FUNDING

The HRDC is funded publicly and privately. The University of Namibia provides office facilities, support services and the remuneration of the staff of the Centre.

The center receives grants from a number of sources, including the Government of Namibia, Office of High Commissioner on Human Rights, American Embassy, UNESCO, the Finnish Embassy and other international sources (e.g. Konrad Adenauer Foundation); HRDC projects are carried out under the supervision of its own Board and are not subjected to governmental or university control.

In 1994, the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights and Democracy was established at the HRDC with UNESCO support.  The founding Dean of the Faculty of Law, the late Prof. Walter Kamba, was the first appointee to the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights and Democracy.  Currently Prof. Manfred Hinz is the Chair holder. The Chair is linked to the HRDC and is part of the university-twinning (UNITWIN) Network of four southern African and four European universities.  The UNITWIN Network was established in 1992 under the auspices of UNESCO by the Rectors of the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane University (Mozambique) and Utrecht University (The Netherlands), and the Vice-Chancellors of the Universities of the Western Cape (South Africa), Namibia and Zimbabwe. The Network was joined by the Ruhr Universität Bochum (Germany) and Lund University (Sweden) in 1993, and the University of Porto (Portugal) in 1995.

The Chair’s main focus is to –

• promote awareness of human rights in Namibia and in the southern African region
• explore the concept of constitutionalism and its relationship to human rights and the rule of law
• explore the relationship between human rights and economic and socio-cultural development, and
• examine the management of the biophysical environment and development relevance of human rights.

Several activities have been undertaken as part of the programmes of the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights and Democracy and the HRDC. These include –

• capacity-building and training of law students in the field of human rights
• training of government officials in the skills of state reporting to international human rights organizations
• conducting of research and presentation of papers to the Law Reform and Development Commission on several issues, and
• development of a documentation centre for human rights materials.

The Centre works hand in hand with other institutions locally and international.

For more information on the Centre., and holdings, please continue here.