Strengthening Human Rights Worldwide

Overview

The goal of this work is to invest in fresh voices to make the human rights movement more responsive to the needs of the poor and marginalized with a special emphasis on the Global South.

The Challenge

In a rapidly changing global landscape, the human rights field faces new opportunities and complex challenges. Geopolitical power is decentralizing, shifting the focus of human rights advocacy away from traditional state champions and toward emerging powers in the Global South. Building on the standard-setting successes of the past few decades, forward-looking human rights organizations are finding new ways to implement and enforce rights, especially for the poorest and most marginalized people. At the same time, technology is altering the rights landscape we live in, leading to new types of political oppression but also opening up new frontiers for civic action, human rights monitoring and advocacy.

Tomorrow’s human rights organizations will need to work closely with the people whose problems they seek to address, while also participating in a wide-ranging global conversation about strategies, alliances and the future of the field. Poor and marginalized communities need a broader, stronger, revitalized movement. In order to build a human rights movement to focus on the political, civil, economic and social rights of all people, it is of paramount importance to include fresh voices in the global conversation.

What We're Doing

We support efforts to create a broad, inclusive, effective and sustainable ecosystem of organizations through which human rights are enforced at the global, regional and national levels. In particular we are supporting the growth of human rights organizations from the Global South. The specific rights work we fund on the ground includes public interest litigation; community organizing and advocacy targeted at policy reform; networking and alliance-building; reinforcing existing accountability mechanisms; monitoring, documentation and applied research; and working to strengthen national human rights organizations that work on behalf of those who are oppressed and excluded.

Our aim is to renew the global human rights field, and to reinforce its relevance and legitimacy by making sure that new thinking and changing needs are taken into account. We will continue to push to increase the diversity of perspectives at a global level and establish a new generation of digital human rights organizations. We seek to focus on achieving real-world impact in the lives of those who are marginalized in the issues affecting their daily lives. We will continue efforts to strengthen civil society and to bring volume to the voices of those who have not been heard from enough. Through these efforts we hope to ensure that issues affecting the most marginalized are central to the global human rights agenda.

Learn more about how our strategies and approaches shape our grant making.