The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Cadhp) has granted observer status to the Pan-African Institute for Citizenship, Consumers and Development (CICODEV), Aps learns Saturday from this consumer organization. The decision of the Cadhp was notified to the president of CICODEV, Amadou Kanouté, via a letter from Lindiwe Khumalo, the Executive Secretary of this institution in charge of human rights. The observer status was granted to the consumer organization at its request, according to the correspondence, a copy of which was obtained by Aps. Ms. Khumalo recalls that all organizations, which have observer status with the Cadhp, must submit a report of their activities, once every two years. “It is an opening that will allow us to strengthen our advocacy on socio-economic rights: health, food, energy, sanitation, hygiene, telecommunications, etc.. These are fundamental rights for every human being”, reacted Amadou Kanouté, CICODEV’s executive director. “With this statute, we will manage to hold our states accountable to citizens at the national and international levels, because we will submit to the Cadhp, alternative reports on access to energy, healthy and nutritious food,” he added in an interview with Aps.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, being an organ of the African Union, Amadou Kanouté stressed, “we are very happy with this status, because it will extend our advocacy at the national level to a continental scale. The mission of CICODEV is, according to a statement, to “inform, defend, protect, educate and represent citizen-consumers, with particular emphasis on the most disadvantaged among them. The consumer organization intervenes in health, social welfare and energy policies. Water, sanitation, information, budget transparency, gender, nutrition, land management and telecommunications are among its areas of intervention. CICODEV, a partner of the National Agency for Universal Health Coverage in Senegal, says it is working towards “a massive adhesion” of the population to mutual health insurance, with a view to proper health and medical care.
Source:The Daily, December 13, 2021