Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Johannesburg)
6 July 2011
press release
The overall goal of this project is to enhance the capacity of civil society in Portuguese-speaking countries to effectively promote open society ideals and keep democratic spaces open.
The aim of this project is to organise a five-day discussion forum where human rights activists from Lusophone countries, including Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé & PrÃncipe and Brazil will engage on issues that relate to good governance, accountability and the promotion and protection of human rights in their countries, exchange best practices and draw up joint advocacy initiatives.
This project will run from July 2011- December 2011 and aims to:
1. Bring human rights activists and organisations from African Portuguese-speaking countries together to discuss governance and human rights issues affecting their countries;
2. Ensure that strategic issues are collectively discussed and analysed in order to inform advocacy campaigns at the national and regional level;
3. Facilitate the participation and integration of Portuguese-speaking human rights activists and organisations into regional and continental processes around human rights issues;
4. Provide a forum for new participants in the human rights fellowship programme to undergo an induction process on governance and human rights advocacy with well defined lectures on the national legal frameworks on human rights in Angola and Mozambique, and on regional, continental and international instruments; and,
5. Provide a sense of solidarity for human rights activists and organisations operating under restrictive environments, including in non-Portuguese countries such as Swaziland, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe.
AllAfrica – All the Time