WEglobal has been commissioned by the EU to strengthen the role of Turkish civil society organisations in the promotion and protection of human rights as the country prepares for EU accession.
Turkey became a European Union candidate country in 2005, triggering the start of accession negotiations. Despite the Turkish government engaging in judicial and constitutional reforms since then to address long-standing political and societal issues, the political climate is still marked by polarisation. There is an ongoing need to promote a culture of fundamental rights and dialogue through a more inclusive approach towards civil society in decision-making processes. Despite diverse range of civil society in Turkey, the fact that only a limited number of CSOs are engaged in issues such as democratic policy dialogue and human rights could be seen as limiting genuine citizen participation in democratic life.
We are adopting new and innovative methods to address these complex and crucial issues, based on a demand-driven approach. We will be supporting the active involvement of CSOs in civil monitoring initiatives and training CSO staff on specific themes and horizontal issues to increase their capacity to engage and to enhance their effectiveness, establishing an open and enabling environment for civil society dialogue on the theme of human rights through expanded civil society monitoring and advocacy at various levels. To ensure the sustainability of the project’s outcomes we will establish an online platform and resource centre (an Online Resource Hub) for CSOs as well as a library where CSOs access the multi-lingual documents they need.