Partnership for Democracy and Peace (Partnership per la Democrazia e la Pace)

Objectives The project seeks to strengthen the capacity of trade unions, to proactively contribute to the ongoing democratization, social and economic process in each of the countries covered by the project. - To empower the trade unions to intervene in the struggle for deepening and sustaining democracy, fight injustice, human and trade union rights abuses, combat social exclusion and disintegration, ensure productive and quality employment and raise awareness of social responsibility in Africa. - To enhance the capacity of trade unions through relevant education and technical support to cope with new and emerging challenges resulting from the ever-dynamic political, social and economic environment. - To contribute to the process of promoting democratic ideals, including the realization of a strategic planning towards sustainable capacity building in the areas of the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, human and trade union rights, principles of democracy, internal democracy, NEPAD, and membership recruitment and organization. Activities, outputs and impact of the project The project has made considerable achievements. To begin with, a total of 20 national and 21 local workshops have been successfully completed under this project within three years following its inception in 2003. A total of 1,013 participants, including 339 women representing 33.46% of the overall number of participants attended these workshops. This action-oriented project has had tremendous impact on working people, trade unions and the wider society, especially in the participating project countries. The impacts so far recorded are as follows: · Enhanced capacity and increased possibility for trade unions to play a credible, dynamic and constructive role in the ongoing democratization, economic regeneration and overall development processes in their respective countries. A classical example is the SFTU's and COSYBU's resilience in the campaign for a people-driven and ownership over the constitution-making process and the overall democratization process in Swaziland and Burundi, respectively. Also, the successful local government elections held for the first time in 30 years in Sierra Leone was not without agitation by the SLLC (Sierra Leone) and other pro-democratic forces in that country. Equally, COSYBU and other progressive forces in Burundi are pushing for both the consolidation of the fragile peace process and the return to constitutional rule within the shortest possible time. · Trade unions are now able to consistently campaign for pro-poor development policies within the framework of their respective in-country PRSPs and NEPAD processes, with a view to ensuring that the majority of the people derive maximum benefits. The broad policy guidelines presented by the LFLU (Liberia) to the democratically elected Government of Liberia outlining the labour viewpoint on a number of issues that are critical for the sustainable reconstruction of that war-ravaged country was developed at the training of trainers workshop organized for the LFLU by the project. · Trade unions are better equipped to continue to play a front-line role in enthroning democracy in Africa by moving beyond their traditional role, to provide a model of democratic accountability and campaign for governments' openness and the fostering of the culture of popular participation through well-established decentralized democratic structures. COTU (Kenya) was able, through the platform provided by this project, to play a dominant role in directing its members to make informed decisions in the recent referendum that was held around a new national Constitution. Besides, COTU-K is also in the forefront in the fight against corruption in Kenya. This project has helped trade unions to demonstrate a unique capacity to provide a united platform for workers regardless of political, ethnic, religious and geographical considerations. For instance, attempts by the out

Project symbol

RAF/02/04/ITA

Admin unit

ACTRAV

Start date

01/01/2003

End date

30/04/2010

Total allocation

822715

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

822715

Development Partners

Italy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation

Country/Countries

Africa - regional

Outcomes

Workers' Organizations