Established in 1992, Agir Ensemble pour les Droits de l Homme (AEDH) is a non-governmental civil society organisation committed to the defense of the rights and fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other founding texts, in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights (Pact of San José), and the International Convention against Torture.

Tournons La Page (TLP) is an international movement, composed of more than 250 African human rights organisations united in eight country coalitions (Burundi, Cameroon, Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Niger, DRC and Chad) in coordination with European allies. The movement aims to promote democratic alternation by non-violent means (advocacy, capacity building, defense of members, citizen mobilisation, among others).

The two organisations are jointly implementing this project.

In Protected and United for Democracy, Tournons La Page (TLP) aims to promote civic engagement of young people and women while fighting against the criminalisation of pro-democracy activists and creating democratic space in Francophone Africa in 13 countries.

To this end, TLP has three complementary components:

1. Supporting and amplifying in each of the coalitions the voices of young people and women who are sidelined from the civic and democratic debate by the regimes in place. Most often, these groups are unaware of the very existence of their rights as citizens. To achieve this result, TLP relies on its network of nearly 250 organisations that share a common vision and have been raising awareness among young people and women for the past six years about the exercise of their civil and political rights;
2. Conducting advocacy campaigns, based on accurate documentation of state violations of fundamental freedoms of citizens, including freedom of expression, peaceful demonstration and assembly, in order to force governments to adopt reforms and/or enforce international standards.
3. Protecting endangered TLP activists. In 2020, no less than 55 TLP activists (or 20% of their membership) have been arbitrarily arrested. Protection actions must be maintained, both preventive (physical and digital security, security plans, counter-reports and campaigns to promote the voice of Human Rights Defenders/activists) and reactive(legal and material assistance). Considering the countries, it is impossible to encourage the voice of pro-democracy activists without guaranteeing their protection. Moreover, through the activities of the initial project, Protection TLP has demonstrated that its advocacy campaigns have, through the visibility they bring to the movement, contributed to the protection of its members.  By raising citizens’ awareness of their rights, swelling an active and wide-scale engagement of young people through innovative processes, including the use of new technologies, and ensuring the protection of activists, the change expected  in the middle-to-long term in French-speaking Africa is ultimately democratic change and the reopening of a civic and political space that is currently extremely limited.

This project will be implemented in 10 French-speaking African countries.