Open Briefing has published the Holistic Security Toolkit in English and Spanish. The Toolkit is a curated library of essential resources for specific communities of at-risk civic actors. The third-party resources can be filtered by language, community and/or domain. The Toolkit includes specific resources for women human rights defenders, LGBT+ activists, environmental defenders, and freelance journalists, with more to come.
Category: Blog
Human rights defenders: we need them more than ever!
Protecting and enabling human rights defenders during the COVID-19 pandemic is not just an obligation on states, but it is key to ensuring that efforts to recover from this crisis are effective, inclusive, respect human rights, and leave no one behind. Authorities must not use restrictions imposed during the pandemic to suppress relevant information uncomfortable for the government or use the situation as a pretext to crack down on critics and human rights defenders.
Protecting our co-workers during COVID-19: A social security protocol for civil society
We have a responsibility to act decisively to protect our co-workers from adverse health, social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. With this in mind, our CEO, Chris Abbott, has joined the secretary general of CIVICUS and more than 60 other leaders to initiate a social security protocol for civil society.
Open Briefing joins the #GlobalCeasefire campaign
Every person on the planet is threatened by COVID-19, but it is the most vulnerable that will pay the highest price. Open Briefing is one of nearly 200 civil society organisations around the world that have signed joint letters to the UN secretary general and the UN Security Council supporting the call for a #GlobalCeasefire to give everyone the chance to focus on overcoming this coronavirus. As a rights-based organisation, Open Briefing wholeheartedly supports this call.
Wellbeing and security support for your organisation during the COVID-19 pandemic
As we all adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic and the public health measures necessary to delay its spread, Open Briefing is offering several remote services to help organisations protect their people and operations during these challenging times. This includes contingency planning advisory calls and reviews, staff wellbeing checks and workshops, and digital security during homeworking.
Our response to the coronavirus pandemic
Given the UK government’s inadequate response to coronavirus and what will likely become a rapidly-developing situation here and elsewhere, it is sensible and prudent that Open Briefing takes steps now to reduce the risk to our people, operations and clients from the pandemic and associated repercussions. As such, we have today enacted a number of temporary measures with immediate effect.
2019 impact report
Open Briefing has published its impact report for 2019. We estimate that we directly strengthened the safety and resilience of 430 human rights defenders and other civic actors across the world during 2019 – a 23% increase on 2018. Beneficiaries that Open Briefing supported during 2019 reported an average 82% increase in confidence in their organisation’s security and/or wellbeing due to our work with them.
Remembering Andy Marshall
It is with great sadness that we must share the news that our colleague Andy Marshall died in his sleep on the night of 19 February.