For more than two decades, human rights activists and organizations in the Arab region called for the establishment of an indigenous fund to support their work to promote and defend human rights. With financial and administrative support from the Ford Foundation, a committee was formed to explore the feasibility of establishing an endowed and sustainable funding agency devoted to supporting long-term efforts to advance human rights and the rule of law.
The Preparatory Committee, composed of Fateh Azzam, Atallah Kuttab, Amin Mekki Meddani, and Mona Younis, and coordinated by Yousry Moustafa, began its work in 2002. Over the course of the next three years the Committee commissioned a series of studies and consulted widely to determine how best to set up a funding entity inside the region. From the start the Committee envisioned an organization that would both fund promising work and initiatives inside the region and spur others in the region to do the same. Encouraged by their findings and the enthusiastic support received at home and abroad, the Committee laid the foundations for the launch of the Arab Human Rights Fund in 2008.
Objectives
The Arab Human Rights Fund is dedicated to:
- Providing financial and technical support to human rights defenders and organizations in the Arab region.
- Securing resources for human rights initiatives from foundations and individuals in the region and among the Diaspora.
- Promoting social justice and human rights philanthropy to ensure sustainable support for the long-term efforts of human rights defenders in the region.
Transparency and Accountability
In 2010, in keeping with its commitment to excellence, the Board of Directors commissioned an independent evaluation to assess the effectiveness of the Fund and its overall progress in fulfilling its mandate. In 2011 the Fund carried out intensive institutional work to address the recommendations of the evaluator. To receive a summary of the evaluator’s report, please email: info@ahrfund.org.
Legal Status
The Arab Human Rights Fund is a philanthropic organization registered as a non-profit foundation, or Stichting in The Netherlands, where its liquid assets are maintained. The Fund’s main office is in Beirut, Lebanon, where it is a registered branch of “AHRF Stichting.”
Who We Fund
The Fund supports primarily actors who would elsewhere be ineligible for funding or for reasons of capacity or otherwise have difficulty securing funding from sources outside the region. The Fund will extend support to the widest range of actors involved in the human rights. Our grantees can be (non-exhaustive list):
- Non-governmental human rights organizations, networks, and coalitions
- Human rights programs and initiatives by other actors’ i.e. local development and other civil society groups, educational institutions, national human rights institutions, duty bearers, professional associations…etc.
- Nascent civil society organizations
- Well-established civil society organizations with a demonstrated record of outreach to emerging actors
- Informal groups that show potential to carry out important initiatives
- Organizations and individuals carrying out human rights work in enforced exile
- Individuals working in the public sphere (on a case-by-case basis).
Where We Fund
The Fund will make grants to support human rights work in the Arabic-speaking region and Arabic-speaking communities in adjacent countries. The Fund defines the “Arab region” as the 22 members of the Arab League. It is understood that the Fund will support the human rights of all in the region, including non-Arab minorities and communities, without any discrimination whatsoever; the “Arab” in the Fund’s name is intended to designate the geographical scope of the Fund’s operations and not the ethnicity of rights-holders.
What We Fund
In order to remain open to the needs of the human rights actors on the ground, and in order to respect the vast differences between the human rights situation in the many countries within its geographic scope, the Fund will support the promotion, protection, and advancement of the full spectrum of human rights – civil, political, economic, social, and cultural – and the human rights of all constituencies, e.g., women, children, minorities, persons with disabilities.
The Fund will not prioritize any human rights issue or constituency in its Grantmaking. Instead, the Fund relies on the local knowledge of the grantseekers to get a clear understanding of the needs and make a decision based on the justification provided by the grantseeker and other knowledgeable sources.
Moreover, the Fund will actively encourage projects that develop new ideas or that take advantage of new opportunities, including: the emergence of previously excluded communities, the relaxation of government restrictions in a particular country, increased public engagement and demands for respect for a particular human right, the formation of networks to work on a specific human rights issue, coalition building, and other developments that provide defenders with a chance to move a human rights matter forward
In its effort to make a difference and fill in the gaps, the Fund will look positively at projects adopting one or more of the following strategic approaches:
- Support to underfunded and new issues/constituencies/actors/methods,
- Support to grass root interventions aiming at mainstreaming human rights within social norms
- Support to long-term investment in human rights work
- Enhancing capacity of civil society’s human rights infrastructure
As a matter of policy, the Fund will support the full range of methods, including (but not limited to):
- Documenting and reporting on human rights violations
- Advocating for government adherence to human rights standards
- Public education to inform people about their human rights and how to exercise them
- Networking and coalition building to carry out human rights campaigns
- Litigating human rights cases before domestic, regional national and/or international courts.
Such flexibility will allow the Fund to remain at the forefront of the needs of human rights actors.
The Fund will award grants up to $40,000 per grant and not per grantee. The Fund will also make multi-year grants for up to three years. The Fund recognizes the difficulties faced by many human rights defenders in securing funds to cover basic operational costs or to invest in capacity building schemes. Thus, AHRF will award grants to support the institutional capacities of the groups (e.g. developing strategies, setting up policies and procedures, etc.). Additionally, it will provide core (operational) support to help groups maintain their core activities or secure part of their running costs.
