AFRICAN CHARTER
for Popular Participation
in Development and Transformation
The document published here is an abridgement of the official text of the Charter, distributed by the United Nations as document A/45/427 of 22 August 1990. The wording is taken directly from the official text. Omitted words or phrases are indicated in the text by ...; transitional phrases inserted by the editor for clarity are set off by brackets.
Larger Image | Special OfferThe African Charter for Popular Participation in Development and Transformation was adopted in Arusha, Tanzania, in February 1990, at the end of the International Conference on Popular Participation in the Recovery and Development Process in Africa. The conference was a collaborative effort between African people's organizations, African governments and United Nations agencies. It emerged from suggestions by non-governmental organizations to the 1988 mid-term review of the United Nations Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development, 1986-1990 (UN-PAAERD). The complete text should be available in libraries that are depositories for documents of the United Nations.
(Arusha 1990)
The International Conference on Popular Participation in the Recovery and Development Process in Africa was held, in Arusha, the United Republic of Tanzania from 12 to 16 February 1990, as a rare collaborative effort between African people's organizations, the African Governments, non-governmental organizations and the United Nations agencies, in the search for a collective understanding of the role of popular participation in the development and transformation of the region. ...
The Conference was attended by over 500 participants from a wide range of African people's organizations - including, in particular, non-governmental, grass-roots, peasant, women and youth organizations and associations, trade unions and others as well as representatives of African Governments, agencies of the United Nations system, non-African non-governmental organizations, regional, subregional and intergovernmental organizations, bilateral donors, multilateral organizations as well as specialists, both from within and outside Africa. ...
The Conference was organized out of concern for the serious deterioration in the human and economic conditions in Africa in the decade of the 1980s, the recognition of the lack of progress in achieving popular participation and the lack of full appreciation of the role popular participation plays in the process of recovery and development. ...
We, the people, engaged in debate and dialogue on the issues involved over the span of five plenary sessions and 15 workshops during the five-day-long International Conference. In the light of our deliberations, we have decided to place on record our collective analysis, conclusions, policy recommendations and action proposals for the consideration of the people, the African Governments and the international community.
Part I. Asserting the Role of Popular Participation
We are united in our conviction that the crisis currently engulfing Africa, is not only an economic crisis but also a human, legal, political and social crisis. It is a crisis of unprecedented and unacceptable proportions manifested not only in abysmal declines in economic indicators and trends, but more tragically and glaringly in the suffering, hardship and impoverishment of the vast majority of African people. ...
The political context of socioeconomic development has been characterized, in many instances, by an over-centralization of power and impediments to the effective participation of the overwhelming majority of the people in social, political and economic development. As a result, the motivation of the majority of African people and their organizations to contribute their best to the development process ... has been severely constrained and curtailed and their collective and individual creativity has been undervalued and underutilized.
We affirm that nations cannot be built without the popular support and full participation of the people, nor can the economic crisis be resolved and the human and economic conditions improved without the full and effective contribution, creativity and popular enthusiasm of the vast majority of the people. After all, it is to the people that the very benefits of development should and must accrue. ...
We, therefore, have no doubt that at the heart of Africa's development objectives must lie the ultimate and overriding goal of human-centered development ... We are convinced that to achieve the above objective will require a redirection of resources to satisfy, in the first place, the critical needs of the people, to achieve economic and social justice and ... to empower the people to determine the direction and content of development ...
Bearing this in mind and having carefully analyzed the structure of the African economies, the root causes of the repeated economic crisis and the strategies and programs that have hitherto been applied ... , we are convinced that Africa has no alternative but to urgently and immediately embark upon the task of transforming the structure of its economies to achieve long-term self-sustained growth and development that is both human centered and participatory in nature.
Furthermore, Africa's grave environmental and ecological crisis cannot be solved in the absence of a process of sustainable development which commands the full support and participation of the people. We believe in this context that the African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programs for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation (AAF-SAP) ... offers the best framework for such an approach. We also wish in this regard to put on record our disapproval of all economic programs, such as orthodox Structural Adjustment Programs, which undermine the human condition and disregard the potential and role of popular participation in self-sustaining development.
In our sincere view, popular participation is both a means and an end. As an instrument of development, popular participation provides the driving force for collective commitment for the determination of people-based development processes and willingness by the people to undertake sacrifices and expend their social energies for its execution. As an end in itself, popular participation is the fundamental right of the people to fully and effectively participate in the determination of the decisions which affect their lives at all levels and at all times.
II. Promoting Popular Participation
We believe strongly that popular participation is, in essence, the empowerment of the people to effectively involve themselves in creating the structures and in designing policies and programs that serve the interests of all ...
Therefore, there must be an opening up of political process to accommodate freedom of opinions, tolerate differences, accept consensus on issues as well as ensure the effective participation of the people and their organizations and associations. This requires action on the part of all, first and foremost of the people themselves. But equally important are the actions of the State and the international community, to create the necessary conditions for such an empowerment ... This requires that the political system evolve to allow for democracy and full participation by all sections of our societies.
In view of the critical contribution made by women to African societies and economies and the extreme subordination and discrimination suffered by women in Africa, it is the consensus of the participants that the attainment of equal rights by women in social, economic and political spheres must become a central feature of a democratic and participatory pattern of development.
Further, it is the consensus of this conference that the attainment of women's full participation must be given highest priority by society as a whole and African Governments in particular. This right should be fought for and defended by society, African Non-Governmental Organizations and Voluntary Development Organizations as well as by non-African Non-Governmental Organizations and Voluntary Development Organizations, Governments and the United Nations system ...
People's Role
We want to emphasize the basic fact that the role of the people and their popular organizations is central to the realization of popular participation. They have to be fully involved, committed and indeed, seize the initiative. In this regard, it is essential that they establish independent people's organizations at various levels that are genuinely grass-root, voluntary, democratically administered and self-reliant and that are rooted in the tradition and culture of the society ...
Consultative machinery at various levels should be established with governments on various aspects of democratic participation. It is crucial that the people and their popular organizations should develop links across national borders to promote cooperation and interrelationships on subregional, regional, South-South and South-North bases. This is necessary for sharing lessons of experience, developing people's solidarity and raising political consciousness on democratic participation.
In view of the vital and central role played by women in family well-being and maintenance, their special commitment to the survival, protection and development of children, as well as survival of society and their important role in the process of African recovery and reconstruction, special emphasis should be put by all the people in terms of eliminating biases ... and taking positive action to ensure their full equality and effective participation in the development process.
Having said this, we must underscore that popular participation begins and must be earnestly practiced at the family level, because home is the base for development. It must also be practiced at the work place, and in all organizations, and in all walks of life.
Role of African Governments
We strongly believe that popular participation is dependent on the nature of the State itself and ability of Government to respond to popular demand. [African Governments] have to yield space to the people, without which popular participation will be difficult to achieve. Too often, the social base of power and decision-making are too narrow. Hence the urgent need to broaden these; to galvanize and tap the people's energy and commitment; and to promote political accountability by the State to the people. ...
A new partnership between African Governments and the people in the common interest of societal and accelerated socioeconomic development should be established without delay. This new partnership must not only recognize the importance of gender issues but must take action to ensure women's involvement at all levels of decision-making. In particular Governments should set themselves specific targets for the appointment of women in senior policy and management posts in all sectors of government.
We believe that for people to participate meaningfully in their self-development, their freedom to express themselves and their freedom from fear must be guaranteed. This can only be assured through the extension and protection of people's basic human rights and we urge all Governments to vigorously implement the African Charter on Human and People's Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the ILO Convention No. 87 concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
We also believe that one of the key conditions for ensuring people's participation throughout the continent is the bringing to an end of all wars and armed conflicts. The millions of African refugees and displaced persons are those with least opportunity to participate in the determination of their future. We urge Governments and all parties to Africa's conflicts, domestic and external, to seek peaceful means of resolving their differences and of establishing peace throughout Africa.
In situations of armed conflicts, we uphold the right of civilians to food and other basic necessities and emphasize that the international community must exercise its moral authority to ensure that this right is protected.
We cannot overemphasize the benefits that can be reaped if, with the elimination of internal strife or inter-country conflicts, the resources spent on defence were to be redirected to productive activities and social services to the people. ... We believe that our Governments can make such savings and we call upon them to do so urgently.
...
Role of the international community
We call on the international community to examine its own record on popular participation, and hereafter to support indigenous efforts which promote the emergence of a democratic environment and facilitate the people's effective participation and empowerment in the political life of their countries.
We also call on the United Nations system to intensify its effort to promote the application of justice in international economic relations, the defence of human rights, the maintenance of peace and the achievement of disarmament and to assist African countries and people's organizations with the development of human and economic resources. We also call on the United Nations system to implement its own decision to have at least 30 percent of senior positions held by women.
Special efforts are needed to ensure that African women are adequately represented at senior levels in United Nations agencies, particularly those operating in Africa.
III. Popular Participation in Development
On the basis of the foregoing, we lay down the following basic strategies, modalities and actions for effective participation in development.
African Governments
African Governments must adopt development strategies, approaches and programs ... in line with the interest and aspirations of the people and which incorporate, rather than alienate, African values and economic, social, cultural, political and environmental realities.
We strongly urge African Governments to promote ... national development programs within the framework of the aforesaid aspirations, interests and realities, which develop as a result of a popular participatory process, and which aim at the transformation of the African economies to achieve self-reliant and self-sustaining people-centered development ...
In implementing these endogenous and people-centered development strategies, an enabling environment must be created to facilitate broad-based participation, on a decentralized basis, in the development process. [This] is an essential prerequisite for ... actions such as:
- extending more economic power to the people through the
equitable distribution of income, support for their productive
capacity through enhanced access to productive inputs, such as
land, credit, technology, etc., and in such a manner as to
reflect the central role played by women in the economy;
- promoting mass literacy and skills training in particular and development of human resources in general;
- greater participation and consensus-building in the formulation and implementation of economic and social policies at all levels, including the identification and elimination of laws and bureaucratic procedures that pose obstacles to people's participation;
- increasing employment opportunities for the rural and urban poor, expanding opportunities for them to contribute to the generation of output and enhanced productivity levels and creating better marketing conditions for the benefit of the producers; and,
- strengthening communication capacities for rural development, mass literacy, etc.
Small-scale indigenous entrepreneurship and producers cooperatives, as forms of productive participatory development, should be promoted and actions should be taken to increase their productivity.
Intensifying the efforts to achieve subregional and regional economic cooperation and integration and increased intra-African trade.
People's organizations
To foster participation and democratic development, the people and their organizations should:
Establish autonomous grass-roots organizations to promote participatory self-reliant development and increase the output and productivity of the masses.
Develop their capacity to participate effectively in debates on economic policy and development issues. This requires building people's capacity to formulate and analyze development programs and approaches.
Promote education, literacy skill training and human resource development as a means of enhancing popular participation.
Shake off lethargy and traditional beliefs that are impediments to development, especially the customs and cultural practices that undermine the status of women in society, while recognizing and valuing those beliefs and practices that contribute to development. ...
[Make] concerted efforts to change prevailing attitudes towards the disabled so as to integrate them and bring them into the mainstream of development.
Create and enhance networks and collaborative relationships among peoples' organizations. ...
Support strongly and participate in the efforts to promote effective subregional and regional economic cooperation and integration and intra-African trade.
The international community
We also call on the international community to support popular participation in Africa by:
Supporting African countries in their drive to internalize the development and transformation process. The IMF, World Bank and other bilateral and multilateral donors are urged to accept and support African initiatives to conceptualize, formulate and implement endogenously designed development and transformation programs.
Directing technical assistance programs, first and foremost, to the strengthening of national capabilities for policy analysis and the design and implementation of economic reform and development programs.
Fostering the democratization of development in African countries by supporting the decentralization of development processes, the active participation of the people and their organizations in the formulation of development strategies and economic reform programs and open debate and consensus-building processes on development and reform issues.
Allowing for the release of resources for development on a participatory basis which will require the reversal of the net outflow of financial resources from Africa to the multilateral financial institutions and donor countries ...
Reducing drastically the stock of Africa's debt and debt-servicing obligations and providing a long-term period of moratorium on remaining debt-servicing obligations ...
Ensuring that the human dimension is central to adjustment programs ...
Supporting African NGOs, grass-roots organizations, women's and youth organizations and trade unions in activities such as training, networking and other program activities, as well as the documentation and wide dissemination of their experiences.
Developmental organizations
The African and non-African voluntary development organizations ... are urged to take the following actions:
African NGOs and voluntary development organizations and their partners should be fully participatory, democratic and accountable.
African NGOs, voluntary development organizations and grass-roots organizations should develop and/or strengthen institutional structures at the regional, subregional and national levels ...
African NGOs and voluntary development organizations should broaden the dissemination of successful African popular participation and grass-root experiences throughout the continent ... to create a multiplier effect and sensitize policy-makers.
The International Conference on Popular Participation ... recommends that national fora be established to enable honest and open dialogue between African Governments, grass-roots organizations and NGOs in order that the experience of grass-roots participatory development informs national policy-making.
Non-African NGOs and voluntary development organizations should give increased support and target their operations within the framework of national economic strategies ... aimed at transforming the structures of the African economies ... and ensuring sustainability with a particular focus on the human dimension and people's participation.
Non-African NGOs and voluntary development organizations should give due recognition to African NGOs and participatory, self-reliant development initiatives launched by African grass-roots organizations.
Non-African NGOs and voluntary development organizations should utilize African expertise to the maximum extent possible with regard to their development work in Africa and advocacy and campaigning work at the international level.
Non-African NGOs should strengthen their advocacy work internationally and in their home countries and with regard to bilateral donors and the multilateral system, closely monitoring their response to the African crisis and holding donor governments and agencies accountable for their policies and actions. ...
Cooperation and dialogue between African and Non-African NGOs and voluntary development organizations should be strengthened to increase the effectiveness of their interventions at the community level and the building of greater understanding on the part of international public opinion of the real causes of the African socioeconomic crisis and the actions that are needed ...
Non-African NGOs acknowledge that their influence as donors is often detrimental to ensuring genuine partnership with African NGOS, voluntary development organizations and grass-roots organizations and affects the enabling environment for popular participation. In that context cooperation in all its forms must be transparent and reflect African priorities.
African and non-African NGOs and voluntary development organizations should, in addition to their traditional humanitarian activities, increasingly provide support for the productive capacities of the African poor and for promoting environmentally sound patterns of local development.
The media
The national and regional media should make every effort to fight for and defend their freedom at all cost, and make special effort to champion the cause of popular participation and publicize activities and programs thereof and generally provide access for the dissemination of information and education programs on popular participation.
Combining their indigenous communication systems with appropriate use of modern low-cost communications technology, African communities and NGOS, voluntary development organizations and trade unions and other mass organizations must strengthen their communication capacities for development. ...
Women's organizations
In ensuring that the participation of women in the development process is advanced and strengthened, popular women's organizations should:
Continue to strengthen their capacity as builders of confidence among women.
Strive for the attainment of policies and programs that reflect and recognize women's roles as producers, mothers, active community mobilizers and custodians of culture.
Work to ensure the full understanding of men, in particular, and the society, in general, of women's role in the recovery and transformation of Africa so that men and women together might articulate and pursue appropriate courses of action.
Implement measures to reduce the burden carried by women through: (a) advocating to the society at large, including central and local government levels, the importance of task sharing in the home and community, especially in the areas of water and wood fetching, child rearing etc.; (b) promoting the establishment and proper functioning of community-based day care centers in all communities; and, (c) striving to attain economic equality by advocating the rights of women to land and greater access to credit.
Women's organizations should be democratic, autonomous and accountable organizations.
Trade unions
Trade Unions should:
Be democratic, voluntary, autonomous and accountable organizations.
Initiate, animate and promote mass literacy and training programs.
Organize and mobilize rural workers in accordance with ILO Convention 141, which African Governments are strongly urged to ratify.
Defend trade union rights, in particular the right to strike.
Assist in the formation of workers' cooperatives.
Assist in organizing the unemployed for productive activities, such as the establishment of small- and medium-scale enterprises.
Give special attention to effective and democratic participation of women members at all levels of trade unions.
Promote work place democracy through the call for the protection of workers' rights to freedom of association, collective bargaining and participatory management.
Youth and students
Considering the centrality of the youth and students in Africa's population and the recovery and development process, the following actions should be taken:
Preparation and adoption of an African Charter on Youth and Student Rights to include the right to organize, education, employment and free and public expression.
The full democratic participation of youth and students in African society requires immediate steps by Government, popular organizations, parents and the youth themselves to eliminate the major impediments to youth participation, such as frequent bans on youth and student organizations, police brutality against unarmed protesting students, detention and harassment on campuses, dismissal from studies and the frequent and arbitrary closure of educational institutions.
Youth, students, Governments and the international community must join forces urgently to combat growing drug trafficking and drug abuse. We also urge Governments to sign and ratify the International Convention on the Illicit Trafficking of Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
The advancement of youth participation in development also requires the protection of Africa's minors against forced military service, whether in national or insurgent/rebel groups.
African youth and students should organize national autonomous associations to participate in and contribute to development activities and programs such as literacy, reforestation, agriculture and environmental protection.
Student and youth organizations must also strive to be democratic, accountable, voluntary and autonomous and should coordinate their activities with workers', women's and peasant organizations.
National youth and student organizations should take urgent steps to strengthen and further democratize existing pan-African youth and student organizations to make them play their roles more effectively in Africa's development process.
IV. Monitoring Popular Participation
We proclaim the urgent necessity to involve the people in monitoring popular participation in Africa on the basis of agreed indicators, [such as the following:]
The literacy rate, which is an index of the capacity for mass participation in public debate, decision-making and general development processes.
Freedom of association, especially political association, and presence of democratic institutions, such as political parties, trade unions, people's grass-roots organizations and professional associations, and the guarantee of constitutional rights.
Representation of the people and their organizations in national bodies.
The rule of law and social and economic justice, including equitable distribution of income and the creation of full employment opportunities.
Protection of the ecological, human and legal environment.
Press and media freedom to facilitate public debate on major issues.
Number and scope of grass-roots organizations with effective participation in development activities, producers and consumers cooperatives and community projects.
Extent of implementation of the Abuja Declaration on Women (1989) in each country.
Political accountability of leadership at all levels measured by the use of checks and balances.
Decentralization of decision-making processes and institutions.
We are convinced of the imperative necessity to follow-up and monitor the implementation of this Charter and to report periodically thereon on progress achieved as well as problems encountered. We accordingly recommend at the national level a follow-up mechanism on which representatives at high level of Government, trade unions, women's organizations, NGOS, voluntary development organizations, grass-roots and youth and student organizations will be members.
At the regional level, we propose a joint OAU/ECA Regional Monitoring Machinery. ...
Conclusion
This Conference has taken place during a period when the world continues to witness tumultuous changes in Eastern Europe. Even more dramatically, this Conference has taken place during the very week when Nelson Mandela's release has exhilarated all of Africa, and galvanized the international community.
There is an inescapable thread of continuity between those events and our Conference; it is the power of people to effect momentous change. At no other time in the post-war period has popular participation had so astonishing and profound an impact.
History and experience both teach that this world never works in compartments. The forces of freedom and democracy are contagious. Inevitably, and irresistibly, popular participation will have a vital role to play on the continent of Africa, and play that role we will.
It is manifestly unacceptable that development and transformation in Africa can proceed without the full participation of its people. It is manifestly unacceptable that the people and their organizations be excluded from the decision-making process. It is manifestly unacceptable that popular participation be seen as anything less than the centerpiece in the struggle to achieve economic and social justice for all.
In promoting popular participation, it is necessary to recognize that a new partnership and compact must be forged among all the actors in the process of social, political and economic change. Without this collective commitment, popular participation is neither possible nor capable of producing results. We, therefore, pledge to work together in this new partnership to promote full and effective participation by the masses together with Governments in the recovery and development process in Africa.
We, the people here assembled, have no illusion that the Charter will be embraced overnight by all of those to whom it is directed. But we are confident that this document is an indispensable step on the road to everything we would wish for the people of Africa.