Dialogue in Pursuit of Development - Are you looking for one of ...

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Mozambique and Danish aid negotiations – the beginning of
Danish development human rights aid
During the bi-annual aid negotiations in the late 1980s, the Danish delegation
acted upon the fact that as human rights had now officially become a
criterion and objective in Danish development co-operation, they needed
to raise the issue with the delegation from Mozambique – a country with a
less than perfect human rights record, but also a country just emerging from
decades of liberation struggle and civil war. They did so, apparently in a
serious and concerned, slightly admonishing manner, and the expectation
was probably that the African delegation would look shamefaced and agree
that yes, they would try to do better. However, the somewhat unexpected
reaction was rather different: when faced with the issue, the chairman of the
Mozambican delegation eagerly agreed, that yes, the country was faced with
huge problems in relation to the fulfilment of the human rights standards,
and he was indeed happy that it was being addressed, because now he wanted
to ask Denmark for assistance to help improve the situation – in other words,
a very constructive response, but also one which fired the ball back into the
Danes’ court. This conversation eventually led to a number of projects in
various areas, and in this way became significant for later human rights activities
as part of development co-operation with a number of countries.
The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the training
of lower court judges in Nigeria
Towards the end of military rule in Nigeria in the late 1990s, Denmark and
the Danish Centre for Human Rights was asked to initiate assistance to a
programme of training lower court judges in Nigeria in human rights. This
initiative only came about because of co-operation between committed individuals
in a government branch, the Judicial Training Institute, a national
human rights institution in the form of the newly established Human Rights
Commission of Nigeria, and the civil society organisation Civil Liberties
Organisation. The training sessions, each lasting several days, served as a real
eye-opener for the judges, because they had been told that “human rights
are anti-government” and that it was something in which they should therefore
not involve themselves in any way. In order to overcome this, the teaching
focussed specifically on the right to a fair trial, as defined not just in the
Constitution, but also in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights,
which at that time was being incorporated in Nigeria. With this as its starting
point, a very constructive dialogue on their role in implementing human
rights, was carried out, and ultimately several of them involved themselves
more actively in the local human rights community.