The 1997 Constitution of The Gambia offers minimal protection of economic rights that are essential in the realization of the right to development. The justiciable provisions of the bill of rights in Chapter IV of the Constitution are largely of civil and political rights in nature. Chapter XX of the Constitution outlines several objectives to guide State policy and law formulation as well as law enforcement. However, these principles are non-justiciable in nature, leaving the general population without judicially enforceable human rights despite years of economic deprivation.

The status of economic rights and the resultant neglect in investing towards realization of economic rights continues to influence the current state of poverty index in The Gambia. Women, who are faced with multidimensional vulnerabilities, are pushed further down the poverty line by this reality aggravating their economic status. Article 8(1) of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development calls on States to undertake, all necessary measures for the realization of the right to development and for States to take effective measures to ensure that women have an active role in the development process.

In this light, this paper will unpack the ‘economic objectives’ envisaged in section 215 of the 1997 Constitution of The Gambia and measure the content of this provision against already existing obligations of The Gambia at the regional and international level. The paper will highlight the need to elevate the economic objectives into justiciable human rights in the domestic legal framework of The Gambia to realize the right to development. The paper will also propose strategies to promulgate laws that will eventually make the realization of economic rights a possibility.

In the COVID-19 context, all States had to protect the right to health of their people by implementing emergency measures to mitigate the negative effects of this global pandemic. South Africa declared COVID-19 a National Disaster (March 15, 2020) under the Disaster Management Act, 2002, N°57. The government has full authority to adopt emergency measures, including the creation of a Solidarity Fund (March 23, 2020) to respond to the coronavirus’ “health, humanitarian and social consequences”. In a context of corruption that is familiar to South Africa (the country scored 44 out of 100 points [Transparency International, 2020]), the Presidency has strengthened anti-corruption agencies to investigate any suspicion of abuse of these donations and the arrest of anyone responsible for these criminal acts. Despite these measures, a wave of scandals, affecting the right to health for all, has struck South Africa. From 2020, over 4,780 corruption cases, involving government officials, senior civil servants, and the private sector, were reported. Diversion of food donations, embezzlement of social grants, as well as abuse of the Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) and Unemployment Insurance Fund by businesses or/and public servants, were among these scandals. In 2022, was disclosed that of the 5,467 contracts regarding COVID-19 Personal Protective Equipment awarded to 3,066 suppliers (for a total of R14.3 billion), 2,803 were irregular. All these frauds show the urgent need to reclaim African principles in combating corruption at the highest levels of society. In making its case the paper explores several biggest Covid-19-related scandals of corruption. Then it proceeds to examine, how this wrongdoing threatened the right to health and the importance of South African Ubuntu as an anti-corruption principle. It concludes by demonstrating how Ubuntu shall prevent another scandal of corruption in a pandemic context.

Before the end of cold war in the 1990s Kenya’s civil society was one of the most vibrant in the region. The civil society comprised of the students and university staff intelligentsia, the religious body, and the local non-governmental organizations. From the heydays of political protests and activism of the 90s, a lot of change has taken place. First, this period saw the re-introduction of multiparty politics, lobbying for defense for human rights and several other numerous political transitions. However, since the promulgation of Kenya’s new constitution in 2010, the place of civil society organisations has been bogged down by numerous challenges, hampering its reasons for existence. In Kenya, like in other developing countries, the role of civil society is crucial in the quest for social justice, transparency and accountability and most importantly, push for the right to development for all (D4A). Civil society activism has often provided an objective voice to temper political extremism and demand for development. Today the civil society movement has experienced a collapse of representativeness, the rise of dogmatism and sectarianism, and the glorification of violence as a means of social change and political rhetoric. This has significantly affected the agenda of the right to development especially to the marginalized communities. This paper attempts to show how human rights defenders coming from the civil society championed for development and social change in Kenya in the 1990s and reasons they have declined in public affairs in contemporary times leading to underdevelopment in Kenya.