Tactical Notebooks, Training

Using Government Budgets as a Monitoring Tool

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:20 -0500

Using Government Budgets as a Monitoring Tool

By Lerato Kgamphe

Download full notebook in English and a brief summary in Russian below.

In this notebook, we learn about following the money. Budgets are used everywhere–from local agencies, to non-governmental organizations, to governments and international bodies. They provide a concrete tool for evaluating how programs and policies actually fulfill their financial and legal obligations. In South Africa, Idasa’s Children’s Budget Unit (CBU) has used budget analyses to monitor the government’s legal obligations, commitments, and progress in advancing child-specific socioeconomic rights and programs. The CBU monitors and evaluates these programs by looking at the government’s budget allocations, spending of funds, and program expenditures and implementation. The power of this tactic lies in its ability to reveal, in black and white, the extent of a government’s efforts towards its human rights obligations and commitments.

The budget is government’s operational plan to deliver a better life for our people. It sets out what you will pay in taxes, how we will spend that money, and what we will deliver. It is a synthesis of all our government policies. The budget is our contract with the nation.
--Trevor Manual, South African Minister of Finance, 1998 Budget Review

Since 1995 the Children’s Budget Unit (CBU) of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa), based in Cape Town, has been using national and provincial government budgets as monitoring mechanisms to advance child-specific socio-economic rights. Budget monitoring allows us to analyze how government conceptualises, implements, and allocates budgets to fulfil its legal obligation to help realize these rights. The rights of the child are explicit, and the government is legally bound to fulfil them: in the South African Constitution, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the African Charter, the child has the right to political, socio-economic, cultural, economic, and environmental rights. In addition, the South African Constitution specifies that the child has the right to basic nutrition, shelter, basic health care services, and social services.

Why use budgets? The budget is the key policy instrument used by a government to ensure that things happen, and thus shows a government’s true priorities. A government’s programs that fulfil its obligations that help realize socio-economic rights must be included in its budget, and it must account not only for the amount budgeted, but also the amount actually spent. Budgets, therefore, are instruments that allow us to monitor how services are delivered and policies implemented. The monitoring of government budgets can lead to policy reform, establish a path for "transparent, effective and efficient" budgeting principles, and make it possible to provide concrete recommendations for program evaluation and improvement. Information gleaned from budget analysis can be used to educate people about their rights, and help them access these rights. Advancement of human rights is a two-way stream. People in need of help must communicate their needs to those in power, and articulate sustainable solutions. And those in power need to know if their methods and programs are effective to ensure that a win-win situation is created.

The budget-monitoring tactic works to aid both sides. Our work has proven that a budget-monitoring project, used effectively, can be an important tool in changing policy. South Africa, for instance, has an extensive social security program for children. The CBU has conducted numerous studies of the accessibility and effectiveness of this program, discovering discriminatory access in undeveloped and rural areas, and a governmental lack of administrative capacity that also hindered access to the program. In our 2001 study, "Budgeting for child socio-economic rights: Government obligations and the child’s right to social security and education" (Cassiem, Streak: 2001, Idasa), we recommended that that age limit of children accessing one of the social security grants be raised from six to 14. This recommendation was put into practice by the government in its 2003/04 budget, and we, together with other civil society organizations, are now focusing on proposals that the program include all children under 18.

In this tactical notebook, after a brief introduction to Idasa and the Children’s Budget Unit, we present a case study of how budget monitoring was used to see how the South African government fulfilled its obligation to provide social security to children. We then generalize the monitoring approach, outlining key questions, and summarize some of the tactic’s positive results. Finally, we offer some discussion of the tactic’s complexity, which should help others think about how to apply it in their own situations.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

The Human Rights Education Program for Women in Turkey

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:18 -0500

The Human Rights Education Program for Women in Turkey

By Liz Ervecik Amado
Download full notebook in english and a brief summary of the notebook in Russian and Armenian below.

In this notebook we learn about how effective and beneficial building collaborative relationships with government institutions can be to advancing human rights education. Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR)-New Ways in Turkey gained the support and use of government resources for furthering human rights education of women at the local level.

WWHR-New Ways developed a highly successful human rights education curriculum for women but needed an accessible, structured and sustainable way to reach women in need of learning about their rights. They found and developed an excellent partnership through government run, local level community centers. These community centers offered not only professional social workers who could be trained by WWHR-New Ways in facilitating the human rights education curriculum, but also a safe and accessible place for women to learn about their rights. We hope this notebook will provide ideas and insights for others as they seek opportunities for building mutually beneficial and sustainable relationships with government bodies for furthering human rights efforts.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Tandem©: Cross-cultural exchange between police and migrants

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:16 -0500

Tandem©: Cross-Cultural Exchange Between Police and Migrants

by Maria Hirtenlehner, International Centre for Cultures and Languages (ICCL)
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The international Centre for Cultures and Languages (ICCL) in Vienna adapted the "TANDEM©" program– originally created for language learning– to human rights education with police and migrant populations in a unique and profound way called "intercultural-TANDEM©."

The result has been "Tandem© Learning", a cultural contact program that improves intercultural understanding. The intercultural-Tandem© program involves a series of interactions between 20 to 25 high level police officers and an equal number of migrants from other countries. The interactions occur mainly in structured group settings and in one-on-one Tandem© pair relationships. To date, over 150 high level police officers and about the same number of migrants have participated in this life changing intercultural experience. The program was designed by the ICCL in Vienna in response to several violent interactions between the police and migrants in Austria.

In Austria, the Tandem© program currently operates as part of a larger police-training course. Officers must apply for participation in the program, which consists of seven four-hour training sessions augmented by several informal activities involving the tandem pairs. Although the program benefits from its affiliation with the police training course, this model could also be implemented and succeed independently.

The program began in 1999 and interest in it continues to grow. Last year, the program received at least 80 applications from high-level police officers from all over Austria for 25 available positions for each program offered. The program has documented improvements in attitudes of both police and migrant participants.

This notebook provides a unique and applicable model to a problem that occurs worldwide. The challenges in adapting it to different contexts will relate to how and where Tandem© program is implemented, the corresponding degree of support needed from the police hierarchy, the availability of funding, and the ability to recruit enough participants from the police and particularly the migrant community to participate.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Recipe for Dialogue

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:12 -0500

Recipe for Dialogue

by Jo Render

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In this notebook, Jo Render describes a corporate training initiative that helps the private sector to build more effective, constructive relationships with Indigenous peoples. The process was developed through a collaboration between the NGO Business for Social Responsibility and First Peoples Worldwide, an Indigenous advocacy organization. The trainings, which are focused on extractive companies (mining, oil, gas and logging) are founded on respect for Indigenous peoples’ rights, aspirations and effective participation in the development process.

In December 2001, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights convened a workshop on "Indigenous Peoples, Private Sector Natural Resource, Energy and Mining Companies and Human Rights." The physical format of this workshop was indicative of the general atmosphere surrounding the issue: Indigenous representatives were lined up on one side of the room, companies were lined up along the other, and nongovernmental organizations sat in the middle. Governments chose not to attend. Toward the end of two days of very tense discussions, a representative from Rio Tinto (a U.K.- based mining company) asked a question of the Indigenous and NGO participants: rather than spend more time repeating everything that companies do wrong, can we (the communities and NGOs) provide more explicit direction to companies on how to do things right?

This challenge was accepted by First Peoples Worldwide and Business for Social Responsibility, two U.S.-based NGOs working internationally on corporate responsibility. Together we developed a training initiative designed as one step in increasing the capacity of companies to build more effective, constructive relationships with Indigenous peoples. The training, which is focused on extractive companies (mining, oil, gas and logging), is founded on a respect for Indigenous peoples’ rights, aspirations and effective participation in the decisions that affect them. Both Indigenous people and company personnel have been involved in the design and implementation of the curriculum. At the core of the training is the concept of free, prior and informed consent (see box, right).

While many governments refuse to acknowledge that Indigenous peoples have this right (the right to approve, or reject, a project in their territory), it has been recognized in international law, and national governments are slowly coming around. Laws are rarely specific enough, however, to tell a company what kinds of actions and decision-making processes will meet this expectation. They also neglect to provide an overview of everything at the community-operational level that can affect how communities and companies achieve consent. Our training currently takes the form of a two-and-ahalf-day workshop that provides broad, general guidance on the importance of developing good engagement practices with Indigenous peoples in order to achieve free, prior and informed consent. While we do not guarantee that effective engagement will result in consent, we emphasize that without it, consent cannot be achieved. Ideally, company participation in the training will include multiple voices representing the different company roles that affect, and are affected by, community relations, such as environmental management, land negotiations, government relations, executive offices, communications and investor relations.

The workshop content was tested in February 2003 and presented fully to a group of nine companies in March; a shorter version was tried in November. We were working to create interest in more in-depth training on community engagement techniques at the company site level, and, while we have received expressions of interest in this second step, specific programs have not yet been undertaken. Participants from the March workshop provided very positive feedback, but we do not yet know the level of our impact on the companies at the institutional level. As such, this paper is a description of a "tactic in progress."

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Rebuilding Communities

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:11 -0500

Rebuilding Communities

by Binta Barry and Nancy L. Pearson

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In this notebook, we learn about building local and long-term capacity building within communities to address massive human rights atrocities. The Center for Victims of Torture has instituted an intensive training and supervision model for refugees to develop local capacity for providing understanding and skills for mental health support to rebuild communities after massive human rights atrocities. CVT has instituted the training model in refugee camps in Guinea and Sierra Leone for refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia. The model combines intensive, hands-on training of refugees with ongoing supervision. These refugee "mental health specialists" build their capabilities, provide individual and group therapy for traumatized individuals and use their skills toward rebuilding their own communities and support systems.

There are currently 122 "mental health specialists" involved in this ongoing training and supervision model with thousands of refugees of all ages having received a wide variety of services. Devastating wars in every region of world have created massive number of refugees and internally displaced people who have witnessed or been victims of horrible human rights atrocities. This notebook may provide tactical ideas to those assisting these communities trying to rebuild their lives.

Even as the world has witnessed substantial gains in the development of international mechanisms to monitor human rights violations and prosecute offenders, mass atrocities continue to plague many countries, including Sierra Leone. The nation’s people endured more than a decade of civil war, suffering brutality and massive rights violations aimed at ripping apart the social fabric, undermining cultural and family values and destroying community leadership and structures. Sierra Leone, a country of approximately six million people, is composed of 20 tribes following a variety of faiths–Muslim, indigenous and Christian. The country gained independence from Great Britain in 1961. Despite rich mineral and human resources, by 1990 Sierra Leone had one of the most skewed income distributions, with 82 percent of the population living below the poverty line. An eleven-year civil war provoked in 1991 by the Revolutionary United Front resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of over one-third of the population.

The conflict caused more than 450,000 people to flee to neighboring countries–mainly Guinea and Liberia–and left an estimated one million people internally displaced within the country. With the RUF conducting systematic and brutal assaults on the civilian population, survivors had witnessed or survived brutal atrocities including mutilations, amputations, forced recruitment of children and adults as soldiers, forced labor and horrendous sexual crimes. International observers described the situation: "The rebels sought to dominate women and their communities by deliberately undermining cultural values and community relationships, destroying the ties that hold society together. Child combatants raped women who were old enough to be their grandmothers, rebels raped pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and fathers were forced to watch their daughters being raped." Girls as young as seven or eight were used as sex slaves.

At the time the Center for Victims of Torture was launching its program in Guinea, there were more than 300,000 Sierra Leonean refugees and more than 120,000 Liberian refugees in the country. Conservatively estimating that 5 to 10 percent of the refugee population could benefit from mental health interventions and needed more than social opportunities or skills training to regain their life functioning, 20,000 to 40,000 people were in need of such assistance. Sierra Leonean communities were broken apart by the atrocities of the war. And many of the individuals who endured and survived such atrocities remembered their experiences in silence.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Promoting Human Rights Professionalism in the Liberian Police Force

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:10 -0500

Promoting Human Rights Professionalism in the Liberian Police Force

By Cecil Griffiths

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In this notebook, we learn about the efforts, ability, and commitment of law enforcement personnel–one of the most difficult groups to reach regarding human rights–to address and confront human rights issues and violations from their own perspective and within their own ranks. The Liberian National Law Enforcement Association (LINLEA) was established by law enforcement personnel themselves to address issues of poor leadership, blind loyalty, and lack of professional training, each of which have contributed to a poor quality of services and a high incidence of human rights abuses. LINLEA has worked to promote professionalism as a way to enhance human rights standards and reduce incidences of abuse. This tactic provides insights into how the law enforcement profession itself can understand the connection between professionalism and human rights–exposing abuses when they occur–to send signals to government and civil society that action can and must be taken to address abuses.

As dictated by canons of police ethics, which instruct officers to respect the constitutional rights of all people to liberty, equality, and justice, law enforcement officers are supposed to be the leading human rights protectors and promoters everywhere in the world. Unfortunately, due to lack of training and discipline, poor leadership, and political manipulation, law enforcement personnel often engage in unprofessional conduct that leads to abuses of human rights. In 1993, after the war in Liberia, we evaluated the situation within the police department. An estimated 40 percent of law enforcement personnel had not received basic training. Discipline levels were very low. More recently, we have seen how a regime can appoint law enforcement officials who can be manipulated to perpetuate, through oppression, suppression, and intimidation, the regime’s tenure. To address these issues of unprofessionalism and human rights abuses, we decided to establish a professional association: The Liberian National Law Enforcement Association, or LINLEA.

LINLEA promotes training opportunities for law enforcement officers; advocates for a merit-based system of promotion, the appointment of qualified administrators, and fair and impartial adjudication of complaints against officers; and discourages partisanship and political manipulation of law enforcement agencies. At LINLEA we use a variety of means to achieve our objectives. We host professional training workshops for law enforcement officers, and organize public lecture forums and radio programs to discuss issues related to the administration of justice. We publish a journal to educate readers on the role of the criminal justice system, its problems and challenges, and issues of democracy and human rights. In addition, we advocate for reforms of law enforcement and criminal justice institutions, conduct research on the causes of crime and the responses of the criminal justice system, and publish our findings and recommendations. As our organization has grown in size and credibility, we have also been able to call attention to internal problems and unprofessional behavior in the department, and demand justice for victims–including unfairly accused police officers. We are beginning to monitor and catalogue police abuses.

LINLEA now has over 500 members, including nearly 20 percent of the police force, as well as many members of other law enforcement institutions. Through our Center for Criminal Justice Research and Education, we have been able to provide leadership and human rights training for 223 senior law enforcement officers. The Center has also conducted a training workshop for law enforcement trainers and curriculum specialists of law enforcement agencies, and a workshop on Policy Formulation and Development for law enforcement planners and administrators.

We believe that an association of this sort is the most effective way to bring about change in police behavior. Human rights organizations can raise awareness of the nature and incidents of human rights abuses in society. But when a professional body related to law enforcement becomes involved in highlighting and exposing these abuses, it sends a different signal to the government and to the police department itself, a signal they are more likely to heed. In this notebook I describe the creation of our police association, and the development of our work supporting within the police force a professional attitude that is respectful of human rights. I then discuss some of the questions relevant to the use of this tactic in other contexts. Whether you are a concerned law enforcement professional or a human rights activist, it is my hope that this analysis will help you consider how steps can be taken to professionalize the police and improve its human rights record in your own situation.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Police Training

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:09 -0500

by Dr. Arie Bloed, Forum Asia Foundation, Thailand

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This notebook discusses how a strategy to work toward promoting community policing in Thailand and other countries in Asia utilized the introduction of a unique, computer-based police training education program to engage and enlist the support of key leadership of the Royal Thai Police (RTP) to champion the training tool. As a tactic, the computer-based police training program provides an excellent tool to help police more effectively address their own immediate day-to-day policing challenges while also serving to build mutual trust, acknowledgement and support.

"Police training about use of force and firearms in Thailand so far didn’t include much about psychology, only about the technical skills of shooting. So this is completely new and very important. We need to know how our brains are functioning in a situation of potential violence in order to avoid making mistakes."–Thai Police Trainee

Forum-Asia (FA)–as a regional NGO, and Arie Bloed, as a foreign consultant with expertise in the design and development of a unique computer-based police training program–engaged and enlisted the support of top leadership of the Royal Thai Police (RTP) to implement the training program in Thailand. To date, the engagement and support has resulted in the successful training and development of a core cadre of seventeen Thai police trainers from different institutions and departments of the RTP. It has also resulted in co-sponsorship between FA and the RTP of a regional workshop that took place in June 2004 that introduced the police training program to representatives from civil society and top police officials from eight other Asian countries. As a result, FA began a similar program with police in Cambodia. The program in Cambodia is now in the process of implementation and the first ToT was organized in October 2005.

FA chose to introduce a professional police training program with the RTP as a first step in opening the doors for more long-term co-operation aimed at supporting the strategic goal to introduce community policing, more accountability and transparency.

It is remarkable that the ’generic’ COLPI training modules originally developed for use in former socialist countries are considered highly applicable to the further professionalization of police in many other countries. Contrary to expectations, the fact that only ’white faces’ in ’neutral’ police uniforms are seen in the many film scenarios has appeared to be even an asset. Thai, as well as Mongolian, police students consider these scenarios to be important sources of inspiration, as in their view they reflect modern policing in the more developed countries in the world.

A very important aspect of FA’s tactical approach was not to label the training program "Police and Human Rights," but rather "Professional Policing." This concept was a program of police and for police. FA wanted to address the practical behavioural skills which police officers need in their day-to-day work. FA offered the police a practical training that would meet the needs of police themselves.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Open Memory

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:08 -0500

Open Memory

By Damian Ferrari

Download full notebook below.

Read how Memoria Abierta (Open Memory), a human rights organization in Argentina, organizes thousands of documents related to the state terrorism and makes them accessible through an online database as a way to raise public awareness about what happened in Argentina from 1976-1983.

Making the Global Local

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:07 -0500

Making the Global Local: Applying Global Agreements to Local Enforcement of Human Rights Laws

By Columbus Igboanusi

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See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

In the human rights field, there is often a wide gap between the locus of abuse and the policies, laws and treaties that were created to prevent or stop it. Furthermore, often the discussion of these abuses and the law and policies to prevent them are only talked about in high level policy and diplomatic forums. The tactic presented in this notebook helps bridge these gaps. The League of Human Rights Advocates in Slovakia recruits people from the disenfranchised population – in this case the Roma – to serve as human rights monitors. The monitors learn, often for the first time, about their own rights under national and international law. The LHRA and the monitors then work to enforce those rights –that were signed into existence in far-off capitals–in their own town halls, police stations, schools and communities. The information from local monitors is used to present the true, on the ground, impact of national and international laws in the country. The work done in Slovak may provide each of us with tactical ideas to address similar gaps in each of our communities and countries.

This notebook describes the creation and functioning of a systematic volunteer network of human rights monitors in Slovakia, maintained by the League of Human Rights Advocates (LHRA). The LHRA believes that its grassroots monitoring of local compliance with international human rights commitments assists and encourages the state and its apparatus to live up to its international obligations. The LHRA’s investigatory work, public education efforts and high-level contacts with international human rights NGOs also enable it to put considerable pressure on the Slovak government to live up to its international commitments. The LHRA’s volunteer monitors thus help achieve justice for local Roma people and others suffering human rights abuses. In addition, since LHRA monitors are themselves Roma activists living in Roma communities. The LHRA training process empowers them and their communities to understand and stand up for their rights.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

I'll Walk Beside You

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:04 -0500

I’ll Walk Beside You

by Glenda Wildschut and Paul Haupt

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In this notebook Glenda Wildschut and Paul Haupt outline the victim accompaniment process for the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that developed the concept of "briefers" to install a victim-friendly process. Victims were provided with the opportunity to testify and be supported before, during and after the process. The TRC selected briefers–chosen from the caring professions, such as ministers, social workers and nurses–from the community to provide this support. The briefers acted as volunteers and were trained to perform various tasks with regard to the entire structural process of the TRC. As a consequence of the sustained, supportive work of the briefers during the entire process, victims better understood their legal, emotional and practical position.

Thus, they felt they owned the process and were able to contribute in an important way by making recommendations about reparations. Briefers could be utilized in many settings–e.g. those involving domestic violence or rape, and tribunals court systems–where vulnerable victims need mediation and support to overcome traumatic experiences and especially in processes that involve perpetrators as well.

Between 1995 and 1998, 21,529 people gave statements to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).1 The thousands of hours of hearings were broadcast publicly and became the most watched programming in South African television history. Testifiers recounted the horrors of 34 years of apartheid and repression, bringing to light the contours of a national trauma, and the details of thousands of individuals’ suffering. Testifying publicly about one’s own personal trauma is itself a terribly difficult experience. The TRC committed itself to creating a process that was friendly and accommodating for victims. Part of this process was a program of "briefing" for people coming forth to testify. Thousands of people were accompanied before, during and after their testimony by volunteers trained in psychosocial support as well as in the legal and practical realities of the hearing process. The goal was to provide the necessary support to make the experience of testifying an empowering one that would help in the victim’s longer-term healing process, rather than contribute to renewed suffering.

The briefing process had positive effects on three different levels. On the individual level, it helped the testifiers overcome their apprehensions, avoid secondary trauma, process their painful past and move on with their lives. On a community level, it helped train community members to assist in the psychosocial healing process of the testifiers, while also bringing whole communities together to process and heal from their mutually shared past experiences. And finally, on a national level, the briefing helped the Truth Commission achieve its goal of creating a victim-friendly process that would promote national healing for a traumatised nation. On each of these levels, there are lessons to be learned that may be applicable in other contexts.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.