Assessment : Aspiration 1

Inglés

By 2020 -

  • the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Somalia, São Tome and Principe, South Sudan and Tunisia have become State parties to the African Children’s Charter;
  • Botswana, Egypt, Mauritania and Sudan should have withdrawn their reservations under the African Children’s Charter;
  • Algeria, Botswana, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mauritius, Niger, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Somalia, São Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Sudan and Tunisia should have become State parties to the Maputo Protocol;
  • Kenya should have implemented the African Children’s Committee’s recommendations in the Children on Nubian Descent case; Uganda should have implemented the Children’s Committee’s recommendations in the Northern Ugandan Children case; and Senegal should have implemented the Committee’s recommendations in the Senegalese Talibés case;
  • all States that have not yet done so (Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Seychelles, Swaziland and Zambia) should have submitted their initial reports; all other State parties should continue to submit periodic reports about the implementation of the African Children’s Charter;
  • States should have given full effect to the Concluding Observations issued after the examination of their reports;
  • States should have co-operated fully with the African Children’s Committee in the exercise of its promotional and protective mandate;
  • States should have undertaken and supported activities to make the Children’s Charter better known and understood at the domestic level, for example, by supporting activities related to the annual Day of the African Child, with the full and effective participation of children;
  • States should have appointed a senior and well-respected official as focal person between the government and the African Children’s Committee;
  • States should have provided adequate resources to strengthen the operational capacity of the African Children’s Committee.

By 2020, the African Children’s Committee –

  • should have continued organising inception workshops for new Committee members;
  • should have engaged Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Somalia, São Tome and Principe, South Sudan and Tunisia to become State parties to the Children’s Charter, based on their signature of the
  • Africa’s Agenda for Children 2040 African Children’s Charter and ratification of the CRC;
  • should have used the State reporting process to urge Botswana, Egypt, Mauritania and Sudan to withdraw their reservations under the African Children’s Charter;
  • should have targeted Benin,Botswana,Burundi,CapeVerde, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, the Seychelles, Swaziland and Zambia to submit their reports; these State parties have, by 2016, never submitted a State report to the African Children’s Committee; at the same time they have all submitted at least their initial reports to the UN CRC Committee; in the absence of a report, the African Children’s Committee should have proceeded to examine the human rights situations in these countries, based on available information, including civil society reports;
  • should, in collaboration with the relevant AU organs, have developed training programmes to improve the technical capacities of key State officials and members of civil society to undertake the reform of children-related laws and policies and to prepare accurate and effective State reports under the African Children’s Charter;
  • should have co-ordinated efforts to facilitate the sharing of good State practice on harmonising national law, policy and practice with the African Children’s Charter;
  • should have aligned the State reporting process under the African Children’s Charter with that under the UN CRC, highlighting the specific thematic areas contained in theAfrican Children’s Charter;
  • should have streamlined the process of examining and adopting Concluding Observations in response to State reports, in anticipation of an increased number of submitted reports;
  • should have consistently adopted targeted, precise and measurable recommendations to States;
  • should have in place an effective system for the follow- up of recommendations in findings on communications and in Concluding Observations, including follow-up visits to States; the Committee should in particular have followed up on the implementation by Kenya, Uganda and Senegal in the Children on Nubian Descent case, the Children in Northern Uganda case and the Senegalese Talibés case;
  • should be undertaking regular missions to countries where children are in crisis and should be holding widely- published public hearings on issues of importance to children’s rights;
  • should be widely published and visible in its activities; a complete and updated record of its activities, including State reports, C Observations, mission reports and its annual reports, should be easily accessible on its website and other formats;
  • should, in collaboration with its partners, have developed and widely disseminated evidence-based communication and advocacy tools on the rights of children in Africa;
  • should have significantly reduced delays in finalising
  • submitted communications;
  • should have interpreted the African Children’s Charter as an autochthonous instrument in its jurisprudence, Concluding Observations and interpretive elaborations;
  • should be collaborating with the African Commission through regularly-held meetings between them, in order to identify synergies, gaps, complementarities and to exchange experiences, lessons and knowledge (including jurisprudence) and to avoid the unnecessary duplication of efforts;
  • should have engaged the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) with a view to closer collaboration between the APRM process and State reporting under the African Children’s Charter;
  • should, within the framework of the African Governance Architecture (AGA), consistently be engaging relevant AU organs on matters of joint concern, such as the Peace and Security Council, the Pan-African Parliament, and the AU’s Economic, Social and Cultural Council.

By 2020, African Union’s -

  • political organs should have ensured the required resources to strengthen the human resource and institutional capacity of the African Children’s Rights Committee, allowing it to appoint on a permanent basis at least two legal officers and to undertake at least six missions per year;
  • Executive Council and Assembly should consistently have included an item on their agenda on the rights of the child;
  • political organs should, in collaboration with the African Children’s Committee and relevant national partners, have developed training programmes to improve the technical capacities of key State officials and members of civil society to undertake the reform of children-related laws and policies and to prepare accurate and effective State reports under the African Children’s Charter.

By 2020, CSOs/NGOs -

  • working on the rights of children should have obtained observer status with the African Children’s Committee and should be fully participating in the sessions and work of the Committee;
  • should have made use of the procedures before the African Children’s Committee, by submitting communications and shadow reports;
  • should have assisted with the translation into local languages, the popularisation and dissemination of the African Children’s Charter, the Committee’s activities and the rights of the child, more generally.