Organizational Toolkit for Human Rights Defenders

The Partnerships for Resilience and Free Expression (P4R) project, funded by the United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and implemented by the Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), builds the capacity of Libyan civil society organizations (CSOs). The project supports CSOs to enhance their role in defending human rights, promoting freedom of expression, increasing women’s participation in public life, community engagement and preventing gender-based violence. The P4R project has several elements, including organizational assessments, co-creation workshops for programming, training courses and materials, mentoring, and an organizational toolkit for CSOs.

While no one document can provide answers to all organizations’ internal governance needs or external strategic development, this toolkit was developed in response to capacity assessments and mentoring sessions with the Libyan CSOs participating in the P4R. These CSOs are, on the whole, small, nascent, and passionate about improving their communities and contributing to the democratic process in Libya. Therefore, this toolkit focuses on fundamental organizational principles, good governance, effective advocacy activities, and outreach strategies, emergency and crisis planning tips, and networks and coalitions. It provides bespoke templates, links to additional resources, and practical examples from different countries that reinforce the good governance of organizations reliant on robust internal rules to support team growth, not individual personalities. This toolkit is available in both Arabic and English.

The toolkit is available to download: