Ghanaian CSOs develop factsheet ahead of In-country Pre-sessions
On 15th and 16th August 2017, UPR Info participated in the Advocacy Factsheet Development Workshop held at the Danish Embassy in Accra, Ghana. The meeting was opened by the Her Excellency Tove Degnbol, the Ambassador of Denmark.
The objectives of the meeting was to: train both CSOs and the media on the UN human rights monitoring mechanisms, specifically the UPR process, and build their capacity in this regard; inform the participants on Ghana’s past UPR; share good practices on advocacy within the UPR and how best to utilise the process; facilitate the development and finalisation of advocacy tools; provide a forum for multi-stakeholder dialogue between members of the Diplomatic Corp (as Recommending States) and CSOs; and prepare CSOs to participate in the Geneva Pre-session in October 2017.
The meeting saw almost 30 CSOs in attendance, each representing a different thematic cluster, and a total of 16 thematic factsheets were developed. This workshop was a pre-cursor for the In-country Pre-session due to take place in September 2017, by which time the CSO clusters will have finalied their factsheets.
As a result of UPR Info’s engagement in Ghana since February, the number of CSO UPR submissions increased. A total of 24 reports were submitted and there was an increase in the number of reports from indigenous CSOs that were also submitted.