Context 

The African Union (AU) provides an institutional framework for advancing the achievement of development-related goals across the continent. AU Treaties provide the normative and legal mechanism, through which Member States can foster greater political and economic integration, while simultaneously catalyzing enhanced peace and security, poverty reduction and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Since the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 and the AU in 2001, Member States have adopted a total of 64 treaties, protocols, and conventions. However, as of April 2018 only 34% of these treaties have entered into force. 

About the Programme

The joint AU-UNDP project, ‘Accelerating the Ratification and Domestication of African Union Treaties’, is a three-year multi-country and regional initiative supported by the Government of Sweden. This project is anchored in UNDP’s Regional Programme for Africa. The project is designed to address the challenges and bottlenecks associated with ratification and domestication, and to help enhance the capacity of the AU over the medium- to long-term to be able to manage the ratification process, and to provide tailored support to Member States with domestication-related challenges. It is anchored on a multi-dimensional approach to development, which draws upon the inherent link between peace, security and economic development. It will further help in the achievement of Agenda 2063 and the SDGs.

Six priority countries have been selected based on regional balance, openness to civil society, entrenched democratic system, legal diversity (encompassing the three-major existing legal systems on the African continent). The six countries are; Senegal and Burkina Faso (Western Africa) Kenya (East/Horn of Africa), Mozambique (Southern Africa), Tunisia (North Africa) and Sao Tome & Principe (Central Africa). 

The following 6 treaties have been selected during the first phase: 

• African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, adopted in 1981
  

• Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), adopted in 2003
  

• African Youth Charter, adopted in 2006 
  

• African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, adopted in 1990
  

• AU Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption adopted in 2003
  

• African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, adopted in 2007