The Foundation and its partners hosted a closing ceremony for the Monitoring for Justice project.
Since 2022 the Foundation and its partners ((the Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung, and local Kyrgyz organisations BIOM and Alga) implemented a project to strengthen the role of civil society in monitoring and advocating for legal reforms and protecting human rights in Kyrgyzstan.
Activities completed as part the project included conducting a gap analysis, creating an educational manual on human rights and related mechanisms, contributing to the creation of a human rights monitoring methodology, hosting a training of the trainers for lawyers and human rights defenders, conducting two trainings for journalists on upholding human rights when reporting, and holding two trainings for civil society on how to assess draft laws for compliance with human rights.
At the closing ceremony held on 23 September, a specialist researcher of the Max Planck Foundation spoke about the gap analysis it conducted at the beginning of the project and updated throughout the project, highlighting how the project aimed to address identified gaps. The ceremony, organised by the local partners, was attended by the other project partners, as well as civil society representatives, government officials, and diplomatic staff. Participants spoke of the positive impact the project had on their organisations and on their work such as increasing their knowledge of human rights mechanisms and providing tools for assessing compliance of draft laws with human rights. Areas for improvement were also acknowledged, including the need for an expanded role for civil society in legislative and policy processes.
The Foundation is proud of its input into this EU-funded project in Kyrgyzstan.