The aim of the thematic programme is to address crosscutting issues that affect the African continent.. Thematic programmes in ACORD are about  issues within area programmes and those that go beyond the geographical proximity of the area programmes. They are strategic interventions on interrelated issues to bring about change at different levels, both local to global. These are research-based issues that link area programmes , scale-up and amplify their work hence addressing a particular issue.   The role of themes is to support the development of  area programme, that is, they are the idea behind programming, and promote creativity, learning and quality improvement. While they link Area programmes and ACORD to the external environment, themes also bring learning into area programmes and ACORD as a whole.   ACORD is developing four  thematic programmes, based on its expertise and past experience, around: HIV/AIDS, Conflict, Gender and other forms of exclusion and Livelihoods

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HIV/AIDS

HASAP’s mutually reinforcing functions remain those of providing technical support to programs, co-coordinating research and advocacy, and facilitating internal and external information sharing, and networking with external stakeholders on the issue of HIV/Aids  In its stage of development, the program has focused on three particular areas that follow:   - Meanstreaming of HIV/Aids in programs activities - Stigma and discrimination - ACORD HIV workplace policy

HASAP Programme Manager, Dennis Nduhura

Unravelling the Dynamics of HIV/AIDS related Stigma and Discrimination: The Role of Community Based Research, Research Report Series 1, June 2004.

This publication was launched in Bangkok, Thailand in July 2004 during the 15th international Conference on HIV/AIDS, in a satellite meeting organized by AMREF. The research results have been used particularly by the two programmes for local and national level advocacy. In Burundi, a rights observatory forum was established to advocate for stigma free environment for PLHAs.

Similarly in Uganda, discussions around the issues raised by the research led to development of by laws for tackling stigma and discrimination within the community. This area is being now scaled up across the programs and partners.

The HIV/AIDS workplace policy :  Hasap has been supporting catalyzing the processes of equipping ACORD with a HIV/aids workplace.

Series of activities in presentation of policy recommendations for the organization, review and incorporation of the recommendations in other organizational policies, development of a draft tool kit for supporting policy implementation and a workshop for introducing the policy for the secretariat staff and programmes (Uganda, Tanzania) and developing a roll out plan are highlights of the key activities related to this.

 Those Conflicts have been confined to a specific spatial location and others have impact well extended beyond national boundaries to affect and be affected by other externalities, especially within the recent global changes. It is clear local conflicts dynamics operate in parallel with but sometimes independently of those at the national, regional and global level. This emphasizes having a wider vision of the dynamics and linkages (forward and backward) of conflict inspire of that of its localised consequences.     

Objective of the program:  Work with marginalized groups in Africa to create an enabling environment whereby they can be effective agents to conflict transformation and can hold actors at local, national, international levels to account for their actions.

Program focus

In its development stages, this program has been focusing on developing the pan - African strategy on conflict which has generated Acord analysis on the issue and strategic choices. It has also set panafrican reference group composed of staff from area programs having conflict focus in their work globally, the approach adopted is about working on conflict transformation and in conflict.

In parallel, specific participatory researches crosscutting many countries have been carried out with the aim of identifying ways in which communities manage and transform conflicts, using participatory methodologies including oral testimony. It is planned to share widely with relevant actors the output of this research reports. ACORD will then capture some of the specific findings and build on them to improve practices in ACORD and partners work on and in conflict and engage on policy level.

The program also has helped areas programs to do synopsis and best practice on conflict work and exchange through through the reference group and news letters.  

The program is being staffed now to take forward the strategy through providing strategic leadership and capacity building to programs to develop, capitalize on their work and create space for engagement at regional and pan African level.

Like anywhere else in the world institutions that control resources in Africa are generally male-dominated and supported by gender ideologies.

Cultural and traditional practices such as FGM, bride wealth, arranged marriage, early marriage, inheritance of wife rape, abduction, as well as formal and informal socialization processes of men and women have continued to perpetuate gender power relations and roles.

These practices are re-enforced by struggle to maintain identity put under threat by changing environment and globalisation processes. Women themselves play a key role as custodians of cultural identity.

Conflict is a phenomenon that is both a cause and consequence of gender relations. The fact that increasingly marginalized groups including women (and children) take the brunt of war and conflict because of their status in the society is equally true. However, contrary to the belief that women are  victims and men as perpetrators of conflict only,  researches on conflict have shown that both men and women are victims as well as promoters and active participants in conflict and war directly and through their everyday behaviour.

There have been several important international conventions which have been ratified by governments world wide that confirm the rights of women, their participation and due place in socio-economic and political arena and the need for guaranteeing their safety and protection.

Among these the 1985 Forward Looking Strategies for Women  held in Kenya, the Beijing Platform for Action developed at the Fourth World Conference on Women in September 1995  (itself based on the Elimination of all forms of discrimination against women), the Millennium Development  Goals, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. For example the Beijing Conference attended by representatives of 189 countries called upon all governments to adopt “gender-sensitive multi-sectoral programmes and strategies to end social subordination of women and girls and to ensure their social and economic empowerment and equality.”

The Millennium Development Goal includes targets that are meant to increase access to resources such as health and education for women (targets 3 and 6).In addition to these many governments in Africa have policies and strategies for the advancement of women and the protection of their rights.

Despite these efforts however the living condition of men and women living in the most marginalized parts of Africa has not changed.  One of the key challenges in all this is the implementation of these good intentions and the system of accountability.

The lack of political will at the highest level, lack of ownership because of the top down approach of most of these conventions, the lack of contextualization, inconsistencies with existing customary and formal laws and practices, limitations in capacity to implement, the absence of claim on these rights by people (mainly due to lack of awareness) are the causes for the rather slow progress. The instrumentalist approaches of some of these declarations for economic growth rather than issues of human rights have also been an obstacle.

Grassroots movements that advocating for the right women are virtually absent in many countries in Africa. Where they exist they are vulnerable due to weak capacity, co-option by those in power and donors and limited in scope. Most gender movements are urban based, are exclusive (only women and therefore often stigmatized) and criticised for being ‘elitist’ and exclusionary. The challenge in understanding the aspirations and wishes of marginalized women and men in Africa and how interventions from outside harness their ability to articulate their needs and act on them.

 Along with the effects of poverty, conflict and globalisation processes, the vulnerability of women is compounded by unequal access to power and resources underpinned by institutionalised patriarchal norms and structures. The link between gender inequalities and the spread of the HIV virus first gained wide recognition over a decade ago when the theme of the 1990 World AIDS Day was “Women and HIV/AIDS.” Since then, the critical importance of integrating gender awareness into HIV and AIDS responses has gained increasingly widespread recognition, both at the level of international policies and debates and in relation to national, local and community level policies and approaches. Gender inequality not only increases the vulnerability of women to the virus but also constrained their access to drugs and treatment in the aftermath. Conflict and HIV/AIDS are linked feed into each other often mediated through gender relations.

 Activities focus:  

The program seeks to enhance ACORD, its  programs and partners and it’s staff capacity to develop and implement effective responses to gender inequalities and discrimination.  The main activities include reviewing and updating  acord gender policy ( including gender work place policy), reviving gender in ACORD  reviewing and updating the gender based tools and methodologies, including social exclusion perspectives, training 500 hundred staff and partners on the new tools and methodologies, training on policy literacy  sensitive to gender and social exclusions, Training on advocacy tools/building campaigns on gender issues  of 300 staff and 500 hundred member of partners organization, Introducing and developing HIV/Aids work place sensitive to gender in ACORD  and partners, Facilitation of cross/learning trough visit exchange and peer review across the 18 countries, Establishment of systemic management information system to facilitate access of critical information and awareness building, documentation and Dissemination of ACORD’s Gender Workplace Policy, research reports and Gender Information Packs through ACORD’s .

The program intends also to contribute strengthen gender movement in Africa  through facilitation of networking, capacity building and linkages across Africa and social action support around gender issues :

In this area, the program is  mapping community rooted national and panafrican organizations involved in gender issues, building on existing partnership in areas programs,  try to foster an understanding of gender inequity by supporting joint cross- boarding researches on gender power relationship, policies impact on gender relationship  at country and panafrican level ,  support the creation of research finding fora at regional and Africa level on gender, support the participation in global fora on gender and other form of discrimination. It intends to create linkages between areas programmes capitalizing on experience within the regions and across the continent.

 The program will Participate in gender issues campaign across the continent, amplify local issues trough research, capitalization and publication and creation of space for engagement. A number of issues have been identified already, and this are linked. The program is being staffed now to take forward this activities.  

LIVELIHOOD
Livelihood Thematic Programme	Contextual analyses :
	The analysis carried out by ACORD shows that Africa and its peoples have lost the means of control over food security policies and choices, hence losing their food sovereignty. After suffering from famine, malnutrition and extreme dependency on imported food for the last 40 years, European countries acted as a bloc and adopted protectionist measures to promote their agriculture and ensure food security within their countries and through a regional approach within the framework of their common agricultural policy. This contributed to completely reversing food insecurity and to making the continent one of the major net exporters of certain agricultural products including milk, cattle, sugar, etc. In spite of the major ideological changes that have taken place since 1980 towards neo-liberalism
Food security is still a major obstacle in Africa

and towards an acceleration of globalisation that has literally dismantled and removed agriculture protection and support framework in Africa;  Europe, the United States and Japan continue today to enjoy protection of their agriculture while at the same time pushing for opening of markets in the other countries.

And yet, the major regional blocs in Africa and the countries that constitute them still are not able to draw lessons from this unique experience in history and thus ensure protection of their vulnerable agriculture that is the basis of livelihood for over 75% of their population.

NEPAD, most of the regional organizations (COMESA, ECOWAS, SADC…) and Pan-African organizations are pushing for opening of markets, liberalization of exchange and completion at the world level within a context of positioning capacities and unequal economic and political power relations at the global level.

Current global processes within the framework of WTO, Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), national frameworks of PRSP have pushed for liberalization of exchange, competition and anti-protectionism at  national level.  One can therefore not envisage re-conquering food sovereignty in such a perspective.

In its daily work with marginalized African communities, ACORD bears witness everyday to the devastating effects of this world machine that is producing thousands of hungry people, social inequalities that generate conflict and reduce African States and their people to beggars in spite of the immense resources that the continent possesses.

This situation is further aggravated by the situation of incompetence and bad governance prevailing in Africa coupled with environmental conditions which are sometimes unfavorable and which are becoming increasingly worse by the day.

And yet, in 1974, the universal declaration on the eradication of hunger and malnutrition proclaimed that each person has the right to live free from hunger and malnutrition and to assure their full development and maintain their physical and mental faculties.

In 1992, the world declaration on nutrition proclaimed that access to adequate nutrition and healthy food is a universal right.

The millennium development goals declared by the United Nations and the Rome declaration promised to reduce hunger by half by the year 2015.

Accord believes fundamentally and firmly that no matter how ambitious Africa may be, she will not be able to do this outside of a context of “a re-conquering” by African governments and their organizations both at the regional and Pan-African level of food sovereignty.It is within this context and firmly convinced of this that ACORD has developed this initiative on food sovereignty in Africa.

Aim of the program is to contribute to helping African countries achieve food sovereignty including the right to determine choices and policies appropriate for food security.  The objective of the program is to support the emergence   of a dynamic African citizens' movement that is assertive, inclusive and that demands the right for African States and their citizens to determine and control policies governing food security especially policies related to safeguarding strategic crops. ACORD will work according to the following specific objectives:

• Contribute to bringing the issue  of safeguarding strategic crop and produce onto agenda of agricultural and trading policies at the national, regional and Pan-African levels,

•  Support the introduction of viable  monitoring  and control mechanisms and awareness  for raising awareness and encouraging citizens to keep checks on the implementation of these policies,

• To contribute to defending the safeguarding of strategic crops and highlight the issue within the framework of negotiations of the EPA agreements, WTO and development financing negotiations,

•  Build capacity for action for ACORD and its partners on the issue of food sovereignty.

This new initiative, that will have the main base in Addis Ababa, where the program will built relevant partnership with African Union organization and NEPAD and other pan African organizations, essentially working on policies, will catalyze the ACORD areas programs dynamic , to engage communities social movement, syndicates, pastoralist and agricultures network, to understand, research  and challenges the issues in policy  linked to food sovereignty, at national level, and in coalition with others at other levels.

This process will take advantages of processes that have substantive impact on food sovereignty in Africa, including EPAs negociations, trade and justice, Common agriculture policy reform debate and others carrying a specific focus on the capacity of African states and people to safeguard the strategic crops. In this perspective, ACORD will join also other processes, to ally with others to take forward the voice of the poor and advance the issue of food sovereignty.