ARDF - Empowering Angolan Public Defenders

The U.S. Embassy to Angola and Sao Tome e Principe in Luanda is pleased to announce the availability of an open competition funding opportunity to carry out a project to empower lawyers, legal professionals, and human rights defenders to advocate for access to justice for vulnerable populations and provide adequate defense in cases of human rights violations, particularly in cases related to freedom of speech and assembly and arbitrary detention of human rights defenders. The project aims to create a unified vision for the legal defense of human rights in Angola. While the law states that all detainees have a right to legal counsel, either chosen by them or appointed by the government on a pro bono basis, legal professionals report that there are an insufficient number of lawyers to handle the volume of criminal cases. This situation is exacerbated for vulnerable populations (women, youth, underrepresented ethnic groups), detainees outside of Luanda, and cases involving sensitive human rights issues. This project should complement and build upon prior and ongoing work in these areas by international organizations, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs), but ideally would seek to meet challenges not currently being addressed by other projects.