AHSI Partners

 

Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa

 

The Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA) is an independent, pan-African, non-profit organisation established in 1998. The Institute’s overall goal is to work towards the full implementation of African human rights treaties, through domestic application of treaty provisions and widespread, effective use of pan-African treaty bodies.

The Institute has four main programmes: Capacity Building, Litigation, Research & Publications, and Partnerships.

Under its Capacity Building programme, the Institute holds several workshops each year for human rights workers, judges, lawyers, journalists and others. Workshops are focused on how participants can use African human rights treaties and mechanisms in their work.

In its Litigation programme, the Institute brings cases before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and other African treaty monitoring and enforcement bodies. The Institute may develop strategic cases on its own, in order to elicit an interpretation of a particular treaty provision or draw attention to a particular issue. It also serves in an advisory capacity to litigants who are prosecuting their own cases before international fora but require assistance with the procedural aspects of international litigation.

In its Research & Publication programme, the Institute researches human rights issues as a background to its capacity building and litigation of cases. It publishes a guide to international human rights litigation in Africa, and has published the only volume of the law reports of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Under its Partnerships programme, the Institute cooperates with other institutions to advance its objectives. For example, the Institute is the West African Focal Point for the Access to Justice Initiative, a programme of the International Commission of Jurists that funds human rights litigation.

The Institute has an international board of directors. The head office is in Banjul, the Gambia.