Human rights giving hits $3.7B record, but some regions lag
Philanthropic funding to promote human rights globally reached a record $3.7 billion in 2018, according to a report released Wednesday. However, nearly half the donations came from 12 foundations, showing funding dependent on only a handful of donors, including The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and The Ford Foundation.
The joint report from the philanthropy research organization Candid and Human Rights Funders Network, a collection of global human rights donors, also found a low amount of direct donations to charities in developing regions.
The report analyzed contributions from more than 800 funders that sought to advance rights enshrined in human rights treaties, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a United Nations agreement that lays out broadly accepted civil and political rights, as well as social rights for education, health and other things.
Most of the contributions were earmarked for programs in North America, though, Rachel Thomas, the director of research initiatives at Human Rights Funders Network, says the lack of robust charitable data from outside the U.S. might have contributed to those results.
General global programs were the second largest recipient, followed by initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa - which received $291 million in contributions. Only $18 million was donated to support work in the Caribbean, a region currently experiencing dueling crises in Haiti and Cuba following the assassination of the Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, and antigovernment demonstrations in Cuba.
Most human rights funding earmarked for programs in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean was not given to organizations based in those regions, the report found. Experts with the Council on Foundations, an association of grantmakers, say administrative hurdles — and restrictive foreign funding laws in...
