A briefing by Christian Aid and African partners
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- Eugene Leonard
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1 A briefing by Christian Aid and African partners EU AFRICA RELATIONS: Human Rights and Accountable Governance Introduction Christian Aid works with partner organisations in 20 countries across Africa. 1 Increasing the accountability of institutions to citizens from governments and parliaments, to village councils and local traders associations is a core priority for Christian Aid and our partners. In our analysis, poor and unaccountable governance by both domestic and external donor governments is a major factor in the non-realisation of human rights, and the lack of progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Africa needs strong and accountable leadership, committed to achieving the MDGs. The European Union (EU) and African Union (AU) must use the opportunity presented by the EU-Africa summit and strategy to take more meaningful action on human rights and governance. Strengthening the accountability of states to citizens is one of the key challenges in achieving development and peace in Africa but one so far insufficiently addressed in the strategy and action plan being negotiated for the EU-Africa summit. These documents remain primarily focused on increasing state capacity and on arrangements between the EU, AU and member states, but they should give greater priority to building new relationships between states and citizens. This should start with supporting the meaningful participation and engagement of civil society in deciding and setting policies, priorities and budgets. African civil society organisations (CSOs) play a vital and legitimate role defending human rights, denouncing abuses, monitoring the implementation of government policies, campaigning for pro-poor policies and providing valuable technical expertise to build a fair and democratic society. EU and AU governments must demonstrate greater political will and courage to implement their onpaper commitments to human rights and governance. The ongoing review and restructuring of EU/African relations present an opportunity to remove obstacles to effective implementation. This paper puts forward suggestions for the summit documents from Christian Aid and its partners to help make EU and AU governments on-paper commitments a reality in Africa. Firstly, the strategy and action plans must take a much broader view of governance, looking beyond statecentric processes to the people, and include provisions for increasing citizen and parliamentary participation and oversight. Helping poor people know and claim their rights must be central to the strategy. The action plan partnerships should also detail measures for taking stronger coordinated action in response to human rights violations, and for ensuring greater regulation of corporate social responsibility by European companies operating in Africa. In short, our recommendations call upon the governments of the EU and Africa to place governance and human rights at the heart of the EU-Africa strategy and commit to: Increasing citizen participation through support to civil society and the media Increasing support to parliaments, the judiciary and watch-dog institutions 1
2 Fully implementing existing human rights commitments, and improve the monitoring and enforcement of these commitments Taking stronger action against corruption. In addition the EU must use the Summit and Strategy to: Improve the aid effectiveness, policy coherence and accountability of the EU Engage in a regular dialogue with civil society, particularly human rights defender organisations Section 1: The human rights and accountable governance context in Africa AU and EU governments have signed up to a range of commitments, enshrined in various legal texts, treaties and agreements. 2 We are concerned that existing arrangements such as the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG) and the Cotonou Agreement are not yet effective in promoting respect for rights and accountable governance. In practice such processes tend to be state-centric, focused on governments and heads of state rather than citizens, and thus resistant to genuine democratic accountability. Voluntary processes relying on self-criticism and goodwill by governments have proven largely inadequate. CSOs and parliaments have so far been marginalised a major weakness, given that NGOs in particular play a crucial role reporting on the human rights situation and monitoring government implementation of recommendations and commitments. The lack of progress towards achieving on-paper commitments to human rights and accountability in Africa is attributable to a range of factors. Many of the international and AU commitments are yet to be translated into national law in most African countries. As such, the legal framework for human rights is incomplete and the protection afforded by the law is insufficient. Another major obstacle is the lack of political will on the part of African governments. This is compounded by the low capacity of national and local authorities, and the absence of effective, independent oversight institutions to counterbalance executive power and act in the public interest. In many AU countries, parliaments are weak and not yet able to fulfil their role of scrutinising executive action. Draconian laws and state restrictions on freedom of expression and of the press in particular reduce civil and political space and inhibit crucial accountability processes involving civil society, opposition parties and the media. This is often exacerbated by the low capacity and limited effective processes, opportunities and fora for African citizens and CSOs to engage with government. A culture of democratic accountability is still to be developed in most African societies. Citizens are not well informed of their civic and human rights and responsibilities and how they can claim them, especially in rural areas where literacy levels are generally low. This leads to inequality, exclusion and denial of rights to women, young people, ethnic minorities and disabled people in particular. Sexual violence is now widespread in some conflict and post-conflict African countries, 3 where the collapse of rule of law has contributed to the use of rape as a weapon of war to destroy family cohesion and the social fabric of communities. As there are very few examples of perpetrators of these crimes being brought to justice, a cycle of impunity and violence has emerged. The stigma attached to rape victims often leads to them being ostracised by their families and communities. Despite this gloomy picture, the existence of African initiatives such as the APRM and the ACDEG is a sign of progress, and gives reason for greater optimism and raised expectations. The EU-Africa strategy must support these initiatives, so they realise their full potential. Reinforcing state-citizen relations and democratic empowerment is key to consolidating this progress in a sustainable way. The track record of accountability donors in Africa is poor. Too often aid processes have increased the democratic deficit between states and citizens. On the whole there is a lack of dialogue and transparency in aid flows and aid programmes, which are largely decided with no genuine participation by CSOs or parliaments, and are influenced by donor fads. 2
3 Section 2: The impact of EU policies and economic activity on human rights and accountability in Africa Europe must acknowledge its share of responsibility for the lack of domestic accountability in African countries, linked to the unpopular and harmful policies imposed on these countries, such as privatisation of basic services, structural adjustment and other types of policy conditionality in aid programmes. Such policy imposition by the EU and other external donors, the World Bank in particular, has undermined national sovereignty and broad national ownership of policy-making in Africa. Donors have tended to engage mainly with the executive branches of African governments, largely neglecting parliaments and CSOs. This inhibits the development of democratic processes of citizen participation, parliamentary scrutiny, and ultimately the emergence of home-grown policies, models and mechanisms for governance in Africa. The proliferation of donors with different reporting and disbursement procedures means governments with limited capacity spend far too much time and energy juggling donor demands, with the result that budgets are only partially delivered. Citizens have no way of knowing whether government failure to deliver much-needed services is the result of corruption, ineptitude or bad donorship. Of concern is the apparent lack of genuine political will by the EU to implement its own commitments on human rights and accountability, for example to take forward the EU Guidelines for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and uphold the Cotonou principles. The gap between EU rhetoric and practice undermines the EU s credibility as a development actor in Africa, as does the lack of coherence between EU aid policies ostensibly intended to reduce inequalities and EU trade policies which exacerbate inequality. The effectiveness and coherence of EU action in the area of human rights and governance in African countries is often limited by a lack of coordination between EU actors, notably continued bilateralism by the most powerful member states. European trans-national companies and banks bear an enormous burden of responsibility in contributing to corruption in developing countries. Their activities, particularly in the extractive industries, have contributed to human rights violations and have fuelled conflict, corruption and the undemocratic, illegal exploitation of natural resources which could otherwise be used for development. To date, the EU has done little to investigate and regulate this, in spite of the body of evidence linking European companies to human rights violations and other illegal activity in Africa. 4 Transparency International s Bribe Payer s Index 2006 identified companies from 30 leading exporting countries (ten of them EU member states) that use bribes to win lucrative overseas contracts. Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Romania all EU member states are yet to ratify the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. Also, Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Luxembourg are yet to ratify the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). Section 3: EU domestic accountability If the EU intends to engage meaningfully with African leaders on issues of their accountability, it should use the EU-Africa summit documents and discussions to address the growing democratic deficit within the EU and bridge the gulf between European citizens and the EU institutions. Currently decisions are taken in the name of citizens without any consultation and there is little transparency and few effective mechanisms through which citizens and CSOs can shape EU policy. The processes for drawing up Indicative National Programmes for Cotonou European Development Funds (EDF) and Governance Action Plans for the incentive tranche of the 10 th EDF, for example, currently go on behind closed doors in most cases, in spite of the Cotonou commitments to participation, dialogue and consultation with non-state actors. 3
4 Section 4: Recommendations to the EU and AU Increase citizen participation through supporting CSOs and the media - The EU and AU must do more to support civil society in its struggle to build democratic culture and a fair society characterised by the rule of law. The action plan partnerships must provide resources for strengthening civil society capacity and setting up mechanisms for participation by citizens and the organisations representing them. This should include provision for making better use of technology to improve information flows, and transparency in decision-making and resource allocation. - The EU must allocate flexible funding instruments earmarked for African CSO programmes, particularly civic education initiatives aimed at raising people s awareness of their rights and responsibilities, building their knowledge of how to engage with government processes, and opportunities to do so. Civil society has a crucial role to play in election education and monitoring, which must also be supported by the strategy and action plan. - The role of independent media organisations, and independent voices more generally, is crucial to the accountability process. The EU and AU should denounce more proactively, systematically and with greater coherence, the persecution and intimidation of civil society organisations, media organisations and opposition parties seeking to hold governments to account. Other measures should include allocating resources to support African initiatives for the development of independent and responsible media organisations. Increase support to parliaments, the judiciary and watchdog institutions - The EU and AU action plan should seek to build the capacity and competencies of parliaments to be effective representatives and to oversee the activities of the executive. The EU-Africa strategy must include provisions for parliaments to scrutinise the implementation of the action plan and aid programmes. - The EU and AU action plan partnership on governance should include technical support to the judiciary in African countries as an important means of achieving rule of law across the continent, as well as measures to ensure the independence of national watchdog institutions for monitoring human rights and anti-corruption efforts. Provisions should be made to establish a fund for public interest litigation. Regular dialogue and engagement with CSOs, particularly human rights defender organisations (HRDs) - The EU and AU should take more concerted action to express concern, publicly denounce violations and emphasise the legitimacy of civil society actors, HRDs and journalists. - The EU and member states must ensure that effective structures and processes are in place to encourage systematic dialogue and engagement with both European and African CSOs on human rights and accountable governance, and ensure information-sharing, particularly through the EU delegations and missions based in African countries. - The European Commission and member states should develop country-level action plans for taking forward the EU Guidelines for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders 5 in consultation with African CSOs. - Through the strategy and action plans, CSOs and parliaments should be invited and supported to conduct independent assessments of the implementation of human rights commitments and governance principles by both EU and AU governments, and to critique the official reviews. Fully implement existing commitments to human rights and democracy and improve monitoring and enforcement - The EU-Africa strategy and action plan must include measures for increasing CSO and parliamentary participation in existing intergovernmental initiatives such as the APRM. Rather than being state led, such monitoring processes should be designed to reinforce accountability by states to citizens. - Press freedoms are fundamental to accountability and citizen empowerment and should be included as essential criteria in all human rights and governance reviews. - There is a need for a designated AU mechanism for tackling sexual violence, especially in conflict and post-conflict countries. This should include a monitoring system for checking 4
5 that appropriate, stringent national legislation against sexual violence is in place and being enforced, and support to equip state authorities to deal with such crimes more effectively. - The EU-Africa strategy must ensure that the choice and mix of aid modalities (budget support, projects and funding for CSOs) reflects a rigorous assessment of a country s potential for pro-poor budgeting. In the event of persistent serious rights violations by states, aid should be reallocated to UN and local CSO programmes. General economic sanctions and embargoes which impact negatively on the wider population must be avoided. Travel bans should not be lifted until the situation improves. To increase the pressure on targeted officials, travel bans should be extended to their family members who may otherwise seek education and other benefits from overseas travel. - The EU-Africa strategy should provide resources and mobilise political will to support the full implementation of the ACDEG. Improve the aid effectiveness, policy coherence and accountability of the EU - The EU and member states must address the problems of inconsistency and contradictions in policy and action between member states and the Commission in their relations with African governments and the AU on human rights and accountable governance. - The EU should lead by example by ensuring that EU programmes include transparency and anti-corruption measures. The action plan must include provision and support to ensure greater transparency and citizen participation in the process of planning and monitoring EU aid programmes. - The EU must do more to ensure that European citizens, NGOs and parliaments are better informed and consulted on EU policies in Africa, particularly through the National Indicative Programme planning process for Cotonou. - The EU, in collaboration with the AU, must promote the creation of an international forum on aid where developing countries engage on an equal footing with rich countries to discuss, guide and scrutinise aid effectiveness, and the impact of aid on accountability and human rights in all recipient countries. - The EU member states and the European Commission must set up an appropriate regulatory framework to improve corporate social responsibility by EU companies in Africa. Given that the majority of EU member states are also members of the OECD, the EU must overcome the lack of political will to ensure that the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Social Responsibility are fully implemented. Stronger action against corruption - European and African states should ratify, strengthen and implement international agreements on corruption, such as the United Nations Convention against Corruption. - There is need to ratify and strengthen the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, while African nations that have not ratified the AU Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption should urgently set in motion the process of ratification. - The EU should stop turning a blind eye to corruption even when strategic interests come into play. 6 This paper has been signed by the following Christian Aid partners: The All African Conference of Churches, Heritiers de la Justice (DRC), LINELIT (DRC), ISODEC (Ghana), CHRA (Combined Harare Residents Association, Zimbabwe), Zimbabwe Project Trust, the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development, the Uganda Joint Christian Council, the Justice and Peace Council of the Ecclesiastical Province of Gulu (Uganda), the Benevolent Institute of Development Initiatives (Kenya), ORAM Mozambique, Northern Aid (Kenya), the Christian Council of Tanzania, UMADEP (Tanzania), the Refugee Law Project of the Faculty of Makekere University (Uganda), Uganda Debt Network and Dynamique de la Sociéte Civile (the national platform of Congolese civil society networks). 5
6 1 Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana,, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 2 The majority of European and African states are signatories to both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights. AU states have signed up to various commitments through, for example, the Constitutive Act of the African Union (2002), the New Partnership for Africa s Development and, more recently, the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. The EU has made commitments to promoting human rights and democratic principles in its relations with external states, through instruments such as the Cotonou Agreement and the EU Guidelines for the Protection of Human Rights defenders. 3 See Amnesty International reports on rape in Burundi: web.amnesty.org/library/index/engafr DRC: web.amnesty.org/library/index/engafr ?open&of=eng-373 and Sudan: web.amnesty.org/library/index/engafr A series of reports were published between 2001to 2003 by the United Nations Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources of the DRC. The panel s findings linked illegal exploitation with mining and logging activity, implicating neighbouring governments, but also a list of multinational companies, a number of which are registered in the EU Other organisations have also highlighted the negative impact of European corporations and banks involved in mining and oil exploration activities across the continent, such as Global Witness: and Corporate Watch 5 The guidelines include practical measures to be taken by EU missions for protecting HRDs, which if fully implemented could make an important contribution to improving EU action on human rights in Africa: 6 An example of western strategic interests taking precedence over commitments to accountability and human rights in Africa is the support provided by western governments to prop up Mobutu Sese Seko s kleptocratic dictatorship in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) during the Cold War years as a pro-west buffer to the spread of influence by the former Soviet Union in Africa. 6
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