Promoting civil society human rights organisations in Rwanda
Project description
Title: Promoting a human rights-based approach in civil society organisations in Rwanda
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Country: Rwanda
Overall term: 2021 to 2024
Context
In recent years, Rwanda has reduced the poverty that exists in the country and enabled more people to realise economic and social human rights. However, the United Nations (UN) has drawn attention to the fact that there are still deficits in the implementation of human rights obligations. For example, it criticises illegal arrests, limited judicial independence and the restricted freedom of opinion, the press and assembly.
At the same time, civil society in Rwanda is dynamic and varied. Many civil society organisations (CSOs) and networks are involved in human rights education, legal consulting and the monitoring of various human rights issues, and campaign for these. However, they are not sufficiently enabled to use the existing political space and to assert the rights of their target groups.
Objective
Selected CSOs increasingly campaign for the human rights of particularly disadvantaged people in vulnerable living situations.
Approach
The project promotes the abilities of its partner organisations to support people in especially vulnerable situations. For example, these include people with disabilities as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) individuals.
The project focuses on three areas of action:
Firstly, it promotes the abilities of civil society organisations that work for human rights issues. This requires systematic application of the human rights approach by the CSOs in their advice and engagement.
Secondly, the project is working towards promoting selected interest groups, especially those that work for the rights of women and LGBTI individuals, with the support of selected CSOs.
Thirdly, it is seeking to make the engagement of selected CSOs more visible to state actors.
Furthermore, the project is supporting CSOs in collecting and analysing data on the human rights situation and using this for their work.
Last update: February 2022