A partnership agreement was last week signed in the Nigerian Capital Abuja to support the culture of documenting mass atrocities on the Africa Continent.
The agreement, signed on the margins of the annual Pan Africa Lawyers Union (PALU) conference, saw Chidi Odinkalu, a board member of Atrocities Watch, sign on behalf of Atrocities Watch, while Agnes Eboo and Stanley Ibe signed on behalf of Omidyar Network of Leadership Forum.
The leadership forum is an alumni initiative of the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program of the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University.
Ms. Ebo’o and Mr. Ibe, alumni of the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program of the CDDRL at Stanford University, are joint recipients of the first Collaborative Grants Initiative of the ONLF.
The funded project will be implemented in close collaboration between Atrocities Watch and the two alumni grantees.
Atrocities Watch is a non-for profit, Pan African organization founded and led by Ugandan journalist and former Chairperson of Darfur Consortium, Dismas Nkunda, known for his strong pursuit and desire to ending mass atrocities and impunity in Africa.
Atrocities Watch (AW) focuses on a number of strategic objectives including using new social media and digital tracking of mass atrocities to inform continental early warning mechanisms and offer remedial and preventive actions against occurrence of mass atrocities.
It also encourages the inclusion of young Africans in the understanding of the commission of atrocities and helps the young forge future interventions, using fast developing social media.
“This is a perfect start for us, with this funding, we will certainly be able to unearth those who commit crimes against our people in the remote hope that they will go scot free”, said Mr. Odinkalu, who is also the Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria.
Ms. Ebo’o, from Cameroon, said at the signing that the project would provide “a platform for young Africans to learn about past atrocities and hopefully learn on how to avoid them in the future”.
Her fellow grantee, Mr. Ibe, a Nigerian lawyer, said the grant would help develop a website that professionals can use and share their work on mass atrocities from a prevention point of view.
“Documenting past atrocities that could have been forgotten or conveniently kept from the public purview will help to enable society not only to remember but also to watch out for repeat happenings of such atrocities,” Mr. Ibe said.
“The beauty of this collaboration, initiated by a Cameroonian, a Nigerian and a Ugandan, is that it will help us put our first step into the door of documenting what has hitherto been not so much in the public domain but more importantly to make sure that new social media can be a tool for combating mass atrocities on the African continent and elsewhere,” Mr. Nkunda concluded.
The six-month project is expected to develop information and a platform where individuals and institutions on the continent can use to build cases for either domestic or indeed international accountability.
The Omidyar Network Leadership Forum (ONLF) launched the Collaborative Grants Program in July 2015, to strengthen communication among its network of over 250 members spanning 74 countries around the world.
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