Building the capacity of human rights leaders and their organisations.

The Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP) has pioneered a model of human rights capacity-building linked to higher education. It consists of a combination of training in practical skills, deepening academic knowledge, and developing international networks of contacts.

The focus of Human Rights Advocates Program is both on strengthening the skills of individual human rights defenders and providing the tools to build sustainable organisations with the resources to benefit disadvantaged communities.

The author of this paper outlines four key elements of HRAP that could be incorporated into other capacity-building programmes that focus on the development of individual leaders.