KIOS’ strategy for 2011—2015
KIOS’ new strategy for 2011—2015 was approved by KIOS’ Board meeting 16th December 2010 and entered into force from the beginning of 2011. The Board had started developing the new strategy already in 2008 and finished at the end of 2010. The new strategy is based on the former strategy (2004—2010) and takes simultaneously into account changes in the working environment.
The new strategy stresses further the rights of the most vulnerable groups. Such groups include women, children, indigenous people, people with disabilities, gender and sexual minorities, human rights defenders and people living in extreme poverty. The goals of the current strategy period focus on strengthening the human rights capacity of funded organizations. It is crucial to conduct professional and long-term human rights work, to become stronger through networking, operational capability in human rights work, as well as activities based on ownership.
The new strategy decreases the number of KIOS’ focus countries to 12. The current focus countries are Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda in the Eastern Africa and Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Tibet in South Asia. KIOS will focus its activities on a more limited number of regions which enables deepening knowledge of the areas as well as creating a wide regional contact network and sustainable partnerships. Thus, the effectiveness of the work becomes more visible.
The activities of KIOS remain unchanged. KIOS funds developing countries’ human rights organizations which focus on preventing human rights violations, on informing, educating and advocacy as well as on legal assistance provided to victims of human rights violations. Furthermore, funding will be granted to partnership activities in which KIOS’ partner organizations support and educate new actors as well as strengthen local and regional networking.
In addition to providing funding, KIOS supports the capacity to defend human rights in the funded organizations. This is done by distributing KIOS’ own knowledge on human rights and project administration as well as by improving cooperation between human rights defenders.