Unrepresented Diplomats

Mar 20, 2019

The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), together with our partners, including the University of Oxford and the Tibet Justice Centre have developed several toolkits as a part of the larger programme "Training Diplomats from Unrepresented Nations: Capacity Building for Effective Lobbying".

Our unrepresented diplomats campaign project aims to empower minority and indigenous people from across the world in their journey as pacific activists. The UNPO along with its experts have developed toolkits which covers broad topics such as UN advocacy, digital security, business and human rights and tactics in non-violent resistance for its unrepresented diplomats.

It was crucial to reflect, assess and prioritize the different issues within unrepresented nations and people communities which often deals with several similar issues. From there, the UNPO and its patners chose and developed these toolkits

These toolkits provide participant the necessary information not only to engage with national, regional and international bodies on the implementation of their rights, particularly the right to self-determination in various contexts but also to pursue their activities more safely. These toolkits covers essential information which translate theory into practice for any activists especially unrepresented diplomats.

The first toolkit we have launched is entitled “UN Advocacy Training Pack” which is a tailor-made manual to support the participants in facilitating training on UN Advocacy, and will serve as an empowering tool to provide more and more unrepresented peoples with the resources to make their plight known at the international level.

The manual details a training session which is grouped into 4 separate days divided thematically. The days cover “Your Story of Change”, “UN Human Rights Mechanisms”, “Developing Your Strategy” and “Communicating Your Case”. These ‘days’ provide a wide range of resources, providing advice and guidelines on how to run the sessions, including activities, information, PowerPoint presentations and reports.

The second toolkit launched is entitled “Digital Security training Pack” which is also a tailor made manual to raise awareness on Cyber risks and provides tips and tricks to use internet connection more safely. In this toolkits our experts shared the basis of Cybersecurity to protect and preserve activists personal data.

The training is divided in 8 parts tackling different topic ranging from “protecting your data on your Personal computer and phone” to “Browsing the internet confidentially”. As digital security are activists first concerns, we ended the toolkit with answers to some frequently asked questions which as appreciated by most participants.

Later this year, UNPO will launched the third toolkit entitled “Business and Human Rights” which tackles human rights violations in relation to business development. This toolkit has been developed due to a request from its members where it was asked to shares practical information for their issues.

Throughout this toolkit will give a better insight of the existing issues among our members in regards to Business development and Human Rights where tools and mechanism will be provided to preserve the rights of unrepresented diplomats. Unlike other of our toolkit, this one will provide unrepresented diplomats resources to engage with private entity through legal frame work.

All our training packs and future training packs take to the next level the UNPO's SpeakOut programme, a long-running capacity building program and was built on our successful work to empower minority and indigenous communities. These training packs is designed to be spoken and easily replicable so that the trainees can easily take this to their respective communities and reach a wider audience.