GDD will enhance the capacity of select human rights (HR) organizations to develop and improve their capacity to provide better security for their staff and improve their effectiveness as they advocate for human rights.
Project objectives and results: GDD will provide technical assistance to key Guatemalan civil society defenders of human rights to achieve the following objectives: 1) Develop and improve their internal capacity to provide better security for their staff; and 2) Improve their ability to more effectively advocate for human rights. Expected results include reduced potential danger to HR defenders, increased capacity among the selected HR defenders, and enhanced Government of Guatemala political will to combat impunity related to HR defenders and threats against them.
Project is innovative, sustainable and has a demonstrated impact: GDD will implement a program based on best practices and lessons learned from international human rights defenders’ experiences and monitoring from local HR groups. The project will assist four HR groups that receive threats and analyze data sources to identify trends, geographic areas and motives for threats and attacks. GDD will support longer-term institution building and move towards increased sustainability of defenders’ groups, garner support from other donors (UN through CICIG, UNDP DIGAP ), build capacity by training defenders’ staff to understand issues and conduct their own security planning, train local security expert to continue work started by the Senior Security Advisor, and establish a Defenders Protection Network.
Program length: 12 months
Photo by Luis Zetino
