The African Centre’s eight inter-related human rights programmes are:

Human Rights Procedures: to increase awareness in Africa of the international human rights procedures, with the aim of increasing the flow of information between African human rights groups and the international machinery. Activities in this area include training courses for activists and academics, publishing papers on UN procedures with an African focus.

Research: to conduct. commission and publish reliable and objective research about human rights in Africa; subjects include AIDS and the African Charter, national human rights institutions in Africa, and a survey of prison conditions.

Documentation: to build a human rights library and documentation resource available to anyone interested in African human rights. The Documentation Centre welcomes publication exchanges with African and other NGOs.

Publications: to publish a regular, bilingual Newsletter and series of Occasional Papers on African human rights.

Training and Education: to organize training seminars (past courses include a seminar for upper-level magistrates from five francophone West African countries), conduct a review of human rights education in Africa and prepare for an annual human rights course.

Internship Programme: to enable African and other interns to learn from and contribute to the work of the African Centre.  Women’s Programme: to address specific issues of “women’s rights as human rights”. The thrust of this programme takes off from the awareness that the recognition of women’s rights is central to setting Africa to rights realising the crucial role women play in the social and cultural processes in the lives of communities on the continent.

African NGO Networking and Institution Building: to coordinate and promote the activities of African human rights NGOs and to  assist in building their resources, capacities and contacts for more effective work in their areas of operation. This programme was created at the Tunis forum in March 1992 by the African NGOs themselves recognising the centrality of the African Centre as the clearing house.