Aspects of the Emerging Legal Framework Bolstering the Responsibility to Protect in East Africa and the Great Lakes Region - paper presented to a conference in Kampala on April 17-18, 2008

Read the entire paper here.

Refugee Rights News, June 2008

In this issue:

Ocampo Throws Down the Gauntlet

Calling for an End to the Violence against Women through Film

Somalia: A Humanitarian Crisis Disregarded

South Africans, Foreigners and the Dynamics of Identity in South Africa

Bemba Arrested in Brussels for Alleged Crimes in CAR
(updated article can be found here)

Read all the articles here.

Egypt African Union Summit - Media Statement, June 28    

Two hundred and five African and global organisations and networks have called on the Assembly of Heads of State of the African Union to ensure the Implementation Plan of the AU Africa Health Strategy is urgently and adequately funded, and for the AU Abuja 15% Commitment to health to be implemented by all member states. 

The Implementation Plan was adopted by African Ministers of Health on the 17th of May 2008 following presentation of the Health Strategy last year by the AU Commission Social Affairs Division. It provides guidelines for implementing various African health frameworks, health MDGs and global Universal Access targets including on TB, HIV and AIDS, Malaria, Child and Maternal Health.

Read the full media statement here.

African group announces independent investigation into xenophobic attacks in South Africa, says South African government failed in its responsibility

Nairobi/Johannesburg/Abuja, June 2: In a statement issued today, the Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative (CRAI), a pan-African non-governmental coalition, announced that it will be deploying a high-level fact-finding mission to South Africa and the neighboring countries in June 2008 to investigate xenophobic attacks on foreigners and facilitate redress for the victims.

Read the full press release (available on the CRAI website).

April 27: Media Statement - Anniversary of AU Abuja 15% Health Commitment * www.africa15percentcampaign.org

Read the statement here.

On April 8, Dismas Nkunda, Chair of the Darfur Consortium and Co-Director of the International Refugee Rights Initiative, talked to US radio show host at the "In My Pajamas Show".

Listen to the broadcast here.


Press Release

ISSUED BY: Institute for Democratic Governance, International Refugee Rights Initiative, Solidarity for African Women Rights and Oxfam.

Civil Society Organisations call on new AU leadership to prioritise peace and human security, gender parity and strengthening AU organs

Addis Ababa – 2nd February 2008 – Following the election of the Chairperson of African Union and the Commission and as the 10th African Union Summit comes to a close, CSOs have called on the African Union to prioritise peace and human security, gender parity and strengthening AU organs.

Read the press release here.


Country to sit on AU Peace, Security Council

The Times of Zambia (Ndola)
31 January 2008
By James Muyanwa

ZAMBIA and nine other countries have been elected as members of the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council for the next five-years, amid challenges of conflicts in various parts of the continent.

The 10 countries representing five African regions were elected here during the 12th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the AU at the commission headquarters.

Read the article in which Dismas Nkunda, Chair of the Consortium, is quoted here.


South African musician, Hugh Masekela, becomes goodwill ambassador for Darfur

In June, 2007, at a solidarity concert during the AU summit in Accra, Masekela declared that the attainment of African Union government would be pointless if African leaders do not take steps to stem the genocide and other human right violations in Darfur and elsewhere.

(June 25, Accra) Hugh Masekela and Dismas Nkunda, Co-Director of IRRI and Chair of the Darfur Consortium

Read the full article here.

Enhancing Protection of Displaced Populations: Translating the Great Lakes Peace Pact into Action

On April 23-25, 2007, the International Refugee Rights Inititiative and the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre brought together civil society and international organizations from across the region to exchange ideas on the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region process to date and consider its potential to advance the rights of refugees and IDPs.

The workshop, which was made possible due to generous support by the Canadian government and is part of an ongoing project to leverage new African legal mechanisms for the protection of the displaced, was attended by 50 participants.

Read the workshop's background paper outlining the issues regarding the rights of refugees and internally-displaced persons in the Great Lakes region here.