AfricTivistes, in partnership with OXFAM and WILDAF, launches the Sahel Insight project to address inequalities in the Sahel.
This project aims to promote good practices and citizen mobilisation in support of public policies adapted to the reduction of inequalities in the Sahel. Led by AfricTivistes, in partnership with OXFAM and WILDAF, it aims to strengthen collaboration between Sahelian civil society organisations (CSOs) and local authorities to improve access to essential services for all; and to support civil society actors in Sahelian countries in expressing their demand for increased, accountable and transparent public resources.
This programme will be executed in Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso and Senegal between January 2022 and March 2023. AfricTivistes will provide its expertise through an online campaign and a series of training sessions for civil society in these four Sahelian countries. These sessions aim to strengthen civil society actors and citizens already involved in areas such as leadership, communication and digital advocacy, risk management and gender issues.
The first empowerment campaign will take place from January 10 to 14, 2022 in N'djaména. Other calls for applications will be opened for the other target countries of the programme and the dates will be announced later.
The second step of this project will consist of organising an online awareness and advocacy campaign on inequalities in the Sahel and mobilising activists and other influential actors in African cyberspace on this issue.
"The challenges of reducing inequality in Africa are enormous. These glaring disparities, particularly in access to essential services, deprive millions of Africans of happiness and push most of them to live in misery," explains AfricTivistes President Cheikh Fall. He further states that the perpetuation of these inequalities is due in part to bad policies, including under-investment in priority sectors: access to water, electricity, health services (health coverage, staff and equipment), quality education, budget information (budget line distribution, analysis and sectoral distribution of the budget), infrastructure (public transport, fleet of cars, roads, bridges, schools ...), etc.
Cheikh Fall said the situation is more complex in the Sahel, where the environmental and security challenges are immense. Indeed, in these regions, instability and insecurity often stem from the frustrations of the populations and a deeply rooted sense of injustice. And this atmosphere of terror, far from resolving these concerns, amplifies the situations of precariousness. The focus then remains on the acceptance and prioritisation of these challenges at all levels of decision-making, but also on the collaboration and inclusion of civil society actors and local authorities in public policies.