Demanding Accountability on ALL Human Rights - Accountability International

Update from Our ED

Ricki Tshepo Kgositau Kanza

October seems to be a very significant month for us at Accountability International.

We started the month on the 2^nd with the International Day of Non-Violence, on the 10^th we had World Mental Health Day (wellness is a core issue at our organisation), a day later the International Day of the Girl Child (11^th October), followed by International Day of Rural Women (15th) and then the world commemorated October 17^th as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, and then World Statistics Day (an issue which AI is an expert on, of course!) and on 24^th October we recognized World Development Information Day. All of these issues are matters that we at Accountability International work on as part of the broader #accountability movement.

But let me start by highlighting the issue of poverty: It is important to acknowledge poverty as more than just the lack of money or resources to provide for sustainable livelihoods. The various manifestations of poverty include hunger and malnutrition, hampered educational access and other social services, socio-economical exclusion and discrimination, as well as compromised participation in decision-making.

Agenda 2063 sets out an ambitious road map for the attainment of this endeavour with Goal 1 to end poverty that intersects with Goal 2 to attain zero hunger. What is clear is that poverty and hunger cannot be eradicated when the lives, human rights and wellbeing of all people is not safeguarded, more especially the marginalized. For this to be guaranteed, the expectation is to see reduced inequities, good jobs and inclusive economic growth, with all humans living in safe communities where justice in its fullest sense is accessible to all.

The current times of COVID-19 are a true litmus test on the goal to eradicate poverty. Accountability International (AI)’s COVID-19 Scorecard for Africa brings to the fore evidence on the impact of emergency protocols that have been adopted across the continent on citizens. It is important to note that where national authorities overstep the mark in their application of emergency responses to COVID-19, or where civil servants exceed their powers, the people targeted as a result are often marginalized and excluded populations: women and girls, LGBTIQ persons, people who use drugs, sex workers, people in prisons and other detention centres, migrants, refugees and displaced people, the elderly, the mentally ill, people living with disabilities, indigenous people, civic leaders, journalists, and perceived political opponents. Where economical reliefs have been provided for businesses and industries, many of these marginalized communities have not benefited, which further pushes these communities into the clutches of poverty during such a global health crisis.

Our flagship Challenging Criminalisation Globally (CCG project), shows the detriments of prevailing laws policing and regulating people’s bodily autonomy, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, choices and needs as drivers of socio-economic exclusion and discrimination for criminalized communities. Without challenging, repealing and transforming such laws and policies, many marginalized communities continue to live on the periphery of society without the necessary resources to forge sustainable, meaningful and safe livelihoods. Our CCG work continues to advocate for governments to provide safe living and working spaces for all people indiscriminately to afford an income for themselves, their families and communities if we are to end poverty and hunger, and reach our 2030 targets.

The freedom of all persons to voice their opinions, concerns and issues is critical to ensuring their full participation in the economy and all decision making pertaining their lives. This is more important with regards to all diverse young persons, particularly in the context of Africa where close to 60% of its population is said to be under the age of 25. AI’s State of the African Youth Report of 2017 showed road crashes to be the second biggest killer of youth on the continent, while global statistics are showing a spike in new HIV and sexual infections amongst adolescents and youth, and growing unemployment rates amongst youth. This is a ticking time bomb, in need of urgent and decisive action. It is for this reason that AI is working with young persons under our African Youth SRHR Scorecard project, to equip them with accountability literacy and tools to engage in robust monitoring of youth related commitments to ensure implementation of youth centred and focused policies and services.

It gives me pride to lead the team of AI that has been hard at work during these trying times of COVID-19, albeit remotely. We have received some additions to the team with our newly appointed Programmes Manager, Keikantse Phele, who is a human rights lawyer and inclusive feminist of note and our new intern Joshua Tshego Sehoole, a Master’s student with the University of Pretoria’s prestigious Centre for Human Rights focused on Africa and democratization. We look forward to working with them as we work to advance inclusive developmental agenda setting that centres marginalized communities at its core to end poverty and hunger the world over.

AI Welcomes New Programmes Manager Keikantse Phele.

Kei writes about how she hopes to use accountability to bridge the digital divide.

I joined the Accountability International Team, the ATeam, on 1 September 2020, as a Programmes Manager. One may say that I joined the Team at a very unprecedented time in history. To today as the world has clamped down on travel, I have met my colleagues only virtually online. A bitter sweet process and one acknowledges that work must go on. It gives me pleasure that even before COVID-19; the ATeam has always worked remotely, with a team in South Africa and another in Sweden and Brussels. Now this has gone into full mode as the team is now present in Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Cape Town, Belgium and Sweden. Our presence is such that we are brought together by having access to the digital space and connectivity to do our impactful work.

What remains a core connecting factor to us at the #ATeam, is a factor that is almost non-existent to other communities. COVID-19 has shown how inequalities in the digital and physical space has greatly affected the livehoods of those who have been unable to use the digital space to continue to provide services that they had been providing before COVID -19 online. The focus is on informal women traders in their diversities, who ply their trade in markets and open stalls in Africa. The World Health Organisation (WHO), has prescribed that one of the ways to lessen the spread of the COVID-19 virus is minimize human interaction, as people carry, and move with the contagious virus.

Therefore small gatherings are allowed and have thus far in Sub Saharan adversely affected informal diverse women traders to earn a living for themselves. COVID-19 has highlighted the dire inequalities of digital gender gaps in Sub Saharan Africa. As a result of undeveloped access to internet, funds for data, lack of content and online businesses, informal women traders in their diversities are plummeted into poverty. The World Bank has estimated that access that women access internet on a lower scale than men because of different reasons as noted, and that the content that women share may not be useful as compared to their male counterparts. It is apparent that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) 2020 target for universal access to internet will not be met, as there are many people, particularly women in developing countries do not have access to internet.

Poverty rates have gone up and the effects of COVID-19 in economies have back rolled the progress that has been made economically in Sub Saharan Africa by 25 years. It will take Sub Saharan Africa years to rebuild again as it is on the brink of an economic recession. Therefore as a result of the medium and long term solutions to effective and inclusive response to COVID-19, African leaders must be accountable and include strategies to lessen the digital divide. This could be done primarily by lessening structural and cultural barriers of access to internet, providing access to internet to the marginalized and vulnerable, and by enacting protective cyber laws. This will create spaces that will enable connectivity and profit making to those who are left behind in the digital space, and alleviate them from poverty.

In the spirit of our motto: Doing what we do best: Using scorecards to build Transparency, Dialogue and Action in the response to COVID 19 in Africa. We shall continue to conduct our research to provide quality data on existing gaps on various issues and what leaders need to do, to be accountable and make inclusive decisions for all.

Alexandra Ciobica

Poverty is not only dynamic, but also multidimensional and context-specific. Poverty is lacking opportunities.[i]

And so – when it comes about the grant making sphere and the funding landscape, the lack of funding opportunities for LGBTIQ+ related projects has a considerably adverse impact on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) persons and communities. Out of myriad of reasons, one of the most significant one is the impediment it has on the advancement of the work done to protecting and realizing the human rights of LGBTIQ+ people.

So why are the human rights and equality for LGBT people usually considered only through a social, cultural, or ethical lenses, when in fact – both equality and inclusion of LGBT people are also economic development issues? Why is there no inclusive funding …? Why are grant makers always speaking predominantly only with other grant makers …? Why, why, why? This is in unclear, but certainly it must be changed!

There are various informal and formalised groups of grant makers that continue to organize events for more inclusive funding, yet one remarkably strange component of these conversations, is that they are ‘inclusive only’ of other grant makers, or closed members. Interestingly – they are also grant makers themselves. The unfortunate truth is that despite having all these funding partners discussing about LGBTIQ+ funding, during 2017–2018, “global LGBTI foundation funding made up less than 31 cents out of every $100 of overall global foundation funding”[ii], while “global LGBTI funding from donor governments again made up less than 4 cents out of every $100 of international development efforts and assistance”[iii]. This indicates a serious lack of accountability and is inadmissible! Yet again, LGBTIQ+ communities are excluded.

In a snapshot piece of research, Accountability International found that funding opportunities covering the last 6 months demonstrate that when it comes to LGBTIQ+ related funding, there were on average only 11.6 records of funding opportunities per month, compared to broader human rights funding where the average of records per month is 89.1. Compounding this, LGBTIQ+ related grants usually have a grant budget of maximum 10, 000 USD. This lack of funding makes one wonder how are LGBTIQ+ communities, activists and allies supposed to achieve human rights, health rights, SRHR, and socio-economic rights with such little funding support? How are civil society organisation working on LGBTIQ+ rights supposed to sustain organisational commitments and catalyze impact to ‘change the world’ if they are not financially empowered and supported by grant makers?

Inclusive and multi-annual grants for LGBTIQ+ related project is crucial. For civil society organisations and entire movements, financial resources for movement building, research and advocacy is vital to pushing for more equality for those who are still excluded. For fighting against poverty, and especially against poverty that results out of the lack of opportunities which are enabled by stigma and discrimination. In fact, when LGBT people are denied to fully participate in society[iv] , basic human rights are being violated. When we, as civil society organisations working to protect and to advance the realization of human rights of LGBTIQ+ people, and we lack funding opportunities to change the context from stigmatization and discrimination[v]to inclusiveness and equity – basic human rights are violated.

We need inclusive finances for movements to be able to organise, to reach out to communities, to supportive collaborators, to allies and colleagues from whom we can learn and with whom can share and partner. This is a vital part of being efficient in the human rights and development sector. This is vital in fighting against poverty. We also need to mobilise advocate for better, more inclusive, long-term and multi-annual grants for LGBTIQGNC+ projects in general, and in Africa particularly. And for this to happen – we must hold grant makers accountable for delivering broken promises.

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[i] SIDA, Perspectives on Poverty (2012), P. 5, available online at https://www.sida.se/contentassets/b1f1b6e40e31403eaad2365174193b04/15551.pdf

[ii] Global Philanthropy Project and Funders for LGBTQ Issues, 2017-2018 Global Resources Report: Government and Philanthropic Support for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex Communities Report, P. 20, Report available online at https://globalresourcesreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/GRR_2017-2018_Color.pdf

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Available online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X19300695

[v] World Bank Report (2014), The economic cost of stigma and the exclusion of LGBT people: a case study of India, available online at https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/527261468035379692/the-economic-cost-of-stigma-and-the-exclusion-of-lgbt-people-a-case-study-of-india

Demanding Accountability on ALL Human Rights - Accountability International

Update from Our ED

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