This action aims to strengthen the agency of local civil society to defend and advance human rights and the rule of law in the southern Mediterranean region and thereby promote their effective participation and advocacy in policy-making processes and public accountability.
The action is based on the belief that civil society actors will have more safety, stability, time, and space to strengthen their legitimacy and agency, and become robust agents of change if:

1. The financial resources of independent civil society organisations and movements are timely and adequately expanded, and

2. Their capacities to understand human rights and learn from their peers are consolidated in a sustained manner.

To this end, the action, developed by regional and local civil society organisations, is structured around the following four main methods of work:

• Provision of flexible subgrants to local civil society actors in Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Tunisia.
• Provision of tailored coaching to complement subgrants, including practical advice and follow-up on protection, capacity building, collaboration and funding.
• Sustained training cycles of young civil society actors on human rights that will include self-learning courses, online debates and exchanges with academics and experts, and in-person trainings to reflect on human rights developments and conceptualise strategies to engage with their communities using human rights approaches and mechanisms at the local and international levels.
• Monthly peer-to-peer training and mentoring for grassroots civil society organisations and movements on operational development and advocacy in the field of migrants’ rights, including migrant workers’ rights.

In particular, the action will provide support to civil society actors located in isolated areas or active within marginalised communities including women, LGBTIQA+, migrants, youth and survivors of serious human rights violations who organise to claim their rights.

The project is implemented by Euro-Mediterranean Foundation of Support to Human Rights Defenders.