III. Popular Participation in Development
On the basis of the foregoing, we lay down the following basic strategies, modalities and actions for effective participation in development.
African Governments
African Governments must adopt development strategies, approaches and programs ... in line with the interest and aspirations of the people and which incorporate, rather than alienate, African values and economic, social, cultural, political and environmental realities.
We strongly urge African Governments to promote ... national development programs within the framework of the aforesaid aspirations, interests and realities, which develop as a result of a popular participatory process, and which aim at the transformation of the African economies to achieve self-reliant and self-sustaining people-centered development ...
In implementing these endogenous and people-centered development strategies, an enabling environment must be created to facilitate broad-based participation, on a decentralized basis, in the development process. [This] is an essential prerequisite for ... actions such as:
- extending more economic power to the people through the equitable distribution of income, support for their productive capacity through enhanced access to productive inputs, such as land, credit, technology, etc., and in such a manner as to reflect the central role played by women in the economy;
- promoting mass literacy and skills training in particular and development of human resources in general;
- greater participation and consensus-building in the formulation and implementation of economic and social policies at all levels, including the identification and elimination of laws and bureaucratic procedures that pose obstacles to people's participation;
- increasing employment opportunities for the rural and urban poor, expanding opportunities for them to contribute to the generation of output and enhanced productivity levels and creating better marketing conditions for the benefit of the producers; and,
- strengthening communication capacities for rural development, mass literacy, etc.
Small-scale indigenous entrepreneurship and producers cooperatives, as forms of productive participatory development, should be promoted and actions should be taken to increase their productivity.
Intensifying the efforts to achieve subregional and regional economic cooperation and integration and increased intra-African trade.
People's organizations
To foster participation and democratic development, the people and their organizations should:
Establish autonomous grass-roots organizations to promote participatory self-reliant development and increase the output and productivity of the masses.
Develop their capacity to participate effectively in debates on economic policy and development issues. This requires building people's capacity to formulate and analyze development programs and approaches.
Promote education, literacy skill training and human resource development as a means of enhancing popular participation.
Shake off lethargy and traditional beliefs that are impediments to development, especially the customs and cultural practices that undermine the status of women in society, while recognizing and valuing those beliefs and practices that contribute to development. ...
[Make] concerted efforts to change prevailing attitudes towards the disabled so as to integrate them and bring them into the mainstream of development.
Create and enhance networks and collaborative relationships among peoples' organizations. ...
Support strongly and participate in the efforts to promote effective subregional and regional economic cooperation and integration and intra-African trade.
The international community
We also call on the international community to support popular participation in Africa by:
Supporting African countries in their drive to internalize the development and transformation process. The IMF, World Bank and other bilateral and multilateral donors are urged to accept and support African initiatives to conceptualize, formulate and implement endogenously designed development and transformation programs.
Directing technical assistance programs, first and foremost, to the strengthening of national capabilities for policy analysis and the design and implementation of economic reform and development programs.
Fostering the democratization of development in African countries by supporting the decentralization of development processes, the active participation of the people and their organizations in the formulation of development strategies and economic reform programs and open debate and consensus-building processes on development and reform issues.
Allowing for the release of resources for development on a participatory basis which will require the reversal of the net outflow of financial resources from Africa to the multilateral financial institutions and donor countries ...
Reducing drastically the stock of Africa's debt and debt-servicing obligations and providing a long-term period of moratorium on remaining debt-servicing obligations ...
Ensuring that the human dimension is central to adjustment programs ...
Supporting African NGOs, grass-roots organizations, women's and youth organizations and trade unions in activities such as training, networking and other program activities, as well as the documentation and wide dissemination of their experiences.
Developmental organizations
The African and non-African voluntary development organizations ... are urged to take the following actions:
African NGOs and voluntary development organizations and their partners should be fully participatory, democratic and accountable.
African NGOs, voluntary development organizations and grass-roots organizations should develop and/or strengthen institutional structures at the regional, subregional and national levels ...
African NGOs and voluntary development organizations should broaden the dissemination of successful African popular participation and grass-root experiences throughout the continent ... to create a multiplier effect and sensitize policy-makers.
The International Conference on Popular Participation ... recommends that national fora be established to enable honest and open dialogue between African Governments, grass-roots organizations and NGOs in order that the experience of grass-roots participatory development informs national policy-making.
Non-African NGOs and voluntary development organizations should give increased support and target their operations within the framework of national economic strategies ... aimed at transforming the structures of the African economies ... and ensuring sustainability with a particular focus on the human dimension and people's participation.
Non-African NGOs and voluntary development organizations should give due recognition to African NGOs and participatory, self-reliant development initiatives launched by African grass-roots organizations.
Non-African NGOs and voluntary development organizations should utilize African expertise to the maximum extent possible with regard to their development work in Africa and advocacy and campaigning work at the international level.
Non-African NGOs should strengthen their advocacy work internationally and in their home countries and with regard to bilateral donors and the multilateral system, closely monitoring their response to the African crisis and holding donor governments and agencies accountable for their policies and actions. ...
Cooperation and dialogue between African and Non-African NGOs and voluntary development organizations should be strengthened to increase the effectiveness of their interventions at the community level and the building of greater understanding on the part of international public opinion of the real causes of the African socioeconomic crisis and the actions that are needed ...
Non-African NGOs acknowledge that their influence as donors is often detrimental to ensuring genuine partnership with African NGOS, voluntary development organizations and grass-roots organizations and affects the enabling environment for popular participation. In that context cooperation in all its forms must be transparent and reflect African priorities.
African and non-African NGOs and voluntary development organizations should, in addition to their traditional humanitarian activities, increasingly provide support for the productive capacities of the African poor and for promoting environmentally sound patterns of local development.
The media
The national and regional media should make every effort to fight for and defend their freedom at all cost, and make special effort to champion the cause of popular participation and publicize activities and programs thereof and generally provide access for the dissemination of information and education programs on popular participation.
Combining their indigenous communication systems with appropriate use of modern low-cost communications technology, African communities and NGOS, voluntary development organizations and trade unions and other mass organizations must strengthen their communication capacities for development. ...
Women's organizations
In ensuring that the participation of women in the development process is advanced and strengthened, popular women's organizations should:
Continue to strengthen their capacity as builders of confidence among women.
Strive for the attainment of policies and programs that reflect and recognize women's roles as producers, mothers, active community mobilizers and custodians of culture.
Work to ensure the full understanding of men, in particular, and the society, in general, of women's role in the recovery and transformation of Africa so that men and women together might articulate and pursue appropriate courses of action.
Implement measures to reduce the burden carried by women through: (a) advocating to the society at large, including central and local government levels, the importance of task sharing in the home and community, especially in the areas of water and wood fetching, child rearing etc.; (b) promoting the establishment and proper functioning of community-based day care centers in all communities; and, (c) striving to attain economic equality by advocating the rights of women to land and greater access to credit.
Women's organizations should be democratic, autonomous and accountable organizations.
Trade unions
Trade Unions should:
Be democratic, voluntary, autonomous and accountable organizations.
Initiate, animate and promote mass literacy and training programs.
Organize and mobilize rural workers in accordance with ILO Convention 141, which African Governments are strongly urged to ratify.
Defend trade union rights, in particular the right to strike.
Assist in the formation of workers' cooperatives.
Assist in organizing the unemployed for productive activities, such as the establishment of small- and medium-scale enterprises.
Give special attention to effective and democratic participation of women members at all levels of trade unions.
Promote work place democracy through the call for the protection of workers' rights to freedom of association, collective bargaining and participatory management.
Youth and students
Considering the centrality of the youth and students in Africa's population and the recovery and development process, the following actions should be taken:
Preparation and adoption of an African Charter on Youth and Student Rights to include the right to organize, education, employment and free and public expression.
The full democratic participation of youth and students in African society requires immediate steps by Government, popular organizations, parents and the youth themselves to eliminate the major impediments to youth participation, such as frequent bans on youth and student organizations, police brutality against unarmed protesting students, detention and harassment on campuses, dismissal from studies and the frequent and arbitrary closure of educational institutions.
Youth, students, Governments and the international community must join forces urgently to combat growing drug trafficking and drug abuse. We also urge Governments to sign and ratify the International Convention on the Illicit Trafficking of Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
The advancement of youth participation in development also requires the protection of Africa's minors against forced military service, whether in national or insurgent/rebel groups.
African youth and students should organize national autonomous associations to participate in and contribute to development activities and programs such as literacy, reforestation, agriculture and environmental protection.
Student and youth organizations must also strive to be democratic, accountable, voluntary and autonomous and should coordinate their activities with workers', women's and peasant organizations.
National youth and student organizations should take urgent steps to strengthen and further democratize existing pan-African youth and student organizations to make them play their roles more effectively in Africa's development process.