The Swedish Institute Academy for Young Professionals (SAYP) helps develop a new generation of leaders - through mutual learning and networking. Young policymakers, public servants and civil society actors develop their capacities to meet the requirements of a modern governance and apply a human rights lens in their work.

Since 2017, RWI has been contributing to one of the SAYP programmes - on “Perspectives on Multi-level Governance, Decentralisation & Human Rights”, in cooperation with the Lund University Commissioned Education and the Lund University School of Economics and Management. “Our participants learn how public administration can protect human rights at multiple levels by applying a Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA)”, says Zuzana Zalanova, Director of RWI’s Europe Office, who is in charge of the human rights part of the programme. “Despite their young age, many of the participants already contribute to key reform processes in their countries – be it in the government, politics, academia, or civil society” continues Zalanova. Through its two modules, the programme engages young professionals from the Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership and Baltic Sea regions.

The programme is also supporting individual participants to identify a human rights challenge in their environment and try to address it. “We work with participants to apply tools, principles, as well as their skills and knowledge, to tackle some of the key human rights issues around them”, adds David Eile, Senior Programme Officer, engaged in the SAYP programme. Even if some of them don’t work with human rights directly, they can learn how their work can be impactful when looking at issues through a human rights lens.

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