Strengthening NHRI advocacy on social media

Good practice guidelines on using social media for human rights advocacy will be developed in the coming months, drawing on the expertise of media and communications staff from national human rights institutions across the region.

The core elements for the good practice guidelines were captured in discussions at a meeting of the APF Communications Network, held in Ulaanbaatar from 28-30 August 2019.

The meeting examined effective human rights advocacy in a changing world, including communicating through values, the power of digital storytelling, developing social media strategies, planning human rights campaigns and building community partnerships for advocacy.

In addition to discussions and presentations, participants took part in a range of practical activities across the three-day workshop, such as preparing a 60 second script for a social media video and responding to media crisis scenarios.

A total of 23 participants from 20 APF member institutions [1] took attended the meeting, which was generously hosted by the National Human Rights Commission of Mongolia.

The Commission also shared examples of their successes and challenges in promoting human rights across a vast country with a widely dispersed and often nomadic population.

[1] Afghanistan, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Mongolia, Nepal, Palestine, Philippines, Oman, Samoa, Thailand and Timor Leste

Members of the APF Communications Network will collaborate via the new APF learning community to finalise good practice guidelines on moderating conversations on social media and on monitoring and evaluating NHRI impact using social media.

The online community will also be a place for Network members to stay in touch, seek advice, and share expertise and resources.

The third meeting of the APF Communications Network was facilitated by James Iliffe, APF Communications Consultant; Kate Turner-Mann, APF Regional Training Manager; and Adiya Tseekhee, a member of the APF Facilitators Network from the National Human Rights Commission of Mongolia.

Previous meetings have been hosted by the National Human Rights Commission of Nepal (Kathmandu, April 2016) and the National Human Rights Commission of Bangladesh (Dhaka, November 2017).

Date: 16 September 2019