Promoting and protecting the rights of Human Rights Defenders The APF Regional Action Plan on Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) sets out the regional and national actions that the APF and our members will carry out at a regional and national level over a four-year period to recognise the inherent dignity of defenders and strengthen respect for their rights. A key regional action in the Plan is to strengthen the capacity of NHRIs in relation to HRDs. To achieve this, we developed a capacity development programme to support NHRIs both at the national and regional level as protectors of HRDs and as HRDs themselves. The activities included a facilitated online course, held during November and December 2021, that explored how NHRIs can protect and promote the work of HRDs, and ways in which participating NHRIs can implement the national actions outlined in the Plan. Additionally, the course featured a small grants programme for participating NHRIs to develop case studies on their work on HRDs to date, as well as an online community of practice for participants to continue to network with one another and collaborate on joint actions beyond the life of the course. In total, the course included 34 participants representing the NHRIs of Bahrain, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Palestine, Philippines, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor Leste. We have also partnered with the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) to create Operational Guidelines for the implementation of the national actions in the plan. These activities are part of the APF’s contribution to the NHRI.EU Project Phase II, funded by the European Union. “Our staff and the organisation as a whole have benefited from APF training exchanges. We’ve benefited from attending online APF forums and the lessons and development that come from participation in APF activities.” The New Zealand Human Rights Commission, APF Annual Member Survey 2021-22 16