The Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA) has been charged with leading advocacy actions for the right to nationality in Africa within the framework of Open Society Foundation (OSF) interventions in the continent.
This ensued from the two-day meeting of the primary OSF actors and partners working on Citizenship issues in Africa, held on March 3 and 4 2015 at Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) office in Dakar, Senegal.
In this light, IHRDA is expected to hold a panel discussion on the right to nationality during the NGO Forum to be held in The Gambia on 17 – 19 April 2015, in prelude to the 56th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The discussion is meant to present the African Commission’s Study on the Right to Nationality, particularly the conclusions and recommendations in the Study.
Further, IHRDA will organize a side event on the first Friday of the next African Commission Session. The side event which is to be attended by representatives of NGOs and State parties would also involve sharing the Study.
It should be noted that participants at the Dakar Meeting of OSF included AfRO citizenship cluster members, OSF staff from OSJI, OSIWA, the coalition of NGOs working on citizenship issues (IRRI, WARIPNET, CGI, LHR and IHRDA) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
This coordination and networking planning meeting was meant to achieve the following objectives:
- To assess the work on citizenship by each OSF entity and the Cluster’s partners (CSOs, UNHCR and ACHPR) in 2014
- To share work on citizenship planned by the Cluster, each OSF entity and their partners for 2015
- To refine the work plans and budgets of each individual OSF entity while working on forging areas of collaboration amongst the various entities represented.
- The meeting was also meant to allow partners to evaluate the work they had accomplished and also to find new avenues for collaboration.
