Every head of state argues, at least in public, that safeguarding civil and political rights is at the heart of their government's policy. It is largely thanks to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the language of rights and freedoms is spoken by all.
As African governments signed up to it, from the early 1960s onwards, the declaration was an expression of hope for the citizens of newly independent nations. However, the promise of "rights for all" has too often been little more than rhetoric.
Like every agreement, the 1948 declaration can be implemented only with the full commitment of the signatories. In African states engulfed by conflict, and even in fragile democracies, human rights abuses remain widespread.
In some countries there have been measurable improvements in the lives of ordinary people, but in most there is no human rights culture. Rather than making human rights a central part of development strategies, governments have come to see the issue defensively.
Meanwhile, international and national non-governmental organisations have led and defined the human rights agenda; they have seen themselves as the guardians of the aims of the declaration.
The struggle to secure human rights has become bogged down in an ongoing battle of words between human rights groups and governments. And in the fight for the moral high ground it seems that the problems affecting the majority of Africans are being sidelined and the search for solutions has been postponed. Part of the problem is that human rights organisations have not evolved with changing times on the African continent. Most organisations follow a style of human rights activism which originated in Eastern Europe in the 1970s. It was a way of tackling abuses which worked well in Western European and North American democracies, especially in the Cold War period.
Focusing particularly on state persecution of well-known individuals, it sought to embarrass governments. This is not enough in 1990s Africa, which has seen complex and seemingly intractable wars in Sudan, Angola and Sierra Leone, genocide in Rwanda, government breakdown in Somalia, the proliferation of rebel activity, refugee crises and famine.
Human rights organisations concerned with detention without trial, torture and freedom of expression are often not dealing with either the overwhelming problems under which some nations are struggling, nor are they recognising the way in which these have made it all the more difficult to build a human rights culture. They are in danger of looking irrelevant.
Human rights make no sense unless they are universal, but the practice of human rights must be culturally, socially and politically specific. Securing the rights of ordinary Africans depends upon thorough understanding of the political context and comprehensive local action. The early 1980s saw an encouraging explosion of national human rights and democracy movements in Africa.
Kenya, for example, now has a flourishing industry of human rights and justice groups. But, as elsewhere in Africa, most are heavily dependent on European and North American money; this means that activities are primarily tied to external factors rather than by national needs.
They have modelled themselves on western human rights groups whose litmus test of commitment, political "neutrality" and effectiveness is the willingness to criticise the government in a relentless, adversarial style.
Their efforts are largely dedicated to documentation, publishing and lobbying "the international community." Too few venture outside the capital, preferring to hold seminars in Nairobi, and to concentrate on the experiences of the political opposition rather than upon the wholesale abuses faced by ordinary Kenyans.
In the absence of a domestic constituency to which they are accountable, political opportunists may hijack human rights as opposition political parties in disguise. They may also use them to support their own ethnic or religious allegiances.
In human rights orthodoxy, "civil society" is praised as something thoroughly good. But during the Rwanda genocide, extremists and killers included members of human rights organisations. So far, few institutions have been ready to confront this uncomfortable issue.
Given the complexity of the problems Africa faces, solutions must be sought simultaneously at the political, social and economic level and they must be sought among Africans. If human rights organisations are to make a difference, they must be concerned less with making an impression internationally and more with having an impact locally.
They must engage with the widest range of local actors, including African governments, offering not only criticism, but practical support.
Ultimately, rights cannot be achieved by external gift; they can only be established by domestic political process.
Rakiya Omaar is director of London-based African Rights