Consultancy opportunity: Development of safeguarding guidance for AIUK’s work with individuals at risk

Amnesty International UK (AIUK) is seeking to engage a consultant to undertake the development of organisational best practice guidance and principles to ensure the organisation is meeting the highest standards in safeguarding the security of the individuals they campaign with and for.

Background to the project

Amnesty International UK works closely with and on behalf of people from across the globe including human rights activists and people who have experienced human rights abuse first hand. This work is multifaceted and involves campaigning, partnership working, advocacy, speaker tours, sharing platforms, and supporting specific projects. Work with individuals is carried out by paid staff as well as activists, who often engage human rights defenders, refugees or individuals at risk in their local communities.

In June 2015 the internal evaluation of AIUK’s women’s rights in Afghanistan campaign made a number of recommendations, including Recommendation 9, which stated:

“AIUK should develop policies and principles and formalise systems and procedures to ensure it is adequately safeguarding the security of the people it works with. The organisation should start by identifying and systematising some of these current ad hoc practices such as guidelines for visiting speakers, due diligence checks and risk assessment”

Secondly: In 2016 Amnesty International is going to be launching two new campaigns – on civil society space and human rights activists, and the refugee crisis- both of which will involve in depth work with individuals who have had their human rights abused, including work led and delivered by grassroots activists; this local-level activism is seen as a key tactic in tackling the refugee crisis.

Top line deliverables

Safeguarding tools and guidance, and recommendations for embedding those that will ensure that AIUK is implementing best practice in the Sector when working directly with and for individuals at risk, refugees, and the families and closest associates of all of these groups.

Specific outputs:

  • Preliminary scoping exercise that provides an assessment of the current strengths and weaknesses in AIUK’s policies and practices in relation to working with individuals at risk both in the UK and abroad. This should include all the areas in which Amnesty could improve; from this we can select those that fit the remit of this project.
  • Guidance and tools for a range of stakeholders to use when conducting activities that involve individuals at risk that address concerns identified by the initial scoping exercise. We would expect that initially this would be in draft format for staff and activists to comment on.
  • New, updated or rationalised policies on (to be agreed with consultant) safeguarding, risk assessment and management, due diligence, data handling, drawing on needs identified in scoping phase.
  • Clear recommendations for training, inducting, and monitoring staff and activists at the section to ensure that best practices are embedded and maintained and that policies are adopted and operationalised at all levels of the organisation.
  • As a possible stage two: Work with the Amnesty International Secretariat to possibly scale our UK specific guidance to be useful across the Amnesty movement, adapting these recommendations to be useful in different contexts.

Timelines

Amnesty is fairly flexible on delivery dates for this work, but we do have a deadline of Thursday 14th July for expressions of interest.  We would like this work finalised with a plan for implementation in place before the end of 2016.

For more information

Before submitting an application, please read the full project description, including full information about methodology and processes going forward, on this page.

You can also contact Felix Jakens, who is overseeing the project, at felix.jakens@amnesty.org.uk

About Amnesty International

Amnesty International is the world’s largest grass-roots human rights organisation with over three million members across more than 150 countries and territories. We investigate and expose abuses, educate and mobilise the public, and help transform societies to create a safer, more just world.

Amnesty International is an unincorporated worldwide movement consisting of independent sections throughout the world and an International Secretariat (IS) based in London which coordinates the worldwide movement and provides support for global governance structures.

Amnesty International UK represents more than 230,000 supporters in the United Kingdom. Collectively, our vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments. Our mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of these rights. We are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion.