Skip to main content

IHRDA’s capacity building projects are in line with its vision to see a continent where all have access to justice, using national, African and international human rights law and mechanisms for the promotion and protection of their rights. IHRDA’s undertakes and participates in various projects to increase the effectiveness and accessibility of the human rights protection mechanisms of the African Union, since one of the critical challenges to the effectiveness of the African human rights system is lack of awareness about the mechanisms (i.e. the applicable instruments, the protection bodies and their practice and procedure). IHRDA has undertaken to promote respect for human rights on the continent by supporting and strengthening human rights protection institutions both at national and supra-national levels in Africa, ensuring compliance with the existing norms, and making the mechanisms widely accessible to victims of human rights violations and other civil society actors.

 

This is partly informed by IHRDA’s belief that the African Human Rights System can become a powerful tool for advocacy and justice if the civil society has the necessary information and training to use human right standards as contained in treaties and related instruments effectively. Among others, under its theme “educate” IHRDA provides impact driven training on the African human rights systems to lawyers, civil society, individual activists or human rights defenders, and the general public.  The trainings cover the normative standards for the protection of human and peoples’ rights generally or on thematic issues as guaranteed under international human rights law (global, regional and sub-regional); the respective monitoring and protection bodies; and the practice and procedure of African bodies. IHRDA also undertakes projects aimed at enhancing the capacity of domestic rule of law institutions and enhancing the knowledge and skills of strategic public officers (e.g. judges) to improve the administration of justice based on human rights standards. Further, IHRDA facilitates and participates in collaboration among African supra-national human rights bodies, and with partner organisations towards making their work more effective in promoting and protecting human rights generally, and in tackling critical thematic human rights issues in Africa.

IHRDA’s capacity building projects are designed on a combination of overlapping approaches such as thematic focus, country and regional focus, and litigation. For details of our ongoing and completed capacity building projects, please click on the link in the menu above.

 

ONGOING PROJECTS

  1. 1.      Capacity Building and Seeding Litigation Project in The Gambia and Ivory Coast

Background

logoIHRDA has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to train lawyers, judicial officers and CSOs in The Gambia and Ivory Coast on the use of international human rights law in the promotion and protection of human rights at domestic level. Lawyers and CSOs will also be trained on how to identify, strategise and file cases before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACmHPR), the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR), the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC), and the Economic Community of West African States Community Court of Justice (ECOWAS Court). The Project also envisages identification of real cases on strategic human rights issues in the two countries. The project is planned to be implemented by the end of the first half of the year 2013.

Objectives of the Project

The broad objective of the project is to enhance the capacity of the target groups in terms of knowledge and skills to make use of international human rights standards in the promotion and protection of human rights in their respective countries. In particular, the project will seek to:-

(a)   Train local lawyers, judicial officers and civil society organisations, in the Gambia and Ivory Coast, on the content, relevance and use of all international human rights standards with a view to enhancing the enforcement of binding international standards. This is particularly important where domestic law is inadequate or ineffective in providing for particular rights.

(b)   Train lawyers and CSOs on how to identify, strategise and bring cases of human rights violations before African regional and sub-regional bodies with a mandate to handle such cases.

(c)    Ensure that a stream of well prepared cases on critical human rights issues is generated at national, regional and international levels by working in collaboration with local partners in the two countries to identify real cases that could be litigated before national courts and the regional bodies. Working with local partners will also serve as a way of transferring critical skills in using litigation based on international human rights standards as a tool for advocacy.

 

  1. 2.      The African Children Charter Project

ACCP LOGOS

  Background

IHRDA received funding from Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) for the African Children Charter Project (ACCP) which is a four year (2010- 2014) joint action plan initiated by five Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) aimed at strengthening the capacity of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) to implement its Plan of Action (2010 – 2014) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) throughout the institutional, political and public arenas of the African Union. The five project partners are: Plan International, Save the Children Sweden, IHRDA, African Child Policy Forum (ACPF) and Community Law Centre (CLC) University of Western Cape. The project is funded by Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).

Objectives

As stated above, the ACCP is aimed at strengthening the capacity of the ACERWC and civil society organisation to implement the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. This is done by:

(a) Directly supporting the work of the ACERWC;

(b) Working with the ACERWC to promote children’s rights and welfare in the internal and external environments of the AU and AU human rights mechanisms;

(c) Strengthening the capacity of civil society to use the ACERWC and other AU human rights mechanisms in the protection of children’s rights and welfare.

IHRDA’s major role is to facilitate ACERWC’s collaboration with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights with a view to make children’s rights one of the priorities of these bodies and exploring ways by which they can complement each other for the effective implementation of the ACRWC. IHRDA has been facilitating collaboration since the 49th session of the ACmHPR to date. The role of the ACCP in the protection of children’s rights in Africa has been commended by the ACERWC and the Director of African Union Commission’s (AUC) Department for Social Affairs (DSA).

Among others tasks performed by other project partners, ACPF is tasked with the responsibility of updating information on all legal matters relating to children in Africa. ACPF has since created an Infohub website at (http://www.africanchildforum.org/site). There is an online resource (Case Law Analyser -CLA) created by IHRDA on the cases decided by the ACERWC available in English, French and Portuguese at (http://caselaw.ihrda.org/acerwc) and (http://caselaw.ihrda.org/pt/acerwc).

Recently Completed Projects

  1. 3.      Seeding Litigation Project

Background

The Seeding Litigation project has since its inception in 2005 been funded by MacArthur Foundation until it ended in 2012.It is a project which involves developing a stream of well-prepared strategic cases on key human rights issues for eventual litigation before the regional and sub-regional mechanisms. Initially the project was designed to seed cases from the domestic level for litigation before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights with a view to testing its accessibility, publicizing its work, and spearheading critical African human rights jurisprudence. At its inception the project was country focused. Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo were selected as the first focus countries. Over the years the project has evolved and not entails seeding of strategic cases on key human rights issues for litigation before national courts and eventually before any of the African supra-national human rights protection mechanisms. Within its broader legal work, IHRDA also provides legal representation to victims, support to NGOs litigating strategic cases, and where necessary files amicus curiae briefs in strategic human rights cases before domestic courts.

Objectives

The specific objectives of the seeding litigation project are to seed a stream of strategic cases on key human rights issues for litigation at domestic and supra-national levels with a view to generating critical African human rights jurisprudence, publicising the existence, work and accessibility of the protection mechanisms, and enhancing their effectiveness in the protection of human and peoples’ rights in Africa.

Another objective of the project is to build the capacity of local NGOs, lawyers and other human rights defenders on how to make use of strategic litigation in advancing the protection of human rights. To achieve this, IHRDA collaborates with strategic local partners to identify, develop and litigate key human rights issues thereby imparting critical skills and knowledge about human rights law, and the practice and procedure of the protection mechanisms. To this extent, the “Seeding Litigation Project is plays a capacity building function.

Under the ‘Seeding Litigation Project’, IHRDA has litigated  cases on issues such as forced evictions, torture, arbitrary arrest, and structural or historical discrimination, and has identified a number of issues which are pending litigation in a couple of countries in Africa. IHRDA also remains open to share its litigation skills, knowledge and experiences by collaborating with NGO and individual human rights defenders in identifying critical human rights issues, developing the necessary cases, and litigating them using human rights law at domestic and international levels.

COMPLETED PROJECTS

Our capacity building projects hitherto are grouped into four broad areas, with some overlaps.

  • African human rights mechanisms workshop
  • The Gambia Legal Capacity Building Project
  • Children’s Rights Workshops
  • Country focus case Identification and Litigation

The paths are as follows:

1.      African human rights mechanisms workshops

  • Workshop on African human rights mechanisms for North and West African NHRIs
  • Workshop on the Strengthening of Civil Society on Ensuring Compliance with African and International Standards on Human Rights and Good Governance
  • 5th Pan-African Workshop on Procedures of the African Regional Human Rights System
  • 4th Workshop on human rights litigation
  • 3rd Workshop on human rights litigation
  • 2nd Sub-Regional Workshop on the Procedures of the African Human Rights System
  • Workshop on Procedures of the African Human Rights System (as part of the LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa Program at the Centre for Human Rights, UP)

2.      The Gambia Legal Capacity Building Project

  • IHRDA, Gambia Children’s Court partner to provide legal aid to children
  • Legal Aid Bill Review Workshop (September 2007)
  • Roundtable discussion on Legal Aid in The Gambia (October 2006)
  • Seminar/Workshop on access to justice
  • Workshop on The Gambia Legal Capacity Building Program
  • Training Workshop on Public International Law for Gambian Government Officers
  • Judicial Colloquium on Locus Standi in Administrative Justice and Human Rights
  • Seminar/ Workshop on the Application of International Human Rights Law in The Gambia

3.      Children’s Rights

  • IHRDA attains UNHCR Annual NGO Consultation
  • Atelier de Formation sur la Protection de l’Enfant (2008)
  • Workshop on Child Protection (2007)
  • Workshop on Child Protection (2006)
  • 1st Pan-African Workshop on the Procedure of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child

4.      Country focus case Identification and litigation

  • Atelier de formation sur le contentieux des doits economiques sociaux et culturels et d’identification des cas en RDC
  • Case Identification workshop on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Nigeria
  • Case Identification Workshop on Children’s Right Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Malawi
  • Seeding litigation project in Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo