The campaign for the ratification of the protocol and its coming into force made history in Africa and the world at large. Fahamu and Pambazuka News have contributed to making that history. This is a significant milestone in the promotion and protection of women’s rights in Africa. - Amie Joof-Cole, FAMEDEV, Senegal

Fahamu’s pioneering work on using ICTs for advocacy testifies that the internet enables people – particularly women – to organise and give power to their voices. Advocacy is not just about making demands of the powerful. It is about people determining outcomes. - Atieno Ndomo, independent consultant, Kenya

Advocacy

Fahamu’s advocacy work aims to support human rights and social justice movements by promoting the innovative use of information and communications technologies and by stimulating debate, discussion and analysis.

Campaigning on the African women’s rights protocol

Fahamu joined Solidarity with African Women’s Rights (SOAWR), a collation of 28 women’s and international organisations, in 2004 to promote the ratification of the African Union’s Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Fahamu offered the pages of Pambazuka News and technological support to the coalition to raise public awareness about the protocol across the continent and to help women bring pressure on their governments to adopt the protocol. Within 15 months, the campaign had succeeded: 15 countries had ratified the protocol, enabling it to come into force across Africa.

Media and Women’s Rights project

In collaboration with the African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), Fahamu has established a collaborative network of community radio stations, radio journalists and cartoonists to develop a range of radio plays, current affairs broadcasts and the publication of cartoon books on the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, which will be disseminated in west and east Africa (in the first instance). Fahamu has run training programmes in eastern, southern and west Africa to enable grassroots community organisations to learn the relatively easy technologies of podcasting and videocasting so that they can produce socially relevant programmes of their own. This will be developed further in collaboration with the Media for Women’s Rights Network (15 organisations from west and central Africa).

Mobile phones for social justice

Fahamu has used innovative technologies, including SMS (text messaging by mobile phone) as a means of promoting public awareness of social justice issues in Africa. The use of these technologies has been particularly appropriate given the spread of mobile technology on the African continent and the fact that, as communications devices, they have leapfrogged non-existent telephony infrastructure, opening up the potential for communicating with new audiences.

African Union Monitor

In May 2005 Fahamu established the African Union Monitor. This website and associated electronic mailing list aims to strengthen the ability of civil society organisations to engage constructively with the African Union (AU) and its organs in the interests of promoting justice, equity and accountability through the provision of high-quality and timely information. The initiative arose from the evident concern amongst African civil society organisations about the massacres in Darfur and the possibility of the Khartoum government of Sudan assuming the presidency of the African Union. This successful initiative has proved popular at subsequent African Union summits, and has since become an arena for analysis and discussion of AU policy.

Read African Union Monitor

China–Africa dialogue

Much commentary on China in Africa has focused on the vested interests of the West; lost in the debate have been the voices of independent African analysts. In 2007 Fahamu launched the book African Perspectives on China in Africa and helped organise a meeting in Shanghai between African and Chinese civil society organisations. The papers from that conference were published in 2008 under the title China's New Role in Africa and the Global South. Pambazuka will continue to monitor the effects on the environment and sustainability of livelihoods as China and other economic giants become increasingly influential in Africa. Fahamu plans to publish regular Chinese language issues of Pambazuka News, with articles, from Chinese academics and civil society actors. We will do this with a range of partners including China Development Brief, China Academy for the Social Sciences, Moving Mountains (a Chinese civil society organisation) and AFRODAD.

Blogs for African women

Technologies tend to amplify social differences. As internet use expands in Africa, so existing gender inequalities are likely to disadvantage women’s access to ICTs. In response, Fahamu has launched a pilot project to enable young African women to run their own online blogs.

Freedom of information

Fahamu has run a distance-learning course, Campaigning for Access to Information, for 15 media activists in Africa. It has cooperated with ARTICLE 19 and with the Kenya chapter of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya) to develop awareness about freedom of information and encourage policy makers to participate in developing appropriate legislation. The course was influential in enabling ICJ Kenya to prepare a freedom of information bill for the Kenyan parliament.

Lens on Lebanon

Lens on Lebanon is an international grassroots documentary initiative formed during the Israeli bombardment of 2006. By providing equipment, technical training and artistic support through collaborative workshops with local and international filmmakers, photographers and artists, the project allows the people of Beirut and south Lebanon to creatively document their experiences in the shadow of war.