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Economic rights policies program

The Pan-African NGO Aid Transparency has decided to focus its attention on the problematic of transparency in the processes by which international aid is deployed throughout African countries. AT intends to delve deeper into reflection on an alternative perspective on the issue of African workers’ and citizens’ economic rights at a time when the logic of the wide-open market and structural adjustment policies have supplanted true policies fostering sustainable, humane development.

A recent report by the World Bank indicated that 20% of the planet’s poorest countries possessed only 2.3% of the world’s riches during the 1990s. In 1960, this ratio was twice as high. This proves that the gap between the centers of global accumulation of wealth and the Third World periphery is widening at an alarming rate. Besides the degradation of foreign debt and the deterioration of terms of exchange, the privatization of formerly public services and drastic cuts in social budgets, one witnesses an increased feminization of poverty, the savage exploitation of forced child labor and the sexual exploitation of young girls and boys in proportions revealing that misery has gotten a stranglehold on enormous sections of society. This situation is largely linked to the fact that the governments themselves have fallen completely under the yoke of the diktat of international financial organizations, while the latter’s only rationality is financial and mercantile profit to the detriment of the poor, who are on mankind’s bottom rung of survival. The ratification of the World Trade Organization constituent texts by most of the poorest nations on the planet obliges one to take a hard look at the question of the universal guarantee of human, economic, social and cultural rights. This question raises yet another of equal magnitude: is globalization capable of promoting human, economic, social and cultural rights, and if so, under what circumstances? Or on the contrary, is it an obstacle to the full realization of such objectives? Under those conditions, one wonders how to ensure that the minimal standards of the International Labor Organization are adhered to regarding child labor, forced labor, labor unions’ freedom, etc., while avoiding the traps of disguised protectionism which the Southern countries accuse the industrialized ones of perpetuating.

Hence, we must consider that the protection of economic rights involves both internal and exogenous factors. This is why mobilization and the work involved in raising people’s awareness about this issue generally demand efficacy at two levels (internally/externally). Equally vital is work involving network building and the construction of solid alliances between NGOs in the North and those in the South. Within states, civil organizations are faced simultaneously with the consequences emanating from governmental decisions that often tend to deprive workers of their most basic rights.

Objectives

The objectives of this program are as follows: Evaluate those policies which have direct impact on economic rights as an essential component of human rights; Disseminate findings of research undertaken in that area; Make the best use of existing synergies and develop alliances and effective networks among nongovernmental organizations pursuing the same objectives; Persuade the parties concerned (development aid agencies, nongovernmental and governmental agencies) to engage in and maintain open, transparent dialogue aimed to lead to consensus on the safeguard and protection of economic rights in the African context.

Means

Qualitative studies and field studies; Written and audiovisual reporting; Workshops and conferences; Advocacy and training.

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