Project Title: Strengthening attention to Human Rights in development policy of Lithuania bynetworking, advocacy and lobbying

Implementing Organisation: Lithuanian Consumer Institute

Total Budget: 43 810 euros

Request from the Fund: 43 810 euros

Overall Context at the Beginning of the Project:

The Lithuanian Government had recently outlined its Development Policy for 2006-2010, in which one of the priorities is the protection of human rights. This was a favourable time for the NGOs concerned with the protection of human rights to cooperate in a network and initiate a dialogue with the government.  NGOs promoting human rights had built up a sound reputation with civil society as well as with decision-makers.

Description of the Project and Expected Results:

The main objective of the Lithuanian Consumers Institute application was to get funding to strengthen the capacity of Lithuanian NGOs working on human rights protection to engage in national and EU policy debates. Although the organisation already had a solid reputation it would like to promote a network of NGOs focussing on advocacy to put human rights protection higher on the development agenda

Please click here to download the Mid-Term Report Summary to learn more about the progress of the implementation of this project.

Results after Implementation:

In its final report it stated that it had done extensive research on the situation of human rights in development cooperation, published the results through an article in a newspaper, which was then used by nine other media channels. This research had also formed the basis for the different national (2) and international (1) Roundtables organised by the Institute and for a series of five live radio debates, which included MPs and MEPs. As a result the state institutions now recognise the important role of NGOs. Although the organisation claims that the funding has resulted in putting development cooperation higher on its agenda, the English version of its website does not have any references to either human rights or development cooperation, which raises the question of what the impact of the PF has been and how sustainable the funded activities were.