The African Union (AU) on Monday warned that the low ratification rate of continental treaties is an undermining force affecting efforts to build sustainable and resilient African societies.
“The low ratification rate of the African Union Treaties is undermining efforts towards the building of sustainable and resilient African societies,” the 55-member pan African bloc said in a statement issued Monday.
The AU, which emphasised the vital need of building sustainable and resilient societies across the African continent as its major continental development agenda, also noted that efforts are underway so as to ratification rate of the various continental treaties that envisaged an overall development of Africa.
According to the AU, the AU Office of the Legal Counsel and the United Nations (UN) Development Programme (UNDP) had recently developed a joint project targeting six inclusive treaties in six countries with an aim to tackle low ratification rate of the treaties.
The six inclusive treaties that are currently under the spotlight are the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG), the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the African Youth Charter as well as the AU Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption, it was noted.
The joint AU-UNDP project, which was launched back in October 2018, had recently supported Sao Tome and Principe in ratifying and depositing five out of the six treaties covered by the project.
The project is also said to intensify the ratification and deposition of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement as well as the protocol to the treaty establishing the African Economic Community on free movement of persons, rights of residence and establishment. –Xinhua
