ABOUT US

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is a department of the United Nations Secretariat. It is mandated to promote and protect the enjoyment and full realization, by all people, of all rights established in the Charter of the United Nations and in international human rights laws and treaties. The mandate includes preventing human rights violations, securing respect for all human rights, promoting international cooperation to protect human rights, coordinating related activities throughout the United Nations, and strengthening and streamlining the United Nations system in the field of human rights. In addition to its mandated responsibilities, the Office leads efforts to integrate a human rights approach within all work carried out by United Nations agencies.

About OHCHR SARO

The Southern African Regional Office (SARO) of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was established in 1998 as a joint project of OHCHR and UNDP. This was in response both to OHCHR's increasing realisation that common human rights concerns as well as individual national concerns are best addressed at a regional level and to UNDP's growing conviction that human development is inseparable from respect for human rights and good governance. The Office assists Governments, UN Country Teams, Regional Bodies and civil society in the fifteen countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC): Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Our Mandate

The over-arching goal of the Office is to strengthen regional and national capacities for the protection and promotion of human rights, including the capacities of the UN Country Teams in the Region. The Office's main objectives are as follows:

• To enhance awareness and understanding of international human rights standards and systems amongst governments, civil society and relevant UN field staff;
• To develop and expand human rights related assistance activities to requesting states;
• To support existing national and regional human rights institutions or to encourage the establishment of such institutions, with a view to strengthening their capacity to promote and protect human rights;
• To promote a human rights-based approach to development through mainstreaming human rights in policies and programmes of United Nations Country Teams, regional and national partners;
• To strengthen sub-regional networks in support of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

The Regional Office engages in a number of activities to achieve its objectives. These include:

• Providing human rights training, technical advice and support to governments in areas such as treaty ratification, national human rights plans of action, national human rights institutions, treaty body reporting and the incorporation of international human rights standards into national legislation;
• Providing human rights related support including training for UN field staff on integrating human rights into programming;
• Strengthening sub-regional networks through consultations with SADC, facilitating exchanges amongst human rights experts and practitioners in the region, and conducting human rights workshops, seminars and training courses at the sub-regional level for specific target groups;
• Facilitating the dissemination of human rights information in the sub-region and documenting best practices regarding human rights related projects and activities in the sub-region.