Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) is a Pan-African organization, headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria dedicated to working with African communities and building partnerships with them to take collective action for the promotion and defense of human rights. The organization’s vision is to ensure that Africa’s development path is designed, modeled, and executed by Africans, while respecting and guaranteeing human rights, promoting social justice, and protecting the environment.
CAPPA’s goal is to create an Africa that is free of injustices and inequalities caused by corporations and unfair state structures. To achieve this, they nurture movements of African communities and a new generation of leaders working together to demand democratic community and natural resource governance, inclusive participation in development policies and processes, and accountability for all forms of corporate and state abuses.
The organization achieves its goals by working with a team of dedicated staff, community volunteers, coalitions, and leveraging networks to advance human rights, challenge corporate abuse of natural resources, and build community power for inclusive development and participatory governance. They prioritize four essential principles: equity, access, participation, and rights, to deliver effective, efficient, accessible, affordable, and quality public services that are significant in ensuring and enabling social justice.
CAPPA’s work on extractives and the environment focuses on supporting communities to organize, mobilize, and build solidarity to prevent and mitigate the negative practices of the extractive sector. They provide support for communities in the following areas: environmental justice campaigning, community-based inclusive and participatory natural resource governance, and environmental monitoring.
Some notable projects carried out in Africa include;
Africa Water Week; The Africa Week of Action Against Water Privatization raises awareness of and links the challenges being faced by local communities in ten African nations that are threatened by water privatization. Communities presented their struggles, victories, and strategies for organizing against water privatization in 2022.
African Women Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Network; This is a CAPPA-powered network that strives to assist Water Justice movements and advocate for policy changes that strengthen women’s rights to water and sanitation. The network is striving to integrate women and women-led organizations throughout Africa over the next ten (10) years, with a diverse membership range in Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
Other projects include Our Water Our Right campaign in Lagos Nigeria, and the CAPPA Journalism fellowship 2022,
Their public health advocacy is focused on ensuring effective legislation to support healthy lifestyles and prevent attempts by businesses to endanger public health through their activities or goods. Additionally, they run a program on climate change to foster unity among African residents, increase their capacity for resilience, prevent and slow down further global warming, and lessen the effects of climate change.
In conclusion, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) is a truly remarkable organization that is making a significant impact on the African continent. Their dedication to working with communities and building partnerships to take collective action for the promotion and defense of human rights is truly admirable. Their vision to ensure that Africa’s development path is designed, modeled, and executed by Africans while respecting and guaranteeing human rights, promoting social justice, and protecting the environment is truly inspiring.
Their work in advancing human rights, challenging corporate abuse of natural resources, and building community power for inclusive development and participatory governance is truly commendable. The way they prioritize essential principles such as equity, access, participation, and rights to deliver effective, efficient, accessible, affordable, and quality public services that are significant in ensuring and enabling social justice is truly remarkable.
CAPPA’s work on extractives and the environment, public health advocacy, and climate change is truly making a difference in the lives of many African communities. We applaud their efforts and encourage others to join in the cause and support their work in any way possible. Together, we can build a better Africa for all.
For more information please visit – cappaafrica.org