The European Union (EU) marked this year’s International Democracy Day by celebrating Democracy Week from 15 to 17 September 2021 to promote the theme of “Stronger Together: Partnerships for Supporting Democracy.”
The Covid-19 pandemic caused numerous hardships to populations around the world and created a setback to their democratic aspirations. The Democracy Week brought world leaders on a platform to increase their commitment for promoting democracy and human rights and build strategic partnerships for successful cooperation.
Following up on this event, the EU has announced an additional €119.5 million support to democracy and human rights for 2021 around the world.
According to Jutta Urpilainen, the Commissioner for International Partnerships, “Democracy is essential for sustainable development and equal opportunities. This means strong democratic institutions, social inclusion and participatory societies. With these €119.5 million, we renew our commitment to global democracy. I am also proud that the EU will continue to support the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and to help empower local civil society organizations, democracy activists and human rights defenders, youth and women, around the world.
As the prevalence of human rights violations, inequality, intolerance, prejudice and discrimination is increasing worldwide, the EU is aiming to protect and empower “individuals, to building resilient, inclusive and democratic societies, and to promoting a global system for human rights and democracy.”
The €119.5 million funding commitment has been spread around to different organizations and sectors. The Democracy Support Alliance will get €5 million to “foster data collection and analysis, and strengthen cooperation between the EU and its Member States in the area of democracy and human rights.”
A budget of €4.8 million has been allocated by the EU from this additional funding for the United Nations Office of the Higher Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to emphasize on the need to promote and protect human rights around the world.
For places where peace is fragile and ongoing conflicts have created dangerous and unpredictable political situations, the EU has announced €4 million to protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the vulnerable and threatened people. This funding is managed through the EU’s Human Rights Crises Facility. This facility is part of the Multi-Annual Action Programme 2018-2020 for the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) financed from the general budget of the European Union.
As one of the thirteen action plans, it “will support civil society organizations in the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms in some of the world’s most difficult, dangerous, and unpredictable political situations and/or where they are the most vulnerable and threatened. The action will be implemented by grants, for an indicative annual amount of €3.5 million in 2018, 2019, and 2020.”
Another €4.9 million has been allocated for the Global Campus of Human Rights for the academic year 2021-2022
The Global Campus of Human Rights is an interdisciplinary center of excellence supported by the EU. It strives to promote human rights and democratization through higher education, specialized training programs, research, and outreach. It does it worldwide through our broad network of member universities.
It has a presence in seven regions of the world: Africa, Arab World, Asia-Pacific, Caucasus, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, southeast Europe. Our regional headquarters are in Pretoria, Beirut, Bangkok, Yerevan, Buenos Aires, Sarajevo/Bologna, and are coordinated by our main office in Venice, Italy.
It fosters new generations of human rights defenders contributing to a world in which human dignity, equality, freedom, security, sustainable development, democracy, and the rule of law are realized.
The remaining €100.8 million will be used to support local civil society organizations, democracy activists, and human rights defenders in 116 partner countries. These funds will come from the country allocations under the new Neighbourhood, Development, and International Cooperation Instrument – Global Europe (NDICI), and will be managed by EU Delegations.
European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR)
European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) is the successor program to the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights. The specific aim of European Union assistance under the EIDHR, created by the European Parliament in 1994, has been to assist in meeting differentiated human rights and democracy objectives at the international and national levels.
In addition to its work in support of civil society, it has a distinguished record of support for international human rights instruments and mechanisms and the international criminal justice system, including the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other ad hoc international criminal tribunals. The available Union assistance has also made it possible to develop the EU’s role as one of the leading actors in election observation.
Based on the new Financial Regulation, the EIDHR includes the possibility under certain circumstances to finance not only registered organizations, but also non-legal entities. It furthermore provides the possibility of “re-granting” meaning that in order to enhance human rights in situations where they are most at risk, civil society organizations in charge of the project implementation can award small grants to other local organizations, non-legal entities or individual human rights defenders.
Assistance under the EIDHR may take the following forms:
- projects and programs,
- grants to finance projects submitted by civil society and/or international/intergovernmental organizations
- small grants to human rights defenders,
- grants to support operating costs of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC)
- human and material resources for EU election observation missions
- public contracts
The selection of projects funded under the EIDHR takes place in several ways:
- global calls for proposals: the projects cover all the objectives of EIDHR and are selected by the Commission in consultation with its local delegations.
- country calls for proposals: they are specific to one country (Country Based Support Schemes – CBSS) and they cover local projects designed to reinforce the role of civil society in promoting human rights and democratic reforms, in facilitating the peaceful reconciliation of group interests and in consolidating political participation and representation and are managed by local EU delegations.
- direct support to Human Rights Defenders through small grants: when quick intervention through small and targeted actions is needed, the European Commission manages a small facility to provide ad-hoc grants of up to 10.000 Euro to be awarded to human rights defenders in need of urgent support either by headquarters or by EU Delegations.
- For the period 2014-2020, the EIDHR has a budget of €1.332 billion for all eligible countries, whereas the annual allocation for Serbia is around €1 million.
For the period 2007-2013, the EIDHR had a budget of €1.104 billion for all eligible countries, whereas the annual allocation for Serbia was around €1.2 million.