« Convinced that ESC Rights promoted by the United Nations and recorded in the International treaties (voir la page du Haut Commissariat aux droits de l’Homme : http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Professiona...) express universal values and principles that have to be implemented in order to favour the development of men and to express their citizenship, the CSOs from the Cameroonians towns, villages and local communities committed themselves to public policies in Cameroon ».
Extract from the Charter of the Cameroon ESC rights platform which was read and validated by almost 40 organizations coming from the ten regions of the country on October 14th in the Benedictines monastery of Mont Fébé in Yaoundé.
This happened during the Constitutive General Assembly, first step marking the beginning of the reaction movement’s activities.
Besides the Charter, which clarifies the common philosophy and the members’ private and collective duties, the rules of procedure, the statute and the draft of the action plan have been amended and adopted.
On October 14th, in his opening speech, Jules Dumas Nguebou, representative of ASSOAL, specified that, "it took the working group constituted by ASSOAL and ALVF almost seven months to produce these documents," and to reach these results.
A day before, an evaluation meeting on the preliminaries activities took place at the NGO ASSOAL’s headquarters SOAL to set up the abovementioned tools. They are necessary items for the launching of this platform’s activities whose aim is "to improve citizens access to social services according to the article 10 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)" said Pierrette Memong, ALVF Advocacy Officer.
Debates
Based on a methodology combining “participation, motion, consensus and proposal”,all the documents were read and corrected immediately by all participants.
From time to time, the debates were stormy.. David Nkem from the Nkom Hill association of Buea thought that “the general objective of the platform is only based on the social dimension of ESC rights". However, according to him, to anmake sure everyone has access to all the rights, it will be necessary to integrate the economic, cultural and even environmental components. Another participant insisted on the fact that the slogan of the platform, “Everyone is entitled to an adequate standard of living” had to be associated with a logo.
In order to promote a social dialog in discussions with the State, other changes will be done at making the members more aware of their responsibilities, it is stipulated in paragraph 2 on the “legitimacy” that “the organization that integrates the platform must not be headed or dominated by a strong integration of agents of the State, the working State employees, politicians or businessmen bypassing the tax expenses”.
Eric O. LEMBEMBE
Download the final release of the Constitutive General Assembly
- Communiqué final de l’AG constitutive
Reactions
« Call for the signature and ratification of the Protocol »
« There is nothing to worry about, we are only claiming for what any citizen is entitled to. For this, we vite suggest that all CSOs work actively so as to push the Cameroon to sign and ratify the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR for the improvement of living conditions for all »
Ekoto Ndome, ALVF President, Yaoundé.
« CSOs are fully aware of what they must expect on the ground »
« Working on the ESC rights, means working on new opportunities that will allow deprived populations to enjoy their basic rights. We will have to go through a lot of work on the ground. It will be hard, but I think that the Cameroonian ESC rights platform will reach its objective, especially with the help of the established animation team. »
Ph. D David Nkem, Nkong Hill Technical advisor, Buea.
« The change is not for today »
« The training session was welcomed asthe promotion and defence of ESC rights is usually not part of the CSOs’ common pattern. It is time for Cameroon people to pay attention to this aspect of flouted rights. With the setting up of the Cameroonian ESC rights platform, everything allows us to believe that change is possible. »
Cyrille Rolande Bechon, Responsible of the New Human Rights Programme, Yaoundé.
« The way people perceive and claim for ESC rights will have to be uniform »
« Undertaking to create the Cameroonian ESC rights platform is a saving initiative(ici je n’ai pas compris quelle expression vous utilisiez, rescuing ou saving initiative ? ). Within such an exchange framework, the CSOs should be able to harmonize the way they lead advocacy actions. The sooner this union is able to put all the regions of the country on the same page in case of any claim, the better it is. The way people perceive and claim for ESC rights will have to be uniform. »
Isaiah Fotso, Nutritionist /Parasitologist, AEPS, Garoua.
By Eric O. LEMBEMBE
Translated from French by Maï Diarra
Proofreading by Marine Boissière
See another article : Formation sur la méthodologie d’exigibilité des DESC au Cameroun
