Africa Legal Aid (AFLA) and the African Union Mission for Mali and the Sahel (AU MISAHEL) conclude an Agreement of Cooperation

On 8 February 2024, La Mission de l’Union Africaine pour le Mali et le Sahel (MISAHEL) and Africa Legal Aid (AFLA) signed an Agreement of Cooperation at the seat of MISAHEL in Bamako, Mali.

During the signing ceremony, Judge Fatoumata Dembélé Diarra, Governing Council of Africa Legal Aid and Mr Fulgence Zeneth, Representative of the African Union

The Agreement provides the framework of partnership to achieve shared goals in a genuine spirit of collaboration. In this connection, MISAHEL and AFLA will cooperate closely and consult on the promotion of justice and the rule of law, child protection, and address gender-based violence (GBV), among other pertinent issues.
 
The parties agree inter alia to collaborate to make justice inclusive by engaging civil society organisations, particularly those that are women-led, and those representing vulnerable groups such as victims and survivors of human rights and atrocity crimes and GBV. There will be meaningful engagement of these organisations with the MISAHEL and justice authorities from the countries covered by the MISAHEL, the geographical area of the Sahelo-Saharan, including: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal.
 
This cooperation will build on the African Union’s commitment to promote and protect human rights in Africa, including the recent collective effort of the AU expressed at the Ministerial Meeting of the 8th African Union Technical Committee on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, held in November 2023, to address gender-based violence. It will further build on Africa Legal Aid’s leadership role in the African human rights and international justice landscape as well as its longstanding work on a victim-centred and gender-sensitive approach to justice.