Focus of the Peace and Human Rights Division
The Peace and Human Rights Division (PHRD) focuses in particular on enhancing the resilience of democracies using the instruments of diplomacy for democracy. This involves bilateral and multilateral dialogues and dialogue platforms, networks and political communication, agile support for positive democratic developments and the provision of infrastructure for relevant events, platforms and dialogues ('good offices').
The PHRD is active in multilateral forums and strengthens the global narrative presenting democracy as a functioning and forward-looking model with tangible and measurable benefits. It also supports projects to boost democratic resilience, particularly in connection with elections and parliaments, participation and deliberation, and the rule of law.
Given its focus on strengthening democratic resilience, the PHRD concentrates primarily on countries that already have some democratic structures and are either affected by democratic backsliding or are seeing new democratic openings emerge. This means that it tends to operate in different contexts and with different thematic priorities than the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), which focuses on governance issues. Where thematic or geographical synergies exist, the two work closely together.