of ancestral territory.

The media houses, belatedly, have taken their cue from these dramatic scenes and begun to highlight the folly of non-recognition of indigenous communities’ plight in Africa, enabling the African public and policy makers to consider their predicament. Mainstream civil society organisations such as ActionAid and CARE in Uganda have begun to demand state attention to indigenous rights as a means of attaining the Millennium Development Goals. The rise of organisations such as the Centre for Minority Rights Development in Kenya and the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC) in South Africa, dedicated solely to the struggle for indigenous rights in Africa, is also helping give visibility to these issues.

Good news, difficult to come by, is slowly emerging. Countries such as South Africa and Cameroon have taken the bold step of commencing processes to ratify ILO Convention 169, which extends a substantive regime of rights for indigenous people, including the right to free, prior and informed consent in relation to development processes on indigenous lands.

Not yet out of the woods…

Indigenous people’s struggles for recognition of their rights must be considered within the context of building multicultural societies in Africa, where diverse identities contribute towards the well-being of the whole. Without this paradigm shift, indigenous rights will continue to be perceived negatively, as instruments of parochialism and division. Yet to achieve this shift, Africa must rise up to the challenge of its own identity. Until then, it is ‘not yet uhuru’ for indigenous groups in Africa.

* Mr. Sing’Oei is the executive Director of the Centre for Minority Rights Development (Cemiride)

Notes

1 Latin for ‘as you possess’, a legal principle which allows a belligerent to keep the territory it occupies at the end of a war.

2 Howitz, R. (2006) ‘Recognition, Respect and Reconciliation: Steps towards Decolonization?’ in Mander, J. and Tauli-Corpuz (eds) (2006) Paradigm Wars: Indigenous People’s Resistance to Globalization. Berkeley CA: University of California Press, p. 15.

3 Jus cogens: ‘compelling law’, or ‘higher law’, which may not be violated by any country.

4 IWGIA and ACHPR (2006) Indigenous Peoples in Africa: The Forgotten Peoples?, p.12.

5 UNDP (2003) Millennium Development Goals: A compact among nations to end human poverty. New York: UNDP.