NANHRI commends the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) last week between the Cameroon Human Rights Commission (the CHRC) and the National institute of Statistics (the NIS) Cameroon after the In-country Capacity Building workshop (hereinafter the workshop) that took place from the 16th to 18th of August in Yaoundé.
The workshop was convened under the auspices of the workplan of the NANHRI working group on the Global 2030 Agenda and the African Union Agenda 2063. The purpose of this working group is to lead in the development of a common position for African NHRIs in order to effectively contribute to the sub-regional and global discourse and interventions on the 2030 and 2063 agendas for sustainable development.
This workshop was a European Union Funded workshop convened under the aegis of the NHRI.EU Phase 3 project which is directly aligned to the EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy (2020-2024), that is committed to support NHRIs in line with the Paris Principles, including engaging with them in the context of implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. We are grateful to the EU for supporting the workshop which has resulted in a tangible and impactful output for the people of Cameroon.
The MOU solidifies the partnership between the CHRC and the NIS on a human rights-based approach to data based on the principles of meaningful participation, disaggregation, self-identification, transparency, privacy, and accountability. This is in tandem with Research by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has established that “One of the most effective ways of injecting a human-rights based approach into the collection of management of data has been through partnerships between national human rights institutions and national statistical offices. This milestone will therefore enhance a human rights-based approach on reporting of the 2030 agenda and agenda 2063 in Cameroon- through the Voluntary National Review (VNR) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) processes.
The NANHRI Secretariat is pleased that the CHRC-NIS MOU is the third such MOU signed in the continent following in the steps of the precedents set by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) and the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS); as well as the Ghana Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Ghana Institute of Statistics (GIS). We hope that there will be many more collaborations between NSOs and NHRIs across the continent as we remain available to support these vital processes in collaboration with key development partners.