Though human rights funding often features in philanthropy news because it is inadequately resourced, funding for the issue increased by almost half since 2010, according to a new study. The Advancing Human Rights initiative, a collaboration between The Foundation Center and Human Rights Funders Network (HRFN) which has been studying the question since 2010, finds that between 2011 and 2015, foundation funding for human rights worldwide increased 44 per cent, from almost $1.4 billion to more than $2 billion.

The big gainers were funding for health and well-being rights (up by 77 per cent, from $145 million to $257 million and support for approaches like advocacy and systems reform, grassroots organising, and litigation and legal aid more than doubled. Clearly, there is no room for complacency, though. In a blog which AHRI is publishing in conjunction with these results, one contributor notes that, these gains notwithstanding, only two per cent of the funding goes to grassroots organising.

At the other end of the scale, funding for disability rights dropped by nearly a quarter (23 per cent), and funding to support research and documentation was down by 19 per cent.

Source: Nonprofit Times, 2 April, 2018, Advancing Human Rights