From September 22-25, ICNL held its annual Civil Society Law course in partnership with the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria under its Advanced Human Rights Program. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, we piloted a four-day virtual course, which attracted 40 participants from 10 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. The course featured several lectures, panels, interactive question and answer sessions and group work led by ICNL along with external resource persons. Presenters included the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, Clement Voule; and a representative of Prof. Christoff Heyns from the UN Human Rights Committee, amongst others.

ICNL supported the University of Kigali to design a course curriculum based on research conducted on the CSO legal environment in Rwanda. The curriculum on Civil Society Law was piloted in 2020 and continues to be rolled out in a series of short courses conducted by the faculty. The University of Kigali has prepared a research paper documenting their experiences in designing the curriculum to inform similar training initiatives in the Africa region.

On January 23-24, 2021 ICNL in collaboration with PALU and the East African Magistrates’ and Judges’ Association (EAMJA) hosted a judicial colloquium in Arusha, Tanzania. The judicial colloquium was aimed to facilitate dialogue, experience-sharing and peer learning amongst judicial officers in the East African region and centered on the role of the judiciary in ensuring an enabling environment for safeguarding the rule of law and fundamental freedoms. Justices from Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda in attendance provided a regional perspective on national-level developments, complemented by judges and officials from the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the East African Court of Justice and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The former ACHPR Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information, Commissioner Lawrence Mute, participated and also provided practical insights on available mechanisms available at regional levels that can be used as avenues to protect civic spaces.

On January 20-22, 2021, ICNL in collaboration with the Pan-African Lawyers’ Union (PALU), the East Africa Law Society (EALS), the Tanganyika Law Society (TLS), and LHRC, we hosted a training for lawyers on the freedom of expression in Arusha. The training was aimed to enhance lawyer’s skills to use domestic and international mechanisms for legal redress in response to freedom of expression violations. The training followed the structure of the Practitioners Handbook on Freedom of Expression and Media Laws in Tanzania highlighting international legal norms protecting freedom of expression and assessing compliance of Tanzania’s domestic laws with those standards. Participants were further equipped on the good practices for pursuing strategic litigation cases before regional and international mechanisms and complementary advocacy strategies. The training expanded the network of lawyers whose core mission is towards promoting advocacy for an enabling environment on freedom of expression in Tanzania.

In February 2020, ICNL facilitated a consultative meeting in The Gambia to discuss the country’s new NGO bill. Participants, who included members of the government and civil society, discussed how the bill could be improved by bringing it in line with existing international and regional standards, as well as best practices on freedom of association. Several amendment recommendations were formulated, which will be presented to a validation meeting, that includes about 50 CSO delegates. Participants also brainstormed key steps and substantive elements that need to be taken into account for The Gambia to formulate a National NGO Policy, drawing inspiration from examples of similar policies in Africa. Learn more here.

On February 15, 2021 in collaboration with the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law, ICNL’s Africa team held the first in a series of online trainings on The Role of Non-Profit Organizations in the Risk Assessment Process of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Over thirty participants drawn from our local CSO partners in ten countries (Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe) participated in the session. Partners identified the main challenges and opportunities that CSOs face in their countries related to FATF processes and recommended priority activities to address these. ICNL is working with partners to support implementation of identified priorities.

ICNL supports various communities of practice that seek to strengthen collaboration among CSO, media and marginalized groups to advance civic space across East Africa. The Kenya Correspondents Association convened CSO-Media forums in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania that generated collective advocacy campaigns and awareness creation on civic space trends through the media. It also created a special blog (on Twitter: @AfricaCivic and Facebook: Civic Space Africa) that provides credible information on civic space protection issues across the region and facilitates broader advocacy within the CSO-media alliance. The African Youth Development Link in Uganda implemented the “Speaking Together” project, empowering youth in Uganda to use innovative and new tactics for human rights advocacy on civic space. This led to social media campaigns by youth demanding their rights using art, cartoons, and short musical videos and birthed the Ghetto Youth Parliament – a community space to foster civic participation for youth groups in Uganda.

In Rwanda, ICNL’s small grant facility supported diverse community-based organizations to: (i) Train 45 peer educators from the disability sector on the National NGO Law and support community outreach by the peer educators to people with disabilities; (ii) disseminate information on the new Faith-Based Organizations Law to more than 250 religious leaders and stimulate debate within the sector on provisions that require further review and possible reform; and (iii) undertake research on the approaches by CSOs and the corporate sector to corporate philanthropy, identify structural legal and policy barriers inhibiting corporate philanthropy, and develop a strategy to improve corporate philanthropy in Rwanda.

In January 2021, ICNL provided financial support to CSOs working on civic space issues in Tanzania to undertake targeted advocacy and capacity building activities. This include (i) Tanzania Media Women’s Association (TAMWA) which is conducting outreach and sensitization of marginalized groups and communities (targeting young female activists) on freedom of expression, association, assembly, and digital rights to foster their advocacy on civic space issues; (ii) NGO Network for Dodoma Region (NGONEDO): Support NGONEDO to promote effective engagement by civil society with state actors in seven districts of the Dodoma region in Tanzania to address  concerns on the closing civic space trends with a view to identifying strategic remedies to create and maintain open space for CSOs; (iii) Protection International-Kenya: The grant will support Protection International Kenya to address the issue of closing civic space in Tanzania through advocacy before the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights and collaboration with Tanzanian human rights defenders in the diaspora to amplify the civic space situation in Tanzania at regional and international level through publications on online platforms and media.