In Ethiopia, we cooperate with the Centre for Human Rights (CHR) at Addis Ababa University to strengthen the capacity of the Centre to carry out its mission, including its three main functions of human rights education, research and outreach. The cooperation forms part of a larger project at CHR, supported by Swedish Development Cooperation and Norwegian Aid, and which aims to ensure the promotion, protection, respect and fulfilment of human rights in Ethiopia.
What We Aim to Achieve
There are three main goals;
- to increase the capacity of state agencies to respect human rights and the protection of especially vulnerable groups;
- to empower civil society to be active actors in the promotion and protection of human rights and;
- to realise the enhanced protection of the rights of marginalized and vulnerable groups.
To achieve these goals, CHR and RWI are carrying out activities under three sub-projects.
1. Multidisciplinary human rights teaching and training
The first sub project offers support to the Centre’s planned academic programmes and training courses. This is done through a series of workshops on methodology and pedagogy and a series of visiting professors and academic exchanges geared towards offering practical and interactive learning methods and techniques.
2. Policy and practice collaboration and diffusion
The second seeks to offer opportunities for the staff and students of the Centre to exchange information and ideas, share experiences and good practices with other stakeholders.Through this we hope to encourage better collaboration and dialogue amongst different stakeholders for an improved understanding and remedying of human rights issues, including those that affect women.One of the main outputs of this component is the establishment of a human rights resource and documentation centre, with an online repository and catalogue of core human rights publications that will be available for use by the Centre and the rest of the University as well.
3. Learning, partnerships and capacity development
The third sub-project focuses on enhancing the internal capacity of the Centre including on project management and administration. Special focus is paid in this respect to gender mainstreaming and other forms of inclusion to positively impact the staff and students of the Centre and University at large.We also focus on targeted trainings for management and various programme staff to enhance their personal capacities and equip them further for the implementation of this project on important issues such as monitoring and evaluation, communication and reporting.
This cooperation also seeks to build the network and reach of CHR, and to this end will continually seize opportunities for interaction between the Centre and other relevant institutions and initiatives to enable learning as well as exchange of expertise and experience for mutual benefit.
Such collaborations are at a regional and international level and range from academic exchanges with other higher education institutions to other bilateral cooperation with non-academic partners in Africa and beyond.
Ethiopia Programme Staff
Rakel Larsen
Rakel Larsen joined RWI in November 2020 as the Director of the Nairobi Office. She brings more than 15 years of work experience in refugee protection, displacement and human rights mainly from Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to joining the RWI, she worked for the Danish Refugee Council with humanitarian response and protection of refugees and other displaced persons in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and South Sudan.
Furthermore, she holds a Master’s in Law and a Master’s in African Studies (Human Rights and Development) from the University of Copenhagen.
Grace Mbogo
Regional Africa Programme — Focal Point: East African Law Society (EALS), Network of National Human Rights Institutes (NANHRI), East African Court of Justice (EACJ)
Grace Mbogo joins RWI from its longstanding partner the Pan African Lawyers Union, and has just completed an LLM with focus on Transnational Criminal Justice and Crime Prevention at the University of Western Cape. She will work as Programme Officer with the Regional Africa Programme, in particular the partnerships with the East African Court of Justice, East Africa Law Society and Network of African NHRIs, as well as with our bilateral cooperation in Ethiopia.
Gilford Kimathi
Gilford Kimathi is a Programme Officer at the Nairobi Office supporting the Regional Africa and Ethiopia programmes. He brings a decade of experience in programme management, where he has also contributed to research and human rights capacity development. Before joining RWI, Gilford worked five years with the Network for African National Human Rights Institutions, through which he has gained extensive experience with African human rights mechanisms and frameworks.
Mumbi Maina-Murimi
