Okeil: We recommend launching a roadmap to strengthen the US-African partnership at the level of civil society

Akil: We recommend launching a roadmap to strengthen the US-African partnership at the level of civil society

Within the framework of its endeavors to strength partnerships between civil society organizations and driven by its belief in the role of these partnerships in promoting human rights and accelerating development agendas, Maat for Peace, Development and Human Rights issues an analysis paper on the "Civil Society Organizations Forum" held on the sidelines of the "Second U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit". The Forum brought together 200 participants from civil society organizations to discuss the pivotal role of African civil society in measuring the extent to which laws, reforms and policies are implemented by African governments and US government policies, and proposals for developing its work in the future.

 Maat provided an analytical view of the "Civil Society Organizations Forum" and its outputs, and stressed that the US interest of Africa began to take on a new shape, which is direct cooperation with civil society in order to support democracy and associated human rights and development activities carried out by these organizations.

Despite the noticeable progress in caring for civil society and allocating a forum for it within the American-African summit, in reality the civil society forum could not produce any strong and realistic outputs in order to enhance its role at the level of Africa and in order to achieve Agenda 2063, as the forum sessions were limited to Governmental successes in involving African civil society, while no real and realistic recommendations were made to develop the role of civil society.

Despite the noticeable recognition of civil society, the civil society forum could not produce any strong and realistic outputs in order to enhance its role at the level of Africa and in order to achieve Agenda 2063. The forum sessions were limited to showing the governmental successes in involving African civil society, while no real recommendations were made to develop the role of civil society.

Okeil called for launching separate meetings for civil society organizations only under the auspices of the African ECOSOCC to be a precedent for the upcoming African-American Leaders’ Summit. This would contribute to a convergence of views between African organizations and identify the most prominent problems and challenges that must be presented to the representatives of African governments participating in the Forum.

The human rights expert also recommended launching a roadmap to strengthen the actual US-African partnership at the level of civil society. This plan aims primarily to implement the African agenda and also to strengthen the work of the civil society in the African continent to find solutions to development challenges in Africa.

It is worth noting that Maat, in its capacity as the chairperson of the ECOSOCC's Sectoral Cluster Committees, and within the framework of its interest in networking with all African civil society organizations, recommends the inauguration of a larger summit at the level of civil society organizations in cooperation with the African ECOSOCC in order to accelerate joint development and human rights action on Africa’s agenda 2063.