Constitution

PREAMBLE

Africans Rising has its roots in the Kilimanjaro Declaration which states:

  1. Africa is a rich continent. That wealth belongs to all our People, not to a narrow political and economic elite. We need to fight for economic development that is just and embraces social inclusion and environmental care. We have a right to the ‘better life’ our governments have promised.
  2. Africans have a diverse, rich and powerful heritage that is important to heal ourselves and repair the damage done by neoliberalism to our humanity and environment.  Being African, embracing the philosophy of Ubuntu should be a source of our pride.
  3. African Youth are a critical foundation for building success in our continent and must play a central role in building Africans Rising.
  4. Africa’s Diaspora, whether displaced through slavery and colonialism or part of modern-day migration, are part of Africa’s history and future. They are a reservoir of skills, resources, and passion that must be harnessed and integrated into our movement.
  5. We are committed to a decentralised, citizen-owned future that will build support and solidarity for local struggles, empower local leadership and immerse our activists in grassroots work of building social movements from below and beyond borders.
  6. We are committed to building a citizens’ movement that is accountable to the constituencies we represent and enforcing the highest standards of ethical behaviour.

ARTICLE 1: NAME

The organisation shall be known as and called Africans Rising for Unity, Justice, Peace and Dignity (short form shall be Africans Rising), and is hereinafter referred to as “the Movement”.

ARTICLE 2: VALUES, VISION, MISSION, OBJECTIVES

Values Statement

  • Justice: The realisation of rights, fairness, dignity and respect.
  • Pan African: The integrity, unity and unique value and contribution of Africans in the continent and beyond.
  • Solidarity: United action and support based on shared values and purpose.
  • Courage of conviction – activism: The imperative to act without fear of challenges and failure.
  • Democratic: A commitment to inclusive, diverse and open participation, debate and differences.
  • Hope: The belief that peoples’ action can and will bring needed change.

Vision Statement
The Movement envisions Africa-wide activism, solidarity and unity of purpose of the Peoples of Africa to build the future they want – a right to justice, peace, dignity and shared prosperity.

Mission Statement
The mission of the movements is to work with and build, strengthen, support and leverage Pan African peoples movement of local (closest proximity to constituency and issue− thus even national or regional can be local) and grassroots (self-organised and direct ownership of the constituency affected by the issue) struggles and movements by engendering decentralised agencies with a ‘centrally’ enabled network for justice, peace, dignity and shared prosperity in Africa, that is accountable to the constituencies and will have the highest standards of ethical behaviour.

Objectives
The objectives of the Movement are to:

  • Enable, amplify, scale up and leverage local and grassroots struggles and movements
  • Advocate, campaign and undertake solidarity actions and activism
  • Build coalitions, alliances, networks across territories (local-continental-global) and across diversities (issues and constituencies)
  • Develop and share knowledge and innovations for effective activism and movements and leadership development
  • Build capacity of local and grassroots struggles and movements
  • Mobilise people to contribute (time, talent, action, or fund) to Africans Rising struggles and movements.

Scope of Work
Africans Rising work will embrace and engage with diversity of issues and constituencies in line with its vision, goals and objectives but all its work will seek to contribute to:

  1. Expand space for civic and political action
  2. Fight for women’s rights and freedoms across society
  3. Focus on the right to Equity and Dignity
  4. Good democratic and corruption free governance
  5. Promote climate and environmental justice.

 ARTICLE 3: GEOPOLITICAL SCOPE

The Movement exists to work in and about the whole of the continent of Africa. Consistent with its Pan-Africanism value and politics, the movement will not be divided into national or territorial divisions and will not acquire a federal model. This transnational and Pan-African approach, beyond the national or regional borders, is central to the organisation and workings of the Movement.

Even though registered in one national jurisdiction, the Movement will exercise the right to work anywhere and everywhere in the African continent.

ARTICLE 4: MEMBERSHIP

4.1. Any formal (legal registered entity) or non-formal (not legally registered) local and grassroots struggle or movement, organisation or individual activists who subscribe to the Movement’s values, vision and mission, and objectives can be affiliated with the Movement as a member.

4.2. Africans Rising will have the following two kinds of membership:

4.2.1. Affiliates: Formally organised or legally registered or informally organised but not formally registered local and grassroots struggle or movement (including diaspora entities based outside the continent) can become an Affiliate of the Movement through a due process involving application by the candidates, endorsement by peer Affiliates and final approval by the Coordinating Collective. Affiliates, including diaspora struggles and movements for Africa, can be those organized at local or national, or regional or continental level, and there can more than one Affiliate from any one geographical or geopolitical area. Affiliate members will have all the rights and privileges of a member, including voting rights in decision-making on matters related to the functions of the Members’ Collective as outlined in Article 5.1. There will be a weighted vote for affiliate members base on the number of their members in the election of the coordinating collectives.

4.2.2. Associates: Africans, including in the diaspora, individual activists and supporters of the Movement can be Associates of the Movement through a due process, involving application by the candidates, endorsement by peer Affiliates and Associates and final approval by the Coordinating Collective. Associate members will have voting rights and all other rights and privileges of a member. Associate members will have the right to voice an opinion (Article 8.7) on all matters related to the functions of the Members’ Collective.

4.3. The current and accurate names and numbers of the membership at any point will be transparently and clearly published on the public website of the Movement.

ARTICLE 5: STRUCTURE OF THE MOVEMENT

5.1. The Movement will have the following three statutory and standing structures or formations. The Movement may also form other time- and task-specific structures within the broader framework of the following three structures or formations.

5.1. Members Collective

5.2. Coordinating Collective

5.3. Nominations Committee.

5.2. Members Collective: Members of the Movement as described in Article 4 collectively will be the Members Collective of the Movement. The Members Collective is not organized into any fixed structure and will not require physical collective meetings to deliberate and decide on matters. The Members Collective has the following five functions:

5.2.1. Members Collectives shall delegate powers to the coordinating collectives to determine and, as necessary approve the amendment of the Statute but 2/3 of the collective must be present for amendment to be effected.

5.2.2. Members Collectives shall delegate powers to coordinating collectives determine and, as necessary, amend, high-level guiding political positions and policies on issues of concern to the Movement

5.2.3. Elect Coordinating Collective and Coordinating Collective and dismiss Coordinating Collective as a whole

5.1.4. Members collectives shall delegate power to coordinating collectives to elect Nominations Committee

5.1.5. Dissolve the Movement.

5.3. Coordinating Collective: The Coordinating Collective is an elected committee with the overall responsibilities for the oversight and governance of the coordination and implementation of the Movement’s strategies, plans and activities.

5.3.1.The Coordinating Collective is composed of a minimum of seven (7) and a maximum of thirteen (13) individuals elected by the Members Collective. The election process is described in Article 8.

5.3.2.The Coordinating Collective must always at any point in time have at least 50% women members. At least 50% of the total number of members of the Coordinating Collective must be youth between the ages of 18-35, inclusive.

5.3.4. The Members of the Coordinating Collectives will have a maximum of two terms of two years, after which the candidates must take at least two years break before being eligible for a new term.

5.3.5.The Coordinating Collective has the following functions:

  1. To provide proposals about high-level political positions and policy guidelines for voting by the Members Collective
  2. To provide global stewardship of the Movement as delegated by the Members Collective and in line with the Statute
  3. To oversee the development, implementations, monitoring, evaluation and learning of the Movement’s strategies, plans, finances and audits
  4. To oversee the protection of the Movement’s reputation and resources
  5. To establish a Coordinating Secretariat and to appoint, and, as necessary, dismissthe Secretariat Coordinator or Co-coordinators and oversee the work and operations of the Secretariat
  6. To organize voting of the Membership Collective for matters other than elections which is the responsibility of the Nominations Committee
  7. To monitor compliance of all sections and parts of the Movement in line with the provisions of this Statute and the decisions of the Council
  8. To propose and draft necessary amendments of the Governing Statute for approval by the Members Collective.
  9. To provide reports to the Members Collective on the state and progress of the movement as well as on the work and performance of the Board and the Secretariat.

5.4. Nominations Committee:

5.4.1The first purpose of the Nominations Committee is to oversee the process of nomination and election of the candidates for Chair, Treasurer and members of the Coordinating Collective, ensuring the best composition of appropriate skills, competencies, and regional, gender and age diversity and balance.

5.4.2The second purpose of the Nominations Committee is to oversee the process of nomination and formation of the Advisory Panel.

5.4.3. The third purpose of the Nominations Committee is to approve the Governance Manual containing details of the process, rules or regulations -within the overall framework of this Statute that the Co-ordinating Collective will develop and propose.

  • The Nominations Committee is composed of Nine members. The membership shall comprise the following –:
  • Three members shall be from the attendants of the Validation Conference in Arusha where the Kilimanjaro Declaration, the Africans Rising Founding Charter was developed and adopted.
  • Three members shall be drawn from the general membership.
  • Three members shall be drawn from the founding Interim Working Group members who have expressed no interest in holding any elected office in the movement.
  • The membership of Nominations Committee shall reflect a gender balance of 40%-60%, elected by and accountable to the Members Collective, for a two-year term to a maximum of two terms.

5.4.9. The elected members of the Nominations Committee will elect the chairperson through a process unanimously agreed by all members of the Nominations Committee.

ARTICLE 6: PAN-AFRICAN SECRETARIAT

6.1.The Pan-African Secretariat is a coordination and management unit of the Movement composed of paid and unpaid staff, interns and volunteers. The Secretariat and its staff, interns and volunteers may be dispersed and multi-located but will work as one unitary organisation headed by the Secretariat Coordinator or Secretariat Co-coordinators appointed by the Coordinating Collective.

6.2. The main functions of the Secretariat are to:

  1. Support, enable, co-ordinate and implement the work and functioning of the Movement
  2. Support and enable functioning of the Membership Collective, Coordinating Collective, Nominations Committee and implement their decisions and directive
  3. Raise funds; scan ‘hot spots’ for the Movement’s work; and ensure growth and development of the Movement
  4. Communicate, convene and build capacity of the members and the Movement in accordance with the strategy, operational plans and budget approved by the Coordinating Collective.
  5. Carry out any other functions as instructed by the Coordinating Collective.

ARTICLE 7: ELECTIONS AND VOTING

7.1. Elections will be held for the positions of Coordinating Collective Chair, Treasurer and members and the Nomination Committee members at the inaugural meeting. Members of the Coordinating Committee shall elect the Chair and Treasurer from their membership.

7.2.Any African engaged with movement and activism who is not holding any official position in the party-political structure or any non-African international organisations will be eligible to stand for election.

7.3.Following the invitation from the Nominations Committee anyone from among the Members (Affiliates or Associates) of the Movement will be entitled to nominate their names or other consenting eligible adults’ name for any position in the structure of the Movement.

7.4.Elections will be held to ensure the composition of the Co-ordinating Collective and Nominations Committee with competent members and officials and with gender, generation (focused on youth), skills/competency balance.

7.5.The Nominations Committee elected by the Members Collective has the overall responsibility for elections. The Nominations Committee may engage a specialized external agency or organisation to assist the Nominations Committee to carry out the entire process of elections and voting, including preparation, invitation for candidature, information sharing, educational activities, the actual election, counting of ballots and announcement of final outcome.

7.6.The Coordinating Collective elected by the Members Collective has the overall responsibility for voting by the Members Collective on matters other than elections. The Coordinating Collective may engage a specialized external agency or organisation to assist in developing an appropriate voting process from start to finish or only a specific part of the process, so as to ensure accuracy and impartiality.

7.7. Voting or election within the Coordinating Collective, as necessary, will be done by the Coordinating Collective itself according to the processes and standards approved by themselves.

7.8. Before any voting by the Affiliate members of the Membership Collective, all Associate members will be invited to voice their opinions on the issues on which Affiliates members will vote. Associate members’ opinions on the issue will be transparently shared with entire the Membership Collective before voting on the issue.

7.9. All decisions will be made on the basis of a simple majority of votes, except the approval or amendment of this Statute; dismissal of the Coordinating Collective as a whole and dissolution of the Movement which will always require at least a two-third majority of votes.

7.10. The standard quorum needed for any election or voting will be 51% participation.

7.11.An electronic voting and election system will be used in place of physical meetings as required, and to ensure maximum participation in the process.

7.12.The election and voting process and standards will be further developed as may become necessary by the Nominations Committee and Coordinating Collective in accordance with their functions and authority and will be transparently published and communicated to all in the Movement.

ARTICLE 8: GOVERNANCE MANUAL

8.1.The Movement will develop further higher-level details of other rules, regulations, processes and standards for its good democratic governance in line and consistent with this Statute.

8.2. The Governance Manual must be approved by the Nominations Committee.

8.3. The Governance Manual and the Statute, will be transparently shared on the public website of the Movement.

ARTICLE 9: DISSOLUTION

9.1.The Members Collective can dissolve the Movement at any time for any reason with at least a two-thirds majority of Affiliates members voting for it.

9.2. The resolution to dismiss will also clearly describe how the dissolution of the Movement will take place and how any asset(s) of the Movement will be disposed of.

ARTICLE 10:  RATIFICATION - EFFECTIVE - DATE - TRANSITION

10.1. This statute will be approved by the current Interim Working Group (IWG) of the Movement and will be used as a part of application to legally register the Movement in The Gambia in accordance with the Companies Act, 2013.

10.2. The Interim Working Group will elect an interim Coordinating Collective

10.3. The Interim Working Group term will come to end after the election of the coordinating collectives

10.4. Within 180 days from the day of the formal registration and legal existence of the Movement, the Interim Coordinating Committee will disseminate and publicise to the fullest possible extent a public invitation to the local and grassroots struggles and movements and activists to take up membership of the Movement as well as for nomination to the Nominations Committee and Coordinating Collective.

10.5. The Coordinating Committee will engage a competent and credible independent institution to independently and freely conduct the entire process of the first election of the Nominations Committee and the Coordinating Collective, within the same year of the formal registration and legal existence of the Movement and not later than 31st of December, 2018.