Diakonia’s regional programme on Social and Economic Justice (SEJ) focuses on overcoming some of the most important structural causes of poverty in Africa, that needs to be tackled to be able to reach the Millennium Development Goals.

What we and our regional partners do

Within the SEJ-programme Diakonia and our partners strive for:

• Fair trade regimes – to enable Africa to make use of its competitive advantages and to contribute to poverty eradication.
• Debt cancellation - to mobilise resources for development and to promote responsible lending/borrowing practices.
• Aid effectiveness - to ensure necessary resources for development and that aid really contributes to poverty reduction.
• Gender equality in economic issues – to ensure equal participation and opportunities for women and men in economic life.
• Sustainable private sector investments and operations – to ensure that people living in poverty benefit from private sector investments and economic growth.
• Climate Justice - to ensure adequate funding and appropriate policies for adapting to climate change and to create a fossil free sustainable development path for Africa.

Results from 2008-2010

During this period our partners managed to, among other things:

• Provide African negotiators with research, arguments and alternatives, which they in turn used to push for fairer trade rules in the Economic Partnership Agreements with the EU.
• Convince the US Congress to approve the sale of IMF gold reserves that will help cushion African countries from the global financial crisis.
• Strengthen SADC government’s commitments to Gender and Economic Justice by monitoring their progress on the implementation of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development.
• Convince a major mining company in South Africa to put in place an insightful post-mining plan, based on recommendations from partner’s research and media work, to address the environmental and social problems faced by the local communities.
• Raise income for small scale coffee farmers by improving management in their coffee societies and by facilitating the establishment of Kenya Cooperative Coffee Exporters that could market and export coffee directly to buyers on behalf of farmers.
• Have a huge influence in on the positions of the African Group in the UN climate negotiations. 

Mobilisation and advocacy

Diakonia supports regional organisations that do research, networking, mobilisation, lobby and advocacy work in order to influence policies and practices of national governments, regional and international institutions, such as:

• African Union (AU)
• Southern African Development Community (SADC)
• East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)
• African Development Bank (AfDB)
• World Bank(WB)
• International Monetary Fund (IMF)
• Private corporations in key sectors