Right to Know, Right to Live: Building a Campaign for the Right to Information and Accountability

As promised earlier this week, here is another publication suggested to AW by New Tactics in Human Rights that we are featuring-Right to Know, Right to Live: Building a campaign for the right to information and accountability.

This notebook shares how Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) has been deeply involved in a collective process which has shaped and influenced the Campaign for the Right to Information in India. MKSS makes the case that without access to information and transparency there can be no genuine participation of all members of society, particularly the poor, in democracy. The right to know and actual transparency of information provides the ability to demand and access rights…

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International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims

This past December 21, the UN General Assembly declared today, March 24, the International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations for the Dignity of Victims.  The resolution (A/RES/65/196) invites states, organizations and civil society to observe the new international day in an appropriate manner…

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Making Sense of the Information Wilderness: Library and Information Services for the Improvement of Human Rights Work

This week I am featuring a few publication resources brought to the attention of AW by the organization New Tactics in Human Rights.  Below is some information on the first of these publications-Making Sense of Information Wilderness: Library & Information Services for the Improvement of Human Rights Work.

Sometimes institutional strengthening tactics applied inside an organization improve the way human rights practitioners do their work and what they can do. Organizations that use their resources effectively, can more effectively advance human rights work.  In this notebook, the experience of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Sarajevo is presented.  They built a strong information system and central role for an information specialist or librarian.  The utilization of this information system and information specialist’s skills allowed other staff to better, and more productively, focus on their core programmatic missions.  Although the Human Rights Centre is now a fairly large and relatively well-funded organization, the tactic explained in this notebook presents ideas in a way that nearly any group doing human rights work could apply this organizational strengthening tactic.

The notebook is currently available in English, Turkish, and Bangla…

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Advancing Children’s Rights – A Guide for African Civil Society

This past month, Plan and Save the Children Sweden have collaborated to produce a second edition of this guide on how civil society organisations can best engage with the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Children (ACRWC).  This guide has been developed in collaboration with African civil society organisations, academics and members of the Committee.  .

Africa is the only continent with a region-specific child rights instrument.  The ACRWC, adopted in 1990 by the Organisation of African Unity (disbanded 2002), is an important tool for African child rights activists as it complements the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.  Though much progress has been made to promote the ACRWC, still more needs to be done to make this important human rights treaty accessible for civil society and state institutions in Africa.

This guide aims to be a resource for civil society organisations who are interested in finding out more about the ACRWC and the Committee.  The publication highlights methods on data collection, documenting information, and the use of official parliamentary/legislative records.  It contains practical advice and information on how civil society can engage with the Committee to advance children’s rights in Africa.  This edition reflects important developments relating to the Committee’s work, civil society organisations’ engagement with the Committee and the functioning of the CSO Forum on the ACRWC (note the special mention of the CSO Forum database).

The publication of the French version of the Guide is scheduled for May 2011. An Arabic version is also foreseen.

All comments you may have to help improve this edition are most welcome. Please send any input to Åsa Rapp Baro, Regional Advisor, Save the Children Sweden West Africa (asarb@waf.savethechildren.se) and Stefanie Conrad, Deputy Regional Director Programs, Plan West Africa (Stefanie.Conrad@plan-international.org)

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Mandela Archive to go Online

Mandela’s chief archivist, Verne Harris, this week said the team of experts from Google would arrive this month to offer their expertise on how to digitise a treasure of documents linked to the former president.

Mandela, a prolific letter-writer, produced a mass of personal documents, now kept at the Nelson Mandela Foundation headquarters in Houghton, Johannesburg.  A large collection of Mandela’s public documents – including letters he wrote and received while in jail on Robben Island – are stored in the SA National Archives in Pretoria.

Many of the documents are in poor condition, which prompted discussion in recent years on digitising the entire collection – an exercise that involves scanning each document with high-tech equipment.

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