By: Meskerem Ritmeester
Fortunately, the signing ceremony was postponed indefinitely in April due to the many uncertainties surrounding the national sovereignty of the ACP countries; especially when it comes to sensitive ethical issues related to human rights, social and human development (e.g. in areas such as sexual and reproductive health and sexual orientation). CCI, together with its American partner organization Family Watch International (FWI), has set up several campaign groups to further influence the policy makers from the ACP countries to avoid signing this agreement as long as it contains these concerning provisions.
In addition, CCI in collaboration with Driestar Christian University (DCU) organized a webinar on 15 June about the possibility of introducing alternative sexual education curricula, such as the DCU’s 'Wonderfully Made' curriculum, in various African countries. The main reason for this is to provide an alternative to the progressive sex education curricula called ‘Comprehensive Sexual Education (CSE)’ which the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) are currently promoting in Africa. In this webinar, Christian and conservative partner organizations from different parts of the world (e.g. France, The US, Uganda, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Haiti, etc.) were able to provide their own expertise. This webinar is a first step towards establishing an influential network of like-minded organizations to jointly promote alternative sex education curricula that are both based on healthy (sexual) relationships with fellow human beings and adaptable to the context of the often deeply religious and conservative African countries.
Finally, CCI Africa closely watches the worrying developments around the new pandemic treaty of the World Health Organization (WHO). This treaty was introduced in 2022 and is currently being formulated under the leadership of the WHO to prevent new health pandemics and ensure a global health approach. It is expected that this treaty will not be signed anytime soon, but the content is nevertheless disturbing. There is a fear that once the WHO declares a pandemic, all governments that sign this treaty will be forced to take even more drastic measures than we have seen in the past two years related to COVID-19. National sovereignty and the freedom to organize healthcare at national level is threatened in this way. In addition, there is a risk that this treaty will enable the WHO to force countries to introduce sensitive topics in health care; think of e.g. sexual health care and rights (SRHR) including abortion and sexual orientation.
In the second half of this year, CCI Africa will continue to focus on raising awareness on the above topics among policy makers and policy influencers in Africa.
Meskerem Ritmeester is Policy & Advocacy Director Africa