The African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies, in collaboration with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, is organising a Forum on the participation of NGOs in the 40th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and 14th African Human Rights Book Fair, at the Paradise Suite Hotel in Banjul, The Gambia, from the 12-14 November 2006.

The Forum on the participation of NGOs in the Ordinary Sessions of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights is one of the main advocacy tools that the African Centre uses to advance networking among Civil Society Organisation works on Human Rights in Africa, for the promotion and protection of human rights in Africa. Between 1990 and 1994, ACDHRS collaborated with the International Commission of Jurist (ICJ, Geneva), in facilitating the participation of civil society organisations, academician and professionals from Africa and beyond in the African Commission’s session.
However, since April 2000 the ACDHRS has facilitated the participation of NGOs and individuals in the sessions, in collaboration with the African Commission and other Human Rights Organisations working for Africa.

The objective of the forum is to foster closer collaboration among NGOs and with the African commission, with the sole aim of promoting and protecting human rights in Africa. Participants to the forum will comprise human rights organisations from Africa and beyond, numbering about a hundred. Resource persons for the forum will be eminent activists and experts dealing with human rights issues in Africa. The forum will be conducted in English and French with simultaneous interpretation.

The African Centre also organises the 14th African Human Right Book Fair, which will run simultaneously with the forum and the public sessions of the African commission. The book fair will enables NGOs to network and initiate or renew, the exchange of materials and information, as well as to publicise their activities. Participants to the forum will partake actively in the book fair by displaying publications and/or documentaries of their organisations.