From 7 to 14 August 2024, the CYRILLA Global Policy Advocacy Workshop was held virtually. Activists and practitioners from Asia, Africa, LAC, and MENA joined the event in two batches from different time zones. This was a useful capacity-building opportunity for digital rights defenders to strengthen their skills in advocacy in international spaces to expand the horizon of digital rights. Bytesforall Bangladesh with its long record of working on digital rights participated the event.
The major objectives of the workshop were to enable collaboration within and amongst digital rights communities across regions, to learn to develop effective and responsive advocacy strategies at the international level for participants, and to understand better how CYRILLA can aid advocacy practitioners in these efforts.
Global experts facilitated the sessions introducing global policy advocacy, the legal framework for global advocacy, UN and other spaces for digital rights advocacy, and strategies for effective engagement. Participants through several exercises practised the learning during the workshop as a group and between sessions, individually.
Experts who facilitated the sessions are: Maria Paz Canales, a Chilean Lawyer currently heading Legal, Policy and Research at Global Partners Digital (GPD); Sheetal Kumar, an independent Consultant with expertise in internet governance, human rights and digital technology policy; Anriette Esterhuysen, and APC Associate and a Senior Advisor on internet governance and Convenor of African School on Internal Governance; and Gayatri Khandhadai, Head of Technology and Human Rights at Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.
Through the workshop, participants became familiarised with spaces and mechanisms of international advocacy that can be leveraged to promote digital rights. And joined a platform for meaningful engagement to discuss the development of effective advocacy strategies at the international level and an opportunity for cross-regional connections for more impactful advocacy work.
(Text by: Fayaz Ahmed
Photo credit: Cathy Chen from the APC comms team)