Fighting the proliferation of small arms in Africa

Armed men in a pick-up
Armed men in a pick-up

Small arms are one of the main causes of death in Africa. The widespread and often uncontrolled presence of small arms in different parts of the continent and the facility to buy and use them has become a scourge in itself.
Civil and inter-state conflicts drive demand for small arms and create a pool of weapons which can be used to commit violent crime as well as fuelling conflict. Small arms such as assault rifles are especially suited to the irregular warfare because they are cheap (an AK-47 Africa’s favourite killing machine can be easily bought for as low as $12).

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Charter on Quality Medicines

Signing of Charter

CHARTER for the Quality of Medicines, Vaccines, Diagnostic Products and Small Medical Materials

AEFJN and organizations of the Be-cause Health platform, have published a CHARTER ON QUALITY MEDICINES. 

The Charter encourage organizations buying medicines for developing countries to sign the Charter and to commit themselves to adopt essential quality criteria for the purchase of these products, as defined in the Quality Assurance Charter.


EU Statement on Corporate Justice

Africans Protest
Call for Justice

AEFJN welcomes the Joint Statement of the Swedish and Spanish EU Council Presidency on Corporate Social Responsibility and expresses its hope that concrete actions will follow.

 

The Statement declares that "the European Union and its Member States should take a global lead and serve as a good example on Corporate Social Responsibility when building markets, combating corruption, safeguarding the environment and ensuring human dignity and human rights in the workplace. (...)The responsibility is threefold: the State duty to protect - including legislation as well as implementation of human rights obligations, in particular with regard to business; the corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and the responsibility of all parties involved to ensure access to adequate remedies to uphold and develop such human rights." Read more

 

Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)

EPAs
Stop EPA Campaign

Negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)with West Africa are seemingly in the most advanced stage and are likely to be the next ones to be concluded.

AEFJN is working on EPAs between the EU and African countries, because these agreements pose a serious threat to the African capacity to develop. In its current form they force African states to open up their markets too soon and too much to imports from Europe. Read more on the state of the EPA negotiations. Read more

 

Food Sovereignty, a concept AEFJN supports

The AEFJN members have always been concerned with ensuring a decent life for poor people, especially the disadvantaged small farmers in Africa. They consider that the concept of "Food Sovereignty" defended by many farmers' organisations around the world offers a basis of discussion.

 

Claims of Food Sovereignty coincide with our priorities and the rights we support, and they are close to the ideas of Catholic Social Teaching. It is not a fixed ideological system, but an open framework that needs much research and discussion to be improved and applied to current discussions.

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Main Focus of AEFJN

Dialogue EC - Civil Society
Dialogue EC - Civil Society

AEFJN is attentive to political decisions concerning economic relations between Africa and Europe.

AEFJN lobbies the European Union and member states to promote sustainable development in Africa; to monitor the impact in Africa of EU policies, agreements and protocols  and to promote socio-economic strategies that take into account the views of African people for a sustainable development.

AEFJN insists on the right and the responsibility of Africans to make their own policy for development.

AEFJN listens to the voice of Africa... brings this voice to the EU, so that African reality influences EU policy to promote sustainable development in that continent.