Working in partnership with NHRIs

For the past 15 years, the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) has cooperated with NHRIs worldwide and provided support for capacity development of NHRIs, assisting them in becoming more effective mechanisms for the protection and promotion of human rights and rule of law. These efforts have resulted in a large number of projects and programmes in Africa, Asia, Latin-America, the Middle East and Eurasia.

DIHR has incorporated the lessons learned from these engagements in its work, and this has resulted in a comprehensive, systematic and yet flexible approach to capacity development and a solid expertise in the practice area of organizational development (OD). Even if organizational change processes have many commonalities across private sector companies, state institutions, NGO’s, and NHRIs, there are certain factors that specifically determine the working of NHRIs and, thus, make them – as well as the OD-approaches required - different.

As one of the initial established NHRIs in the world, DIHR has a deep insight into the mandate, structure and legal foundation of NHRIs as well as hands-on experience with structures and processes that can be considered essential for the effective functioning of NHRIs. Despite basic differences between NHRIs around the world, the fact remains that all NHRIs share common objectives formulated in the UN Paris Principles, and this commonality of objectives leads to common "effectiveness factors" that need to be in place.