Three of the institutional voices that accompany the engagement of West African States in the protection of Women Human Rights Defenders convened on Tuesday, 16 June 2026, at the Dakar Office of the Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement (RFLD), for a high-level institutional Afrofeminist concertation.
The institutional voices present included the Honourable Professor Remy Ngoy Lumbu, Special Rapporteur of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) on Human Rights Defenders and Focal Point on Reprisals in Africa, and former Chairperson of the ACHPR; Her Excellency Catharina Cappelin, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Sweden to Senegal; and the Federal Republic of Germany, represented at two complementary levels — diplomatically by Mrs Henriette Wolf, First Secretary (Political) at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Dakar; and through bilateral cooperation by Mrs Katja Roeckel, Country Director of GIZ Senegal.
Their joint presence, alongside approximately thirty other institutional actors, illustrated the integrated partnership architecture that underpins the protection of defenders in the region: the complementarity between State action, continental mechanisms, bilateral cooperation, and the accompaniment of organised civil society.
The concertation, titled Solidarity, Protection and Lineage of Engagement, was held in the hall of the RFLD Dakar Office on the 5th and 6th floors of Résidence "AW 06", Cité Keur Gorgui, in the Senegalese capital. Women Human Rights Defenders invited from across the West African region, including from the Sahelian and transitional governance contexts, were present alongside leading Senegalese feminist civil society organisations and senior journalists covering the African human rights and civil society beats.
The concertation took as its shared analytical starting point the recognition that African States, signatories and States parties to the Maputo Protocol and to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, have together with their partners built a substantial continental normative framework, the operational implementation of which benefits from constructive dialogue between State institutions, continental human rights mechanisms, and organised civil society.
The African human rights system is not under-developed in instruments. It is under-developed in the mechanisms by which women defenders convert continental decisions into national protection.
— Professor Mabassa Fall, senior expert of the African human rights systemACHPR — The Continental Voice in Dialogue
Hon. Prof. Remy Ngoy Lumbu joined the convening as the holder of the most significant continental human rights mandate on defender protection. His presence reflected the institutional dialogue that RFLD, as an ACHPR Observer and Member of the Support Group of the Special Rapporteur on HRDs, has built with the continental human rights system over more than a decade.
The Special Rapporteur's intervention foregrounded the institutional record: a substantial body of jurisprudence and a series of resolutions, including ACHPR Resolutions 522 on women's digital rights and 596 on women defenders, already establish the normative framework for women defender protection on the continent.
The unresolved question, he affirmed, is operational, namely how the work of the Special Rapporteur, the Working Group on HRDs and the Reprisals mandate translates into protection that defenders actually experience at country level, particularly in transitional governance contexts where the ACHPR's reporting and shadow reporting mechanisms operate against domestic political resistance.
The consultation examined with critical lucidity the operational functioning of the continental and regional protection mechanisms available to women defenders, namely the ACHPR system itself and the Reprisals mandate, the ECOWAS framework and its Gender Office, the African Peace and Security Architecture, and the wider African human rights system. The conversation paid particular attention to the gendered gaps that persist in the application of these mechanisms and to the levers that remain under-utilised by civil society. Mr Naji Moulay Lahsen of CIDH Sahel and North Africa added the comparative perspective from his regional mandate, identifying the operational synergies between the ACHPR's continental work and the cross-regional Sahel and North Africa human rights architecture.
Mrs Hannah Forster's intervention, drawing on her ACDHRS experience, identified the persistent gap between continental normative architecture and country-level implementation as the central operational challenge of the present moment. Prof. Mabassa Fall added the academic legal frame: the African human rights system is not under-developed in instruments; it is under-developed in the mechanisms by which civil society, and women defenders specifically, can convert continental decisions into national protection.
🇸🇪 Sweden — Feminist Foreign Policy in the Room
Sweden's commitment to women human rights defenders in West Africa is not abstract. It travels with diplomatic engagement, it flows through development cooperation, and it shows up in rooms like this one. The defenders heard from today carry an analysis that institutional actors need to be listening to first, not last.
Ambassador Cappelin's participation extended Sweden's diplomatic accompaniment of West African feminist civil society into the specific terrain of WHRD protection, and reflected the continuing strategic engagement of Sweden's feminist foreign policy with the institutional infrastructure that protects women defenders in the region. She was accompanied by Mrs Khady Touré, Programme and Political Officer at the Embassy of Sweden in Dakar.
Sweden's institutional engagement with RFLD currently flows through Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, which funds RFLD as a consortium partner in NAFASI, the Swahili word for space. NAFASI is a three-year initiative to defend Africa's digital civic space, led by Magamba Network (Zimbabwe, Pan-African) and implemented in consortium with DefendDefenders (Uganda, East and Horn of Africa) and RFLD (West and Central Africa, francophone and lusophone corridors).
The initiative addresses a precise analytical reality: Africa's digital landscape empowers civic mobilisation and simultaneously enables state repression; AI-driven disinformation has begun to threaten the integrity of public information ecosystems across the continent; and this repression is increasingly gendered, with Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence used as a deliberate political tactic to silence women in public life. NAFASI advances on three fronts simultaneously: pushing for laws that protect digital rights, building practical capacity for those most exposed, and connecting fragmented digital activism into a coordinated continental network.
The initiative's overall objective is to secure Africa's digital democracy against state repression and corporate technology misuse, by equipping civil society with resilient, sovereign infrastructure and cybersecurity capacity. RFLD contributes to each of NAFASI's three pillars across its operational corridor. The presence of Ambassador Cappelin in Dakar reflected the institutional weight Sweden continues to place on the consortium's work, and on the broader question of feminist movement infrastructure in West Africa, of which WHRD protection is the most acute case.
🇩🇪 Germany — Two-Level Institutional Engagement
Germany, through GIZ and the BMZ, supports RFLD at two complementary levels: as co-chair of the SEA-T Programme Advisory Council, where the network helps guide the strategic direction of Germany's flagship gender programme on the continent, and as the implementing partner of the Afrofeminist Initiative for Human Rights Development in Francophone West Africa (AIHRDFWA), RFLD's flagship project working across eight francophone West African countries on civic space, women human rights defender protection, and inclusive policy. Germany's accompaniment of RFLD reflects a sustained strategic commitment to the feminist civil society infrastructure that protects defenders in our region.
Mrs Henriette Wolf, First Secretary (Political) at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Dakar, attended the concertation as the diplomatic representative of the Federal Republic of Germany. Her participation reflected Germany's sustained diplomatic engagement alongside West African States and organised civil society for the protection of women human rights defenders, in respect for national priorities and in complementarity with public action.
She was joined by the institutional cooperation partner of Germany's bilateral cooperation in Senegal, Mrs Katja Roeckel, Country Director of GIZ Senegal. Their joint presence reflected the cooperation architecture through which Germany's engagement in favour of gender equality and civil society in francophone West Africa is delivered, in coordination with the national authorities of partner States.
Germany's institutional engagement with RFLD sits at two complementary levels within its broader diplomatic framework. At the continental governance level, RFLD serves as co-chair of the SEA-T Programme Advisory Council, the strategic guidance body for the Society. Equality. Africa - the Transformation (SEA-T) programme funded by the BMZ and implemented by GIZ. The Council's mandate is to ensure that the direction, priorities, and resources of SEA-T are aligned with the visions of afrofeminist civil society and with the priorities of African partner States. At the operational implementation level, BMZ funds RFLD with support from GIZ through the Afrofeminist Initiative for Human Rights Development in Francophone West Africa (AIHRDFWA), RFLD's flagship project working in concertation with the national authorities of eight francophone West African countries on civic space, the protection of women defenders, and inclusive policy.
The presence of the Embassy of Germany and of senior GIZ Senegal leadership at the Dakar concertation made this architecture inclusive: diplomatic accompaniment, continental strategic guidance, operational implementation, and country-level realities were placed in the same space, in direct dialogue. Mrs Roeckel's intervention foregrounded GIZ's institutional conviction that sustained engagement in favour of civil society infrastructure, in complementarity with partner State action, is a strategic necessity for the protection of defenders and for democratic resilience in francophone West Africa.
From Mali, from Burkina Faso, from Niger, from Guinea, from the rest of West Africa, we travel with the knowledge that civic space is contracting where we work. To be convened in Dakar, to be heard by the ACHPR Special Rapporteur and by senior diplomatic and cooperation partners, is to know that the architecture surrounding our work is alive and engaged. We did not come for sympathy. We came for solidarity, for protection, and for the lineage of engagement that this room recognised.
— A participant, Woman Human Rights Defender, West African RegionParticipants — A Deliberate Cross-Section
The consultation gathered a deliberate cross-section of actors whose engagement most decisively shapes the protection environment for women defenders in West Africa. Beyond the named institutional voices (Hon. Prof. Remy Ngoy Lumbu, Ambassador Catharina Cappelin, Mrs Henriette Wolf, Mrs Katja Roeckel) and Civil Society Organisations, Mr Naji Moulay Lahsen, CIDH Sahel and North Africa Director, contributed the additional cross-regional perspective bridging the Sahel and the North African human rights context.
Independent senior expertise came from Mrs Hannah Forster, Executive Director of the African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS, Banjul); from Prof. Mabassa Fall, jurist and senior expert of the African human rights system; and from Mr Sadikh Niass, senior Senegalese human rights leader.
Ambassador Cappelin was accompanied by Mrs Khady Touré, Programme and Political Officer at the Embassy of Sweden in Dakar. Senior representatives of the Government of the Republic of Senegal also participated in the consultation. Senegalese feminist civil society organisations participated at senior level. Senior journalists covering the African human rights and civil society beats were present in the room, contributing the media witnessing layer of the protection architecture available to defenders.
RFLD was represented at senior level by Mr John GBENAGNON, Regional Strategy and Development Director, while the main discussions on behalf of RFLD were led by Mrs Bathor Seck, RFLD Country Representative for Senegal.
About RFLD — Institutional Architecture
The institutional architecture that RFLD has built and continues to lead — namely the four offices in Porto-Novo, Accra, Banjul and Dakar; the 1,143 member organisations across more than 35 African countries; the WAFFF Fund and the Africa Portfolio Grant as continental re-granting facilities that reach grassroots feminist organisations directly; the DƆNÙESÈ Data Center as a public good comprising twelve open bilingual policy tools for African civil society; the rapid response capacity for women human rights defenders facing acute threat; the State of African Francophone Feminist Movements report as a continental analytical reference; and the strategic guidance positions such as the co-chairmanship of the SEA-T Programme Advisory Council — has all been built by RFLD itself.
The impact of European donor support, in this sense, is the accompaniment that allows this African feminist work to be done at scale, and the protection environment around women human rights defenders to be addressed with the institutional weight the moment requires. The continuing presence of GIZ and Sida in the Dakar room reflected this sustained partnership of peers.
The Dakar consultation was anchored in RFLD's BRAVE programme, which holds bodily autonomy, the Maputo Protocol, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the protection of women human rights defenders as inseparable struggles within a long afrofeminist tradition.
Spaces such as this consultation produce impact that exceeds the day they are held. They restore the dignity of being heard to defenders whose work is too often silenced. They give visibility to the operational realities that shape protection in the region. They create relationships that translate into mutual aid in moments of acute threat. They place institutional actors and grassroots defenders in the same room, and the resulting accountability persists long after the room has emptied. They strengthen the continental conversation by anchoring it in country-level testimony, and they strengthen country-level work by connecting it to continental support. Most consequentially, they signal to defenders themselves that they are not alone, that the architecture surrounding their work is alive and engaged, and that the lineage of engagement they carry is recognised by those who hold institutional power.