ActionAid Ghana joins civil societies to launch Africans Rising Movement

ActionAid Ghana has joined civil society movements, groups and organisations in Africa to launch a Pan-African movement dubbed: “Africans Rising,” in Ghana to encourage justice, peace and dignity on the continent.

The event which took place at the ActionAid Global Platform Ghana in Tamale was executed to commemorate this year’s African Liberation Day.

A statement issued by Marina Tota, the Training Quality Co-ordinator of the Global Platform and copied to the Ghana News Agency at the weekend said the body was a leadership training hub of ActionAid, a leading non-governmental organisation headquartered in Denmark.

Daniel Nii Ankrah, the focal person of the movement explained that the mission of Africans Rising was to combat the menace of oppression and to condemn the plunder of “our natural and mineral resources as well as the suppression of our fundamental human rights”.

Mr Ankrah said the movement was formed by representatives from 44 African countries from civil societies, trade unions, women, young people, men, people living with disabilities and parliamentarians.

Other representatives were from media organisations, faith-based groups and the African Diaspora who gathered in Arusha, Tanzania in August 2016 and committed to build a pan-African movement for the rights and freedoms of African People.

“The main areas in which the movement will campaign on are expanding space for civic and political action, fighting for women’s rights and freedoms, focusing the struggles for the right to Equity and Dignity.

“It will also aim at demanding good governance, no corruption and impunity, as well as demanding climate and environmental justice,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, Kumi Naidoo, South African Human Rights Activist and the Africans Rising launch Executive Director was captured in South Africa’s SABC Prime Time Evening News on 25 May, expressing worry about the failure of some African leaders to create equal opportunities for all persons in the continent.

Mr Naidoo said “after so many years since 1963, liberation has only been delivered to the 1-5 per cent of the population (the African leaders), whereas the majority of people in Africa still suffer the daily indignity of dehumanising poverty”.

In view of this, the statement expressed full support for the existence of the movement and said: “The launch of this movement is a historical moment in African history as it turns the idea of Pan-Africanism into reality and creates a space for Africans to connect local struggles and unite in collective advocacy campaigns.”

Abdul Fatawu Tambro, a Trainer at the Global Platform Ghana who welcomed the participants said Africa could address its problems only if it boldly tackled them with the people of Africa as the focus.

“In rising up to face the challenges of our time, we will neither look North, South, East nor West. We will look only forward and within us, finding African solutions to African problems,” Mr Tambro stated.

The participants were clad in red to symbolise the sacrifice and blood spilt by forefathers for Africa’s liberation from colonial rule; and of the ongoing bleeding of wealth from the continent through illicit financial outflows and the destruction of Africa’s natural resources.

The event also provided a platform for the youth to discuss the problems militating against the development of Ghana and Africa for that matter, and measures that could remedy these problems.

They also read the Kilimanjaro Declaration, the movement’s founding charter, which seeks to uphold the vision of movement with the intention to inspire and commit signatories to actions that empower all Africans, especially those who have been marginalized, to collectively tackle the root causes of inequality, injustice, human rights abuses and poverty.

The statement called on all persons to pull their weight behind the movement by reading the Kilimanjaro Declaration and signing it if they agree with it on.