Towards Enhanced Enjoyment of Constitutional Rights in Zimbabwe

Photo Credits: Baynham Goredema’s Flickr: Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe

 

Two representatives from the Raoul Wallenberg Institute just returned from a trip in Zimbabwe to meet with partners and plan the next step of the Institute’s new Zimbabwe Human Rights Capacity Development Programme.

We sat down with the Head of the Department for International Programmes, Johannes Eile, to get more information.

 

 

Johannes Eile

Why is the programme important?

We hope the Programme, ultimately, can contribute to enhanced enjoyment of constitutional rights in Zimbabwe, through legislation, policies, practices and decision-making being increasingly informed by international human rights standards and principles.

The Programme approaches human rights change in the complex Zimbabwean context from a long-term perspective, and seeks to – through academic cooperation and professional training – strengthen the human resource base for such change in a sustainable manner while also developing and strengthening neutral platforms for more effective and structured collaboration between different actors on strategic human rights reform issues.

We think that through this focused approach we can contribute to positive developments offering catalytical support based on RWI’s added value.

 

What was the purpose of the trip?

The trip follows the first phase during February-June 2016 of our Zimbabwe Human Rights Capacity Development Programme. Now the actual implementation of this Programme will start.

The first implementation period will run from July to December this year. I and Mikael Johansson, RWI’s Adviser for Strategic Planning and Quality Assurance, were just in Harare in order to further plan activities during this period with partners

In addition to meetings with partners, we also met with other stakeholders for purposes of coordination and getting their input on what is planned under the Programme. The Programme is financially supported by Sida through the Embassy of Sweden in Harare so we also met the Embassy including for making a presentation on the Programme to Embassy staff. (Check out the embassy’s facebook page for photos.)

 

How is the cooperation proceeding?

All planned activities so far have been implemented successfully, which provides a good basis for the continued cooperation under the Programme. The activities carried out so far have all been met with great interest and have been received well. Also, Programme partners have shown great commitment towards the cooperation.

 

What happens now?

Now, we will seek to roll out the activities planned for the July-December implementation period together with partners. These focus on cooperation regarding the development of human rights education at academic partner institutions, including programme, course and curricula development; development of library resources (incl. e-resources) and human rights library management skills; production of policy-oriented research; and delivery of professional training on various aspects on human rights for representatives of academia, civil society organisations, independent commissions, traditional leaders and government institutions, enabling also the sharing of experiences on relevant human rights reform issues and the opportunity to reinforce cross-sectoral cooperation.

 

 

 

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