Human Rights Cities
Representative Case Studies of HR Cities
For more than a decade the initiative to make human rights learning the foundational core of societal development has been implemented in disparate urban centers and with varying results. An examination of the formation and history of Human Rights Cities in Africa, Latin America, Europe and North America will record some of the achievements as well as the challenges these fledgling cities still face. A. Human Rights Cities in Africa More than in any other region Africa has seen the flourishing of Human Rights Cities. Although one could be tempted to group all the cities into a single category this would be a mistake. While certain similarities exist among the critical issues encountered in each city, the local and national histories, culture and external condition conditions, such as climate change and environmental sustainability, not to mention the history of conflict – both internal and external- have made categorization of these fifteen African Human Rights Cities impossible. 1. Ghana The Legal Resources Centre (LRC), a respected Ghanaian non-governmental organization with a strong human rights mission, provided the leadership for the creation of Human Rights Cities in Ghana. The mission of the LRC is to build human rights capacity for groups and individuals with a view to helping expand the frontiers of democratic development in Ghana within the framework of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana. Inherently embedded in the core mission of the LRC is the deployment and utilization of essential skills of Research, Advocacy and Advisory Services (RAAS), and bridging the gap between grassroots democratic and governance institutions and their counterparts at the national level. This approach proved to be an excellent fit withthe model and mission of the Human Rights Cities movement. All activities carried out by the LRC fall under either of the two
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