The African Children Charter Project

Background

IHRDA received funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) in order to implement the African Children’s Charter Project (ACCP), a four year (2010- 2014) joint action plan initiated by five Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), aimed at strengthening the capacity of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC). The project also seeks to promote the effectiveness and awareness of the African Charter and of the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) in the institutional, political and public arenas of the African Union.

The five partners for this project are: Plan International, Save the Children Sweden, IHRDA, African Child Policy Forum (ACPF) and Community Law Centre (CLC) University of Western Cape. The project is funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).

Objectives

As stated above, the ACCP is aimed at strengthening the capacity of the ACERWC and civil society organisation in order to implement the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. This is done by:

(a) Directly supporting the work of the ACERWC;

(b) Working with the ACERWC to promote children’s rights and welfare in the internal and external environments of the AU and AU human rights mechanisms;

IHRDA’s major role is to facilitate ACERWC’s collaboration with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, with a view to make children’s rights one of the priorities of these bodies and exploring ways by which they can complement each other for the effective implementation of the ACRWC.

IHRDA has been facilitating collaboration since the 49^th session of the ACmHPR. The role of the ACCP in the protection of children’s rights in Africa has been commended by the ACERWC and the Director of African Union Commission’s (AUC) Department for Social Affairs (DSA).

Among others tasks performed by other project partners, ACPF is tasked with the responsibility of updating information on all legal matters relating to children in Africa. ACPF has since created an Infohub website at (http://www.africanchildforum.org/site). There is an online resource (Case Law Analyser -CLA) created by IHRDA on the cases decided by the ACERWC available in English, French and Portuguese at (http://caselaw.ihrda.org/acerwc) and (http://caselaw.ihrda.org/pt/acerwc).