News

The UN Democracy Fund Celebrates Africa Day

Africa Day commemorates the establishment in 1963, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which was succeeded in 2002 by the African Union (AU). The Secretary-General reaffirmed recently in the capital of Ethiopia that "the partnership between the African Union and the United Nations is strong, broad and deep. Let us work together in the years ahead to make it even stronger, broader and deeper".

Africa is a priority for the UN Democracy Fund. African Member States are well represented in our Advisory Board: the Republic of South Africa and Benin are key and active decision-makers. In its first year of activity, the Democracy Fund has allocated one third of its total budget to Sub-Saharan countries' projects, presented both by CSO from the region and International NGOs, in partnership with UN Agencies such as UNIFEM, UNDP and the UN Office for Drugs and Crime and world bodies such as IPU.  

In partnership with the Inter-Parliamentary Union, UNDEF supports a regional project to improve the role of parliaments in the implementation of UN human rights treaties in francophone Africa. The projects aims to increase parliamentarians' knowledge and expertise about human rights treaties, strengthening their capacity to participate in the completion of country reports to the UN treaty bodies and to regional human rights mechanisms and to increase the number of ratifications of international and regional human rights treaties. The UN Democracy Fund supports the promotion of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms through the continent. In Morocco, UNDEF develops in partnership with UNIFEM, a programme aimed at strengthening the Consultative Council on Human Rights. The project pilots the integration of a gender perspective into community development programmes led by civil society actors. It develops, in particular, a model on Gender and Transitional Justice issues based on the Moroccan experience.

Civil society plays a key role in a democratic society and in a democratization process. The Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) received a grant to establish a School for democracy that will offer courses to citizens, CSO leaders, politicians, government officials and professionals from across the continent. In Gambia, UNDEF supports, in partnership with UNDP, a project aimed to improve public participation in the economic and political governance at the decentralized levels through strengthening the ability of civil society institutions and the media to perform their oversight roles as guardians of the public interest. Greater participation of vulnerable and marginalized groups in economic and political governance decision making processes is also sought.

Enhancing a democratic dialogue and constitutional processes is determining the consolidation of new or restored democracy especially in post-conflict situations. That is partly why UNDP and local NGOs, with UNDEF's support, develop a project in Rwanda that focuses on consolidating a space for democratic debate at both local and national levels as an essential way to rebuild a post-genocide society; the project aims also at conducting research on key issues such as History, Genocide, Democracy, Rule of law and Poverty. In Guinea-Bissau, UNDEF provides its support for a project with the purpose to develop the capacity of the National People's Assembly to realize its constitutional mandate and act as a vehicle for conflict transformation. Access to information contributes to the promotion of an active civil society and to democratic culture and informed decision-making. The Canadian NGO "Journalists for Human Rights" manages an access to information programme in Sierra Leone that aims at developing the capacity of the national media to report more effectively, bolstering the media's ability to act as a medium of human rights and democratic information. At the same time the project focuses on women's rights as a key objective and provides gender equality trainings and empowers local women journalists. On a similar project UNIFEM works with the Inter Press Service to support women in African elections and addresses female under- representation in legislations and positions of leadership through media and communication.

UNDP Kenya and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights received a grant in the thematic area of Civic Education, Electoral Support and Political Parties. The project will use the opportunity of the December 2007 General Elections to support and deepen the transition towards democracy in Kenya through a focus on Human Rights and Accountability of the candidates. Another project in Rwanda provides Democracy Fund assistance to the Ombudsman Office to increase its capacity in assisting vulnerable groups in society. The project also seeks to strengthen accountability, transparency and integrity by investigating and exposing corruption and designing a national policy strategy on corruption.

In the next call for proposals of the Fund, foreseen in the coming fall, African CSO and other applicants are encouraged to propose projects that will further contribute to the promotion of Democracy in the African continent. On this Africa Day, the UN Democracy Fund wishes to express its commitment to assisting African governments, public institutions, civil society and the UN system in Africa in building a stronger, peaceful, economically vibrant and democratic Africa.

 

^ Back to top

Return to homepage