Open Society Institute and the Soros Foundations Network

s Foundation Soro Soros Foundations Network Report 2008 s N etwork R etwork

Human Rights 2008 eport Justice Accountability

We ArE . . . This annual report describes 2008 activities of the Open Society Institute and the Soros foundations network. For daily reports about open society issues, go to OSI’s website, www.soros.org.

SOROS FOUNDATIONS NETWORK REPORT 2008

c o v e r photography c r e d i t s t o p l e f t Pamela Chen, “We Are Roma,” page 30 t o p r i g h t Karen Robinson, “We Are British,” page 38 b o t t o m l e f t Aubrey Wade, “We Are Mauritanians,” page 6 b o t t o m r i g h t Jon Anderson, “We Are Dominicans,” page 20

Complete photography credits appear on page 96. Soros Foundations Network Report 2008

2 President’s Message A Celebration of Ongoing Work

6 WE ARE MAURITANIANS 14 Securing Citizenship for Millions of Stateless People

20 WE ARE DOMINICANS 28 Dominican by Birth, Haitian in Name Only

30 WE ARE ROMA 34 Roma Health Scholars Learn to Help Their People

38 WE ARE BRITISH

46 Human Rights and Justice 50 Public Health 54 Education, Information, and Media 58 Other Programs 60 U.S. Programs

64 OPEN SOCIETY IN EASTERN EUROPE

70 Europe 74 Asia 77 Middle East and North Africa 78 Africa 82 Latin America and the Caribbean 84 Open Society Institute 88 Expenditures 90 Directory 96 Credits

President’s Message

A Celebration of Ongoing Work

Thirty years ago George Soros began supporting efforts to promote open society. Five years later he established a foundation in Hungary which signaled the start of the distinctive network that now operates in all parts of the globe.

Photograph by Karen Robinson Community police officer, Leicester, United Kingdom Looking back over those 30 years, certain also on the discriminatory treatment accomplishments stand out. Aside from of immigrants. successes in helping to promote, through an In Central and Eastern Europe, including array of activities, the emergence of more the Balkans, a major part of our work open societies in particular countries, the has been to address both the immediate accomplishments include global leadership harms and the long-term consequences of in promoting freedom of information, discrimination against the Roma minority. budget transparency, and accountability We have also addressed problems particular for the revenues from the exploitation of to certain countries, such as discrimination natural resources; efforts to develop and make against ethnic Russians in Latvia and Estonia; effective such institutions as the Global Fund against Albanians in Macedonia; and against to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Serbs in Kosovo. the Extractive Industries Transparency In Russia, and also in Western European Initiative, and the International Criminal countries, we have worked to end ethnic Court, all of which contribute to global profiling and initiated efforts to secure legal governance on crucial issues that must be remedies against it. In recent years, we have addressed transnationally; increased access also monitored the problem of discrimination

Problems associated with discrimination against minorities do not

to justice both for criminal defendants and, against Muslims in some Western European in civil matters, for those not able to afford countries and we now have underway legal representation; and mitigation of the a major research and advocacy project devastating consequences of armed conflict. concerned with the situation of Muslim minorities in 11 European Union cities. Discrimination Against In African states, denial of citizenship Minorities or nationality to certain ethnic groups is Another area where we have been deeply one of our important concerns. In other engaged—and where we have had some parts of the world, we have focused efforts successes, though the challenges that continue on discrimination against other minority to confront us are very great—is the effort to communities such as the Palestinians in Israel, mitigate the effects of discrimination against Dominicans of Haitian ancestry, and the minorities. This aim is central to our work in Burmese in Thailand. many places. It has been a dominant theme of the Open Society Institute’s programs in Discrimination in Open Societies the United States where, from the start, we This year’s annual report highlights some of have focused on the particular harm done to the activities the network has undertaken minorities by the criminal justice system and to address discrimination against minorities

soros foundations network Report 2008 4 in a number of countries. The issue plays by minorities in the United States, and such a large role in our work because the supported programs that assist migrants in the problems associated with discrimination process of becoming citizens. We have directly against minorities do not necessarily diminish engaged in precedent-setting litigation when countries make transitions from to challenge discriminatory practices and repressive regimes to more open societies. created legal programs to support this work; On the contrary, it is sometimes the case—as conducted training programs for local officials with respect to the Roma in the former on governance of multiethnic communities; communist countries of Central and Eastern sponsored arts programs to promote cultural Europe—that there are actually more expression by minorities; supported minority opportunities in relatively open societies media; and sponsored economic development for demagogues to exploit hostility against programs focused on minorities—to name minorities for their own political purposes. only a few efforts. Another common aspect of discrimination Underlying these activities, of course, is against minorities is also a significant concern a belief that an essential characteristic of an at this time: discriminatory practices tend open society is that all people count equally to increase during periods of financial and that all should enjoy equal opportunities. crisis. Resentment against migrants may be Virtually every component of the network particularly acute in such a crisis because has been engaged in these efforts. In some they are seen as competitors for scarce jobs. areas, progress is frustratingly difficult; in

necessarily diminish when countries make transitions from repressive regimes to more open societies. Also, minorities who have suffered from discrimination and marginalization may be stereotyped as disproportionate consumers of others, we have made substantial headway. social services. That progress is possible was, of course, affirmed in a spectacular way when a black Efforts to Mitigate man with the name Barack Hussein Obama Discrimination was elected as president of the United States. The Open Society Institute has engaged Speaking personally as someone who was in a wide range of activities to mitigate involved in the civil rights struggle in the discrimination. We have supported education United States half a century ago, I did not programs for Roma ranging from early believe then that such a thing was possible in childhood to postgraduate training in my lifetime and still find myself amazed by professional disciplines, and launched this achievement. programs to ensure that the Roma obtain access to health services. We have established Aryeh Neier debate programs at urban schools attended June 2009

soros foundations network Report 2008 5 we are Mauritanians

The Open Society Institute

is fighting for every person’s

right to citizenship, opposing

the power of state authorities

to exclude anyone they

dislike for their race, ethnicity,

politics, sexual orientation,

gender, or religion.

Photographs by Aubrey Wade Returning Mauritanians, Lisse Rosso, Mauritania

Exiled Mauritanians in Dagana, Senegal soros foundations network Report 2008 10 returning Mauritanians in the temporary settlement of Lisse rosso Returned Mauritanians in the village of Medina Salam

Securing Citizenship for Millions of Stateless People

Mahmout Diagne and his family called Lisse Rosso. There, in September were expelled in 1989 from their country, 2008, as he reclined on a mat spread beside Mauritania, and informed by their a tent he was sharing with his wife and nine government that they were no longer children, Diagne talked about his life. He Mauritanian. Indeed, in its public rhetoric had no job. His family’s food had nearly run of Arab nationalism, the Mauritanian state out. And the dry season was approaching. suggested that the Diagne family, and Yet Diagne felt his struggle was worth it. the approximately 75,000 other black For almost two decades, he had lingered in Mauritanians expelled with them, had never forced exile in Senegal with no identification been Mauritanian in the first place. card, no passport, no right to vote, no legal The Diagnes joined the ranks of the standing to hold a job or travel freely. Now, stateless, who today number at least 12 by persevering in Lisse Rosso, it seemed, million worldwide. Statelessness can be Mahmout Diagne might regain from his perpetrated as part of an ethnic cleansing homeland legal recognition that he and his exercise, as in the Mauritanian case, where family were citizens in every sense. states legally disown the citizens they do not want, expelling people, confiscating and destroying their ID cards. But statelessness Who Is a Citizen? can also be perpetrated through years of The Open Society Justice Initiative supports stonewalling, repeated denials of citizenship and pursues local, regional, and international documents that leave individuals in limbo, efforts to help the world’s stateless people still living in their country of birth, but gain or regain citizenship. “Combating without rights. statelessness challenges one of the most Statelessness is so intolerable that it fundamental aspects of state sovereignty: the impelled Mahmout Diagne and his family power of government to determine who is to leave their home in exile, an orderly and is not a citizen,” said James Goldston, Senegalese village, when a return to executive director of the Open Society Mauritania became possible. They chose Justice Initiative. “Whether our focus is to endure heat, dust, mud, thirst, and the rights of blacks from Mauritania, people physical hardship in a windswept, bare- of Haitian ancestry in the Dominican earth settlement of returned Mauritanians Republic, the Nubian people of Kenya,

soros foundations network Report 2008 14 Kenya Denies Nubians Rights and Benefits

Many of the more than 100,000 Nubians in Kenya cannot obtain identity cards or passports and are barred from traveling, working in the formal sector, and benefiting from government services. The state’s refusal to recognize Nubians as citizens encourages ethnic discrimination and hostility toward them throughout Kenya. The Justice Initiative is acting as co-counsel in a case before the African Commission, alleging that the Kenyan government’s actions constitute a discriminatory denial of citizenship to the country’s Nubians.

or the ‘erased’ people of Slovenia, the or Nepal, where populations that may have Justice Initiative aims to tear down this moved decades or generations ago are still last bastion of discretionary prerogative by categorized as “refugees.” making citizenship denial and statelessness Loss of citizenship has a devastating impact international human rights issues.” upon the victims, even if they have not been To secure political power or to pursue physically deported. It prevents people from the idea of a mythical national identity, sharing in the responsibilities citizenship many governments block or revoke the demands. It systematically cheats people of citizenship of members of particular ethnic, access to public services, including health racial, religious, or social groups. They do so care, education, and housing. Many victims by changing the law, or simply by applying descend into extreme poverty, and too many citizenship laws in discriminatory ways, become prey to human-trafficking and consigning unwanted citizens to a state of slavery networks. Depriving people of their perpetual illegitimacy by refusing to issue citizenship also warps political life and can them the documents they need to prove undermine the security and well-being of their citizenship. entire countries and regions. Discriminatory manipulation of citizenship The Justice Initiative has taken a is common in countries with ethnically or leading role among the nongovernmental racially mixed populations that have emerged organizations working strategically to from defunct multiethnic states like the establish citizenship as an inalienable human successor states to the Soviet Union and right and to strengthen international law, Yugoslavia; in countries like Kenya, that have which fails, for example, even to define the a colonial past and multiethnic populations; circumstances under which individuals have or areas of regional conflict such as Burma a right to claim citizenship of a specific

soros foundations network Report 2008 15 country. It has developed statements of principle on statelessness and joined with other organizations to promote their Pakistan adoption by international bodies, including Refuses to Admit the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Committee on Loyalists from the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Bangladesh African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the African Union. When Bangladesh split from Pakistan in a civil The Justice Initiative has also launched war in 1971, hundreds of thousands of people or supported litigation aimed at resolving loyal to Pakistan were stranded. Pakistan has specific inequities that statelessness has caused. On a strategic level, it has litigated to refused to accept these people, many of whom promote the development, by international are still living in internal refugee camps. The human rights tribunals, of a critical mass of Justice Initiative will submit an amicus brief legal precedent that will limit the power of in a case to be filed in the Supreme Court of governments to render people stateless and to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, or Pakistan arguing that these people had the ethnicity in the administration of citizenship right to choose their citizenship and Pakistan laws and regulations. committed an arbitrary and discriminatory act in “As a complement to other advocacy,” denationalizing them. Goldston said, “litigation effectively spotlights the untenable justifications governments frequently offer to defend actions to withhold or withdraw citizenship, or distinguish arbitrarily between citizens and noncitizens.” The litigation that the Justice Initiative has supported includes cases brought against and challenged this ruling. The Justice the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Pakistan, Initiative supported a study to monitor Slovenia, and Zimbabwe. In the Dominican the citizenship policies of the Dominican Republic, for example, the government government since the court’s ruling. systematically denies the rights of citizenship to Dominicans of Haitian descent. The Justice Initiative filed an amicus curiae brief that Who Is Mauritanian? helped secure a landmark ruling in 2005 In 1989, Mauritania’s Arab-dominated by the Inter-American Court of Human government revoked the citizenship of Rights in Dilcia Yean and Violeta Bosico v. Mahmout Diagne and an estimated 75,000 Dominican Republic. The court ruled that other blacks and had the police and army the government discriminated on the basis deport most of them into neighboring of race in denying Dominicans of Haitian Senegal (up to 15,000 blacks were expelled descent access to the rights of citizenship, to Mali). The guns just happened to be and ordered it to extend citizenship rights pointed primarily at black civil servants, to all Dominicans of Haitian descent. The prosperous black merchants, and black land Dominican Republic subsequently ignored owners, so the government found itself with

soros foundations network Report 2008 16 a windfall of vacant jobs and unprotected assets to distribute to Arabic-speaking loyalists. The government had reconsidered Slovenia the expulsions by 1994. About half of the Denationalizes Longtime exiles had returned by 1997; however, many subsequently left again because they could Residents not regain recognition of their nationality and get their lands back. In 1996, Slovenia’s government placed the In 2000, the African Commission ruled names of 18,305 longtime residents who had that Mauritania had breached the African failed to apply for citizenship on a register Charter when it undertook the deportations. of foreigners residing illegally in Slovenia, This ruling and the installation of a new government in Mauritania during 2007 and it has since denied them social services presented the Justice Initiative and its partners including health care and education. The Justice with an opportunity to press for the return Initiative has submitted arguments before the of the rest of the black deportees lingering European Court of Human Rights in Makuc, et in Senegal. In January 2008, under United Nations auspices, a return began, and 4,760 al. v. Slovenia, a case brought by 11 longtime people found their way back into Mauritania residents of Slovenia who are challenging the before the rainy season made further travel government’s action depriving them of their impossible. legal status. “Despite the hardship it has entailed, the return to Mauritania of thousands of people who had been forcibly deported and rendered de facto stateless constitutes one of the most successful, if belated and still incomplete, efforts to combat statelessness and citizenship deprivation in recent years,” the police surrounded the place, packed Goldston said. practically everyone into pick-up trucks, and The challenges of the return and the dumped them at a ferry crossing to Senegal. perseverance of the people who have risked The 59 exiled families that returned in making it are evident in two locations on 2008 could not be absorbed back into the Mauritania’s side of the Senegal River: cooperative because, the earlier returnees say, Medina Salam, a long-established village of their numbers would so dilute the profits as rice farmers with its own mosque, school, and to make survival impossible for everyone. water tower, and Lisse Rosso, the temporary, Many exiles who returned in 2008 became at least for now, settlement where Mahmout dollar-a-day farm laborers. Diagne and his family were placed. At a gathering of Medina Salam’s villagers Medina Salam welcomed home about 45 in September 2008, one of these laborers, exiled families in the wave of returns that 35-year-old Modou Gueye, lamented that ended in 1997. The Mauritanian government, he and his family had consumed almost all however, returned only half of the land of the wheat flour, beans, oil, and sugar they that the village cooperative was holding received from the United Nations. “After this in common on that day in 1989 when aid is gone, I will barely be able to sustain

soros foundations network Report 2008 17 myself,” he said. “We were given cows, but I Another villager at Medina Salam spent 10 don’t have enough milk, and even the cow days in jail after approaching the Mauritanian is sick. In Senegal, I had the opportunity authorities and complaining that a local to participate in a farming program with police officer had occupied his land. “We all microcredit. We were able to work. When we think about going back to Senegal,” said yet came here we were promised land.” another villager, Yousuf Niang, age 39. “We “The women know they are heading have seen nothing of what they promised. for hardship,” said Gueye, who was helping It is mental torture to look at your land, see to support two wives, five children, and his someone else farming it, and not be able to mother. “I left in Senegal a house with two get it back.” rooms, one for each wife. Now, I have a tent Still, they have persevered. Some of the that is more like an oven. And one of my exiles who returned to Medina Salam have wives stayed in Senegal.” gone to seek jobs in Rosso, a nearby town, or in Mauritania’s capital, Nouakchott. But well-paying employment is difficult to find, especially when the people returning have no official Mauritanian identification card. Of the 291 persons who had returned to Medina Salam by September 2008, only two had received a personal identification card from the Mauritanian government. Others had only a Mugabe receipt showing that they had been registered Removes Citizenship of for a card. Opponents in Zimbabwe

Using a new law prohibiting dual nationality, Who Gets an ID Card? Mahmout Diagne, who is 51, and his President Robert Mugabe’s government has wife, Oumou Diaw, 41, were promised refused to issue identity cards or passports identification papers when they returned to to anyone suspected of having “foreign” Mauritania in April 2008 and set up camp in citizenship—in practice, those with “foreign” Lisse Rosso. They also believed they had been promised something to compensate for the names—unless they formally renounced their losses Diagne suffered when he was driven supposed foreign citizenship. The move from the country. disenfranchised opposition supporters, Months of uncertainty followed their commercial farmers, and independent return. Lisse Rosso is nothing but eight white, single-room blockhouses and a few newspaper owners. The Justice Initiative and dozen tents. Barred from planting crops, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa Lisse Rosso’s men risked grazing their cattle are supporting cases brought in Zimbabwean on someone else’s land or cut fodder with courts on behalf of individuals rendered machetes on a nearby riverbank and carried it stateless by Mugabe’s decision. back in plastic bags for their sheep, goats, and cows. By September, Diagne’s family had also consumed almost all of its one-time United

soros foundations network Report 2008 18 Nations food allotment, which was supposed said. “But when I saw my rights were gone, to have lasted only three months. I was disappointed. We were supposed to Oumou Diaw talked of returning to the spend no more than 15 days in temporary house their family had occupied during tents. Nothing was done. They [the United their exile across the river in Senegal. Nations refugee-relief agency] said we’d get Diagne and Diaw had been small merchants identification cards from the Mauritanian in Senegal. They managed to build a five- government. Nothing. I sold my cow and calf room house and raise a family. They took and started to trade. I realized I couldn’t do advantage of the nearby school and health anything with that, so I returned.” care facilities. And they did not leave these Amadou Sy’s neighbor, Mansour assets behind without hedging their risk. Harouna, who was 24 when the Mauritanian They left their home in the care of a friend. government expelled him, heard Sy lament They made sure there were guarantees that about Lisse Rosso. But Harouna has not they could return to Senegal if Mauritania struck his name from the list of exiles who failed to honor its commitments. have signed up to return. “It is not because Diagne speaks of working again as a I am suffering here,” Harouna said. “I earn merchant. He and Oumou Diaw have already a respectable living breeding cattle. In set out snack foods and other items in a Mauritania, I will be living in a hut or a tent. makeshift kiosk in a metal locker standing But I am going back.” on the bare earth outside his tent. Diaw “It is a matter of principle,” he insisted. said that life for her has become tougher in “My parents are still there. And I would be Mauritania. “Here you have to go into the returning to their village. We have been living bush to collect cooking wood,” she said. there for five centuries.” “Then you have to walk to the market, and it is a long way. Then, when you come back, you go to collect water and cook under the sun.” “I am not used to the dust and the heat, but I am back at home,” she said. “It is not exciting, but I am back at home.” Diagne clutched his tattered Koran. “A man sometimes has to face hardship,” he said, “and to trust in God to change things.” Thousands of Mauritanian exiles still in Senegal have signed up to make their way back to their homeland. They have heard about unfulfilled promises and the hardship in Lisse Rosso and other settlements on the OSI ONLINE Mauritanian side of the river. Learn more about the global problem In Dagana, a Senegalese village just across of statelessness and efforts to secure the river from Medina Salam, Amadou Sy, citizenship rights for all people. 36, described life in Lisse Rosso for his neighbors. “I was very excited after 19 years, www.soros.org/ar08/stateless I was going to get back all my rights,” he

soros foundations network Report 2008 19

“My parents are Haitian

but not me, I am Dominican.

I was born here.

My children need their IDs

and birth certificates to go

to university. If they don’t

have those documents, it is

as if they don’t exist. Without

studies, what’s their life?

Nothing. To the left of zero.”

Maria we are DOMINICANs

Photographs by Jon Anderson Maria, standing in middle, with her family, Dominican Republic “They told me they wouldn’t register my son. They said I have a Haitian last name. But I am Dominican. If you are born here, you are Dominican, that’s the law. You could be the child of French, Chinese parents, doesn’t matter. But they didn’t want to register the boy.” Javier, husband of Ruth “i am dominican. both of my parents are dominican. They suggested i register the boy on my own. i said no. This is my country and i am married. He is the father of the boy. i am not going to register him alone.” RUtH, WIfE Of JAvIER “When my daughter was born, I went to register her to get health insurance. They said, ‘We don’t give documents to children of immigrants.’ That was a shock because I don’t know anything about Haiti. That’s my parents’ country, but I am Dominican. This attacks the lives of so many people. It’s like civil genocide. Without identity we are nobody.” Danilo

soros foundations network Report 2008 24 soros foundations network Report 2008 25

“i am a lawyer, i was born here. i have a wife and children here. i have bank accounts. i have a piece of land and a small business. i love my country, and i am going to fight for my nationality. i am selling my grocery shop, selling my land. why? if they deny my nationality, don’t you think they could take away my right to property? To fight, i shouldn’t have anything.” DIONISIO Dominican by Birth, Haitian in Name Only

For an upstanding, native-born citizen Dominicans. Dionisio owns his home, a of the Dominican Republic, renewing a small grocery store, and some property. passport should be a simple task. Bring an He has a firearms license, credit cards, and official copy of a birth certificate, the current bank accounts. passport, photos, and any other required He has known for years that Article 11 identification documents. Fill out the forms. of his country’s constitution recognizes the Stand in line. Pay the fee. Take a receipt. Wait. Dominican citizenship of anyone born on As an upstanding, native-born citizen the country’s territory, except infants born of the Dominican Republic, this is what to diplomats or foreigners “in transit”— Dionisio assumed. He wanted to renew understood for decades to mean those in the his Dominican passport to prepare for an country for fewer than 10 days. Dionisio’s upcoming visit to his wife’s parents in the parents—a sugar cane cutter and a bread United States. So he went to a government seller who immigrated five decades ago from office and stood in line for an official copy neighboring Haiti—raised their five children of his birth certificate. The young clerk was in the Dominican Republic, and lived there polite when she told Dionisio that she could as legal residents for decades. not issue the document. She advised Dionisio Dionisio remained standing as the judge to take his request to a judge. answered: “I can’t give it to you because you Dionisio was standing as he spoke to the have a Haitian last name.” judge, because the judge had not offered “How is this possible?” Dionisio asked. him a seat. Dionisio thought this was odd. “Look at my parents’ papers.” Dionisio Dionisio is well known in his community, presented the documents with registry and as much a Dominican and as much an numbers and official stamps. He showed the officer of the court as the judge herself. state residency permit his father had used to Dionisio had worked his way through travel out of the Dominican Republic in 1976. college in a job with a pineapple-canning The judge replied: “I have orders not to company. He had become a lawyer, and a give a birth certificate to anyone who has a Dominican university issued the diploma Haitian last name, because we are purifying hanging on a wall in his home. His wife, our municipality.” a Dominican citizen, is also an attorney. Dionisio was still standing when he They have four children, all native-born absorbed the sting of the word purify.

soros foundations network Report 2008 28 The Dominican Republic is home to about children based upon the immigration status 9.8 million people, hundreds of thousands of of their parents. It ordered the Dominican whom are Dominicans of Haitian descent. government to stop discriminating against Their ancestors came from Haiti to find persons of Haitian descent. The Justice work—often on the sugar plantations. This Initiative filed an amicus brief in the case. journey was not uncommon nor was it Instead of complying with the court’s discouraged; thousands came with the express order, the government effectively began permission of the Dominican government. denying even more Dominicans of Haitian Despite welcoming workers from Haiti, descent the rights attached to citizenship. the government has never hesitated to use Today, government offices refuse to issue Haitians and their offspring as scapegoats for lifelong Dominican citizens like Dionisio the country’s economic or political problems. certified copies of birth certificates and other Dominicans of Haitian descent are just documents that the government had issued like other Dominican citizens. They are lawfully for decades. teachers, lawyers, and doctors; they pay taxes Dionisio has contacted other Dominicans and are active in their communities. Born of Haitian descent to stand and resist the on Dominican soil, they are just as much government’s actions, which are threatening citizens as Dominicans without Haitian to push them into the limbo of statelessness. ancestry. But now, the country’s leaders claim The majority of them, however, are not that practically every person in the country willing to do anything because of their fear with a Haitian last name—even Dominicans of losing what few benefits they still enjoy. of Haitian descent who have parents or He too is afraid. grandparents born in the Dominican “Why?” Dionisio asked. “Because if they Republic—are no longer citizens, despite can take away my nationality, they can take previously having been recognized as citizens anything away from me. Without my identity by the state. papers, I am nobody.” The Open Society Justice Initiative has But Dionisio is ready to fight for his rights. worked since 2005 to help ensure that “All I’m asking is that we respect the all citizens of the Dominican Republic, existing laws.” regardless of their ethnic background, can exercise their right to enjoy the full benefits of citizenship: to access state health care, to obtain public education for their children, to vote and to run for political office, and to obtain basic documents, including birth certificates and passports. To this end, the Justice Initiative supports monitoring and OSI ONLINE documentation efforts in the Dominican View videos of Dionisio and other Republic. It is providing advisory assistance Dominicans of Haitian descent telling for ongoing strategic litigation. their personal stories of discrimination, In its decision in Dilcia Yean and Violeta identity, love, and fear. Bosico v. Dominican Republic, the Inter- www.soros.org/ar08/dominicans American Court of Human Rights held that no state can deny citizenship to native-born

soros foundations network Report 2008 29 Roma health scholars, studying to become

doctors, nurses, and pharmacologists,

will help transform health care, shattering

stereotypes while combating the

discriminatory treatment of Roma patients.

We Are ROMA

soros foundations network Report 2008 30 At a camp before the start of medical school classes, Roma health scholar applicants learn to become effective advocates for Roma rights in health care settings.

Photographs by Pamela Chen soros foundations network Report 2008 32 roma health scholars listen to Lacatus Codrea, the bulibasa, or elder, of Vanatori, romania, describe the hardships endured by roma in his community. Roma Health Scholars Learn to Help Their People

During his decades as the elder, or community to emerge from behind walls bulibasa, of a community of about 250 Roma of mistrust. living in the eastern foothills of Romania’s On a September morning in 2008, Carpathian Mountains, 60-year-old Lacatus Codrea shared his experiences and insights Codrea has gathered many insights tempered with participants in an unprecedented new by adversity. initiative of the Open Society Institute and Codrea saw a mob torch his community, the Roma Education Fund to improve chase the people into a forest, and use medical care for Roma in Central and automobiles to raze every structure the flames Eastern Europe by addressing the paucity of had spared. “We were not allowed to rebuild Roma medical professionals. In the autumn our homes,” he said. Fifteen years passed as semester of 2008, the Open Society Institute he pleaded with local officials to issue began funding scholarships for 35 Roma the Roma building permits so they could students pursuing degrees in medicine, improve the dirt-floored shanties they had nursing, pharmacology, and related disciplines clapped together to shelter themselves and at accredited schools and universities in their children. Romania. For decades, Codrea watched helplessly On that dreary September morning, the as neighbors succumbed to violence and program brought scholarship applicants alcohol abuse. He saw children grow to and their mentors to Vanatori to meet and adulthood without being vaccinated, and take counsel from Codrea and others in the pregnant Roma women go without visiting Roma community. Partners of the Open a doctor. He still sees the confused gazes of Society Institute’s Roma Health Project undernourished Roma infants. considered it critical for the students to visit Codrea has looked into the dazed eyes of Roma settlements like Vanatori. With few his own 13-year-old granddaughter, Adina, exceptions, the scholarship applicants were who was partially paralyzed for hours after Roma who had schooling and jobs, and who touching a live power cable; and he erupted resided in integrated neighborhoods in towns in anger at doctors and nurses who refused to and cities. examine and treat her. The students had to learn firsthand about Yet, despite all he has seen, Codrea the hardships endured by less-fortunate has helped convince the people of his Roma who huddle in substandard housing

soros foundations network Report 2008 34 on the fringes of the greater society. They resort to begging or toil in the lowest-paying jobs. They lack educational opportunities Suing and navigate the world through the fog of to Improve illiteracy. They lack health insurance and the money to pay doctors the informal “gratuity” Health Care the doctors have come to expect, and depend upon, to augment their low salaries. The European Committee of Social Rights In some countries of Central and Eastern in 2008 announced that it would take up a Europe, the average life expectancy for the complaint filed by an OSI partner, the European Roma is 10 years less than the average for the Roma Rights Centre, alleging that Bulgaria has majority population, and the infant mortality rates for Roma are twice as high. Throughout systematically denied Roma access to health the region, Roma suffer disproportionate care. The complaint charges that the Bulgarian rates of tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS, viral government has violated EU regulations by, hepatitis, Type-2 diabetes, coronary artery among other things, not taking any measures disease, adult obesity, malnutrition, anemia, dystrophy, and childhood rickets. Human to end widespread discriminatory practices rights groups have even documented against Roma by doctors and other health instances of emergency services failing to care practitioners. “The Bulgarian government, respond to calls for help from places inhabited like the governments of other countries with by Roma. A crucial element of the Open Society large Roma populations, has taken on many Institute’s effort to help break down the obligations in joining the European Union,” barriers that keep the Roma from accessing said Robert Kushen, managing director of the health care services is the Roma Health European Roma Rights Centre. “But they have Project, a part of OSI’s Public Health yet to live up to these obligations.” Program. With other programs and grantees in the Soros foundations network, the Roma Health Project is fostering the development of sound public health policies across Central and Eastern Europe—and especially in six priority countries, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine. It has initiated programs to respond to the challenges of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis, and drug addiction. Roma community. “This is important, because drug use in the Roma community is taboo, and it is problematic even to Bringing Harm Reduction talk about HIV prevention and sexually to a Roma Community transmitted diseases,” said Eva Foldes, program The Roma Health Project helped a coordinator of the Roma Health Project. nongovernmental organization launch “Until now, Roma have not had access to a Bulgaria’s first methadone program in a culturally tailored harm reduction program.

soros foundations network Report 2008 35 This program brings harm reduction right the Roma community’s access to health care into their community.” by organizing courses to train new health mediators as liaisons between the Roma community and local health care providers. Righting the Wrong of Coerced Sterilization The Roma Health Project is supporting an Roma Health Mediators advocacy campaign aimed at obtaining justice The Open Society Institute and its partners and compensation for Roma women who have in recent years helped broaden the skill have been victims of coerced sterilization. sets of Roma health mediators in Romania The campaign was launched at the 2008 and introduce the Roma health-mediator Women’s World Congress, where activists concept to Ukraine and other countries organized a panel discussion on the issue of Central and Eastern Europe. These and promoted efforts to contact officials in mediators inform Roma of their rights, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Roma and document cases of discrimination in activists subsequently met with government health care settings. They help Roma obtain officials in the two countries and urged necessary documents that give them access them to support the amendment of laws on to state health care services. They help effect sterilization and provide compensation for vaccination campaigns. They calm tempers victims of coerced sterilization. when disagreements arise between Roma and medical professionals. One health mediator, Carmen Andrei, Raising Awareness of the Grim called upon the bulibasa, Lacatus Codrea, in Realities of Roma Health an attempt to enroll the Roma of Vanatori in The Roma Health Project in 2008 worked to a mass vaccination program. Andrei pleaded raise awareness in the English-speaking world with the Roma for over a year, and they did about the deplorable health care problems not respond. It was a matter of mistrust and, faced by so many Roma in Romania by Codrea said, miscommunication. supporting the translation and distribution Even though Andrei was herself a Roma, of investigative articles commissioned Vanatori’s Roma considered her a gajo, from a number of Romanian newspapers someone from outside the Roma community. in collaboration with the Center for Codrea said,“The first time she came in, she Independent Journalism in Bucharest. started talking and didn’t stop for half an The newspaper Ziarul de Vrancea, for hour. Back then, when someone tried to give example, discovered that, due to a lack me advice that was good for me, I would ask of medical personnel and infrastructure, myself, ‘Why is he giving me this advice?’ I Roma living in Romania’s Vrancea had no trust.” Codrea said the change came County—who suffer a high rate of infant when Andrei learned to listen. Andrei said mortality and a relatively high incidence a measles outbreak convinced the Roma of of measles, tuberculosis, lice, and chronic Vanatori to have their children vaccinated diseases—have difficulty gaining access to and to get vaccinated themselves. public health services. In another article, “Now, if she speaks,” Codrea said, “it is Dacii Liberi focused on a Roma health impossible for people not to listen to her. mediator in Nocrich working to improve Now the local general practitioner knows

soros foundations network Report 2008 36 all of us. The women go to the doctor. The want to touch me,” said Adina. “I was sick children are vaccinated. The problem now to my stomach and my feet and hands were lies with the hospital. The doctors in nearby paralyzed. He did not want to touch me.” hospitals expect to be paid a tip, baksheesh, to Codrea argued with a doctor and finally provide care. If you don’t have the money, took Adina into a room and put her on a you die outside.” table. “The doctor was unhappy,” he said. “He was threatening. And I think I spoke badly, but the child was worse and worse, Medical Scholarships and I had waited for two hours.” Adina spent for Roma Students several weeks in the hospital recovering from One goal of the Roma Health Scholarship electrocution. Program is to increase significantly the Codrea advised the students and mentors presence of Roma doctors in Romania’s that they had to adjust the way they speak hospitals, not just to treat patients, but to when dealing with Roma: “This is a group combat discrimination and human rights that gets angry easily. When they talk loud, it abuses. Greater interaction with Roma doesn’t mean that they are bad. They think doctors and nurses can counter negative this is the way to get action. You have to stereotypes among health professionals about be patient. You have to listen. If you don’t, the Roma, and the Roma themselves will feel the person will conclude that you have more comfortable seeking health care. something against them.” The recipients of the first Roma Health After several hours, the students and Scholarship were selected on the basis of mentors left. “I have heard of places like academic merit, professional motivation, this,” said Corina Stanciu, a medical student and leadership skills. The applicants attended from the city of Ploesti. “I have seen Roma Open Society Institute–supported training begging on the streets, but I haven’t seen programs to help them become effective Roma like these. Where I live, Roma have advocates for Roma rights in health care houses, not like this.” settings. The field trip of scholarship “I could not want to be a doctor any more applicants to Vanatori was a part of this than I want to be one now.” training, and it included resident physicians participating as mentors. They too crowded into the sitting room to hear the bulibasa. Most of them had also never visited a Roma settlement like Vanatori. The students and residents listened in silence as the bulibasa told of Andrei’s communication problem, of the lack of vaccinations, and of how, two years earlier, OSI ONLINE he had come upon his granddaughter Adina Read more about barriers to lying still on the ground next to the power health care for Roma in articles by cable. Codrea took her in a horse cart to a investigative journalists in Romania. nearby clinic. In the clinic’s car they went to a hospital, then to a pediatric center, and then www.soros.org/ar08/romafellows back to the hospital. “The first doctor didn’t

soros foundations network Report 2008 37 We Are British

Muslims are a long-standing

and integral part of the

fabric of European cities

such as Leicester in the

United Kingdom, yet many

experience discrimination

and suspicion. The Open

Society Institute is monitoring

conditions in multicultural

communities to promote

inclusion and equality.

Photographs by Karen Robinson

“I do feel integrated because I feel comfortable and I feel I belong here. Malaysia sort of tugs at the heart strings when I go there, but I know I don’t fit in there. Even here in Leicester, which is cited as a city where integration has been fairly successful, you can see clearly that there are still silo communities.” Parvin Ali, founder and chief executive officer of the FATIMA Women’s Network

“Yes, I am new compared to others. But I feel that I have lived in Leicester forever. I would define myself as European, Somali, Muslim—you know, a lot of definitions. In Leicester, no matter your background, whether you’re black, or white, or Asian, or Muslim, or Christian, or Sikh, people have respect for you.” Jawaahir Daahir, managing director of the Somali Development Services “Do we take a snapshot and freeze it in time and say, this is what it’s like to be British? I believe to be British is fluid. What is British today, in 20 years will change again. But as long as we have a common vision for the country and for all its inhabitants, that to me is to be British.” Suleman Nagdi, community activist with St. Philip’s Centre and the Muslim Burial Council

“I am from Lancashire, born and raised in Lancashire. So I consider myself a Lancashire lass. Other people may have an issue with seeing me as British. But that’s their issue, not mine. Even if I migrate to the other side of the world, I would never question my Britishness.” Sughra Ahmed, researcher, Islamic Foundation Human Rights and Justice

The protection of human rights and the pursuit of justice are priorities for the Open Society Institute and the Soros foundations network. OSI programs deal with a range of rights issues, working to increase access to information and international justice, prohibit the arbitrary use of pretrial detention, promote the inclusion of Roma, and reduce discrimination and violence against women.

Rights and Justice Through litigation, legal advocacy, technical assistance, and the dissemination of knowledge, the Open Society Justice Initiative works to advance freedom of information and expression, anticorruption efforts, international justice, equality and citizenship, and national criminal justice. A woman displaced by fighting in Gori, Georgia | Marcus Bleasdale The Justice Initiative’s report the increase in government policies helped promote the ratification and The Price of Silence: The Growing denying or stripping away citizenship implementation of the United Nations Threat of Soft Censorship in Latin rights through mass expulsion, Convention on the Rights of Persons America found rampant government arbitrary administrative action, with Disabilities. interference with press freedom in and insurmountable bureaucratic OSI’s Global Drug Policy program, seven Latin American countries, requirements. launched in early 2008, advocates for including evidence of direct Work on criminal justice reform drug policy reform based on human government payments to journalists is complemented by Justice Initiative rights and public health principles. A in Colombia and Peru. After a four- efforts to bolster legal capacity through priority for the program in 2008 was year campaign by the Justice Initiative support for university-based legal aid helping grantees participate in policy and a local partner, Chile adopted a clinics and national legal aid programs. discussions and conduct advocacy law that recognizes the public’s right activities, including demonstrations, to information held by government Rights and Governance leading up to the UN High Level entities and requires officials to The Human Rights and Governance Meeting on Drugs in March 2009. respond to requests within 20 days. Grants Program in 2008 developed OSI also supported democratic In its efforts to uncover resource over 150 projects and issued grants and effective governance through its corruption, the Justice Initiative helped that helped promote human rights, Local Government and Public Service file a complaint in Spain against accountability, and rule of law in Reform Initiative. The initiative’s policy officials of Equatorial Guinea who Central and Eastern Europe, the advocacy trainings increased in 2008 used millions of dollars of oil revenues former Soviet Union, and Mongolia. and expanded to West Africa. It to purchase Spanish real estate while Two grantees, Mental Disability Rights supported efforts to advance political the majority of their country’s people International and the Hungarian Mental decentralization in South Eastern live on less than $1 a day. Health Interest Forum, worked with Europe and to generate projects for The Open Society Institute is a disability rights NGOs to draft and Roma inclusion with EU funding in longtime proponent of international prompt the adoption of the United Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia. justice—the process of prosecuting Nations Convention on the Rights high level perpetrators of genocide, of Persons with Disabilities. The Roma crimes against humanity, and other convention is the first legally binding OSI’s Roma Initiatives seeks to atrocities. In 2008, the Justice document that recognizes the rights increase the ability of Roma to Initiative launched a website to to inclusion and nondiscrimination participate in public life, to advocate cover the trial of Thomas Lubanga, of people with disabilities. Green for systemic policy changes accused of recruiting child soldiers Salvation, a grantee in Kazakhstan, prohibiting discrimination, and to in the Democratic Republic of the filed a successful lawsuit in the challenge negative images and Congo. Lubanga’s trial, which began nation’s Supreme Court that gave the stereotyping of Roma. in early 2009, is the first before the NGO access to information about Roma Initiatives in 2008 continued International Criminal Court. atmospheric emissions at a Kazakh oil to support internships, training, and On any given day, an estimated and gas field. The court recognized UN fellowships to increase the skills of 2.5 million people worldwide are held standards on access to information, Roma. These included internships at in pretrial detention. The excessive public participation in decision making, the European Commission and other and arbitrary use of pretrial detention and environmental justice matters as government entities, policy writing violates individual rights and threatens mandatory in its ruling. and advocacy trainings, scholarships public health, a message that OSI The rights of people with for English language training, and an presented at the 2008 International disabilities, public access to arts and culture mentoring project. AIDS Conference in Mexico City. information, and criminal justice are In Macedonia, a management fellow The Justice Initiative continued also priority issues for OSI’s Special mentored by foundation staff became to combat discrimination against Initiatives Fund, which in 2008 an advisor to the country’s minister racial and ethnic minorities, including provided funding for groups that without portfolio for the Decade of

soros foundations network Report 2008 48 Roma Inclusion. Women’s Law Center to provide Investigating Work to advance the Decade legal aid to women affected by remained a major priority. Roma the conflict; monitor court trials; CIA-run Black Initiatives provided support for and conduct trainings for lawyers, Sites in Poland DecadeWatch, which issued online judges, state attorneys, and law The Justice Initiative and partner monitoring reports that revealed enforcement agencies. Women for organizations in Europe are problems in national action plans for Women International, a grantee in the using freedom of information Roma inclusion. Funding to increase Democratic Republic of the Congo, requests to investigate rights Roma women’s participation in society trained men who are influential abuses related to the U.S. “war went to Roma NGOs working on community leaders to understand their on terror.” In Poland, these assistance for Roma refugees and roles in protecting and reintegrating efforts paid off in 2008 when displaced women and children, access survivors of rape and sexual violence. the chief prosecutor opened to health services and reproductive Advocacy by KAFA (enough) an official investigation into rights, and access to the labor market. Violence & Exploitation, an OSI the existence of CIA-run “black Roma Initiatives supported grantee in Lebanon, helped bring sites” in the country and the media, arts, and culture projects to about an unprecedented government possible complicity of Polish promote dialogue and challenge statement pledging to end violence agents in torture and other negative attitudes toward Roma. against women by working for rights abuses. OSI funded Looking for My Gypsy legislation in favor of women’s rights. Roots, broadcast by the BBC, and The Greatest Silence: Rape in the documentaries about Roma issues Congo, supported by the program, on Hungary’s Duna TV. Five Roma helped raise international awareness journalists who interned at Hungarian about the issue; a research project Public Television and Radio received helped organizations develop effective jobs at major Hungarian TV stations as policies against sexual violence. reporters, writers, or anchors. The program also supports initiatives OSI supported a recruitment drive that increase judicial responsiveness to increase the number of Roma to women’s rights and reduce the in law enforcement in Hungary. To obstacles that prevent women from draw international attention to the accessing justice. OSI grantee medica plight of Roma in Italy, OSI and mondiale helped strengthen the partner organizations documented interaction of courts, women’s groups, mistreatment of Roma by Italian and victim organizations to achieve authorities at OSCE, European justice for war rape survivors in Bosnia Commission, and European Union and Herzegovina. OSI ONLINE meetings. To advance the role of women Read reporting and as leaders, OSI supported the commentary on Women participation of women in peace the trial of Thomas The International Women’s Program, talks for northern Uganda and the Lubanga, who is working mostly in conflict or attendance of NGO representatives accused of conscripting postconflict countries, seeks to reduce at the annual session of the UN discrimination and violence against Commission on the Status of Women. child soldiers in the women, strengthen women’s access After a two-year advocacy campaign, Democratic Republic of to justice, and increase women’s role the Soros foundation in Kyrgyzstan the Congo. as decision makers and leaders. helped win a parliamentary quota for www.lubangatrial.org In Iraqi Kurdistan, the program women, making the legislative body supported the creation of the one-quarter female.

soros foundations network Report 2008 49 HIV-positive patients at temporary treatment shelter in Rangoon, Burma | Christian Holst Public Health

The Open Society Institute’s Public Health Program seeks to build societies committed to inclusion, human rights, and justice, in which health-related laws, policies, and practices reflect these values and are based on scientific evidence. The program works to advance the health and human rights of people in marginalized communities by strengthening civil society organizations and leaders, and advocating for greater accountability and transparency in health policy and practice. Harm Reduction for nurses from Central and Eastern projects aimed at preventing the With nearly one in three new Europe and workshops in Namibia, institutionalization of children with HIV infections outside of Africa Moldova, Tajikistan, and Ukraine. disabilities by providing inclusive resulting from injecting drug use, education services and fostering the International Harm Reduction Law and Health greater community support for Development program worked in The Law and Health Initiative families with disabled children, thus 20 countries of Eastern Europe and promoted the integration of legal creating alternatives to placing Asia to ensure that drug users have services into diverse health care children in institutional care. In equitable access to HIV prevention settings to advance human rights, Romania, the initiative supported the and treatment, and protection from human dignity, and open society. In development of a model employment abuse at the hands of police or collaboration with others, the initiative program that has successfully medical personnel. The program has supported a project in Kenya, South ensured employment on the open led an international effort to denounce Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda that market for more than 60 people with human rights violations committed in links palliative care providers with intellectual disabilities. the name of drug treatment, such as legal experts to ensure that legal flogging drug users or chaining them barriers facing patients, including Roma Health to hospital beds. It supported new restrictions on pain medications, are The Roma Health Project promoted projects in Russia to provide people adequately addressed. the equal access of Roma to who use illegal drugs with the same An investigation into patients’ appropriate and quality health care standard of AIDS treatment that other rights in Kyrgyzstan, involving services. Working with the European HIV-positive people receive. interviews with people with physical Roma Rights Centre, the project The program supported and mental disabilities, sex workers, developed an advocacy training national efforts to raise awareness and people who use drugs, revealed program on the right to health care, about effective, evidence-based shocking evidence of widespread and held the first training workshop treatment, and conducted trainings human rights violations and abuses in Sofia, Bulgaria, focusing on and presentations at regional and in hospitals and clinics. A publication the health rights of Roma women. international AIDS conferences opposing the criminalization of HIV Responding to the lack of Roma in to counter the misconception transmission or exposure outlined medical professions, OSI and the that HIV-positive drug users are why criminalization is ineffective, Roma Education Fund launched incapable of adhering to antiretroviral and harmful to public health and the a scholarship program helping medications. With support from the human rights of people living with Roma students across Central and Canadian International Development HIV, especially women. Eastern Europe to pursue medical Agency, the program piloted harm and nursing studies. For more on reduction services for women in Mental Health Roma health issues, including the Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine. In an unprecedented agreement scholarship program, see pages with the Open Society Mental 34–37. Palliative Care Health Initiative, the government of The International Palliative Care Macedonia agreed to move people Sexual Health and Rights Initiative worked in resource-poor with intellectual disabilities out Sex workers in Cambodia joined countries to establish palliative care of institutions and into supported together to demand an end to police as a fundamental part of health housing to live as equal citizens in violence and extortion with support care and to ensure the availability local communities. Similarly, in Serbia, from the Sexual Health and Rights of essential drugs for pain relief and the initiative’s technical and financial Project, which aims to advance the symptom management. The initiative support has helped make community- health and health-related rights of helped pave the way for national based housing a viable alternative to sex workers and sexual and gender palliative care plans in Romania and institutional placement. minorities. The project launched Ukraine, and organized a seminar In Moldova, the initiative supported efforts in eastern and southern Africa

soros foundations network Report 2008 52 to address health and human rights The Public Health Program also Bringing issues critical to sex workers and supports efforts to increase Human Rights to sexual minorities. It helped produce access to drugs and diagnostics an HIV prevalence study of men who to treat neglected diseases in the Center of the have sex with men in Botswana, developing countries, and works AIDS Response Malawi, Namibia, and South Africa, with the media to increase public At the 2008 International showing that no resources are awareness of health and human AIDS Conference in Mexico allocated to this at-risk population. rights issues, especially those City, the Public Health Program involving marginalized populations. and its partners raised Tuberculosis and HIV It supports budget analyses by awareness of the critical need The Public Health Watch project civil society groups to strengthen to include human rights in the worked to strengthen meaningful and advocacy campaigns on mental global AIDS response. OSI sustained engagement by affected health, palliative care, Roma health, and a coalition of human rights communities in the development, and harm reduction. It also works to and AIDS organizations held implementation, and monitoring of strengthen civil society involvement the first global rally on human TB, HIV, and TB/HIV policies, in the decision-making processes rights and HIV and AIDS, which programs, and practices. It launched of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, brought together more than a new grant initiative to support Tuberculosis and Malaria, and to 1,000 activists and people monitoring and advocacy to reduce increase the fund’s investments in affected by the epidemic. the burden of TB on people living projects focused on HIV prevention, During the rally, the OSI- with HIV in eastern and southern care, and treatment for women, girls, produced declaration “Human Africa. With project support, migrant and sexual minorities. Rights and HIV/AIDS: Now More workers in southern Africa met with Than Ever,” endorsed by over government officials and health 600 organizations worldwide, experts to press for TB prevention was presented to high-level and treatment programs for the officials. The declaration calls mining industry. Public Health Watch on governments and participated in the UNAIDS Program international donors to Coordinating Board Meeting in protect the human rights of Chiang Mai, Thailand, which for the stigmatized groups, including first time addressed important links sexual minorities, people who between TB and HIV, and organized use drugs, sex workers, and a briefing for UN representatives incarcerated persons. prior to the first-ever HIV-TB Global Leaders Forum.

OSI ONLINE View A Light in the Dark, a multimedia piece about a mobile clinic for drug users in St. Petersburg, Russia. www.soros.org/ ar08/light

soros foundations network Report 2008 53 A school teacher reviews student work in Narok, Kenya | Marvi Lacar Education, Information, and Media

Expanding access to education and information and promoting quality, independent journalism are priorities for the Open Society Institute. In 2008, OSI supported debate programs in the Middle East, copyright exemptions for online materials benefiting the visually impaired, and news coverage of Cyclone Nargis in Burma. Education A project in Lubombo, Swaziland, The Network Scholarship Programs The education programs of the Open helped orphans and vulnerable continued to assist outstanding Society Institute work to promote the children, particularly those affected by students in pursuing their studies inclusion of children from marginalized HIV and AIDS, access education. in different academic settings, communities, advance higher The program worked directly with and then returning to contribute to education in the humanities and social the Ministry of Education in Liberia their home countries. Hossain Ali sciences, and empower young people to assist efforts to reconstruct the Ramoz, executive director of the to become active citizens. primary education system, including Afghanistan Independent Human The Early Childhood Program the creation of an efficient funding Rights Commission and the program’s works globally to promote human mechanism. In Mongolia, an education first Afghan communications grantee, development, parent and community center established by the Mongolian used televised open lectures at the engagement, and government Education Alliance provided computer University of Ottawa, Canada, to raise accountability in early childhood and sign language training to deaf and awareness about the human rights development. The program hard of hearing children and helped situation in Afghanistan. To support continues to work throughout launch the country’s first college the projects of alumni, the program Central and Eastern Europe and course for educating deaf students funded social work program graduates the Commonwealth of Independent and the first curriculum for deaf Altantsetseg Batsukh and Oyut- States to promote accessibility and kindergarten children. Erdene Namdaldagva to correct the quality of services for vulnerable Studies supported by the program lack of recognition of issues related to children. In 2008, the program revealed how informal payments HIV, AIDS, and other STIs in academic initiated a multiyear evaluation of its contribute to educational inequality in social work programs in Mongolia. Getting Ready for School initiative, seven countries, and highlighted the The Open Society Institute Youth which has been piloted in 10 educational exclusion of migrant and Initiative supports debate programs countries and seeks to improve home marginalized communities in Europe. for young people, funds youth- learning environments for children who The International Higher designed projects, and promotes do not attend formal preschools. Education Support Program, which youth as partners in all aspects of The program launched promotes the advancement of higher OSI’s work. The Network Debate postgraduate programs in child education within the humanities and Program, which has developed development at BRAC University social sciences—primarily across debate programs in over 50 in Bangladesh, and supported the Central, Eastern, and South Eastern countries, continued to expand its analysis and development of policies Europe, the former Soviet Union, work by targeting Arabic-speaking for young children by the Ministry of and Mongolia—provides financial youth in the Middle East and North Education in Liberia. and technical assistance to a Africa and creating a Mandarin The Education Support Program network of institutions, ranging from debate program for Chinese collaborated with Soros foundations undergraduate universities to doctoral university students. to advocate for the special education programs and centers for advanced The Youth Initiative awarded needs of vulnerable children. The study. In 2008, the program expanded small grants to projects in Jordan, program helped develop standards the work of its Academic Fellowship Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Moldova, for curricula that included civic Program with 64 new returning Nepal, Russia, Serbia, and Uganda. education and human rights in scholars joining the 105 scholars In Uganda, funding went to projects Armenia and produced a guide who had previously renewed their ranging from the protection of the on inclusive educational practices work with the fellowship program. country’s wetlands to the promotion in Serbia. Soros foundations in OSI’s Network Scholarship Programs of technology in remote areas. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan and the Higher Education Support In Istanbul, Turkey, the program reviewed national policies on children Program started an effort to help supported an international BarCamp, with special education needs and academic institutions and scholars in where participants used the web to supported demonstration projects. Africa respond to climate change. discuss issues in an interactive, open

soros foundations network Report 2008 56 setting. The camp brought together Media New Admissions OSI programs, foundations, grantees, The Media Program continued Test in Ukraine consultants, and young activists to promote quality, independent to share their work on topics such journalism for the crucial role it plays Improves Access as creating web communities for in functioning democracies and for to University marginalized youth, and advocating the standards and content it can Ukraine implemented for national youth policies. provide to evolving communications independent testing for technologies. The Media Program university admissions for the Information and OSI’s Burma Project supported first time at the national level, OSI’s Information Program works to two media outlets that supplied the capping years of work by the increase public access to knowledge, world with television footage and news International Renaissance facilitate civil society communication, stories about the devastating impact Foundation and other NGOs and protect civil liberties and the of Cyclone Nargis in Burma and the to develop independent freedom to communicate in the digital authoritarian government’s failed testing of graduating students’ environment. The program gives response. educational achievement. particular attention to the information The program also supported The new system significantly needs of disadvantaged groups and emergency legal aid and other forms of reduces corruption in the less developed parts of the world. protection for Pakistani journalists, and admissions process and The Information Program helped an international press freedom mission improves equal access to higher develop an Access to Knowledge and safety training for freelancers in education. Upon completion advocacy coalition, which in 2008 Mexico. In the Philippines and Russia, of the testing, the Ministry of concentrated on persuading the World the program assisted efforts to combat Education and Science decreed Intellectual Property Organization to impunity for those who intimidate or kill that all higher educational establish copyright exemptions that journalists. institutions will use independent allow the creation of large nonprofit The Media Program supported assessment results for collections of online materials for the investigative journalism through a admissions. benefit of developing nations and number of regional and international disenfranchised populations such as events, including a meeting of visually impaired people. Latin American journalists and The program worked with the media support organizations to Shuttleworth Foundation to launch discuss strenghthening investigative the Cape Town Open Education journalism, and a meeting of an Arab Declaration to build a global investigative journalists’ network. movement for textbooks and other A coproduction fund for Roma and educational resources that can be non-Roma media outlets generated freely translated and adapted around high quality TV and radio programs the world. It funded BarCamps that on Roma issues that have been seen brought together social activists by approximately 5.5 million viewers OSI ONLINE and technologists to address the since 2007. The Media Program and Read the personal stories technological needs of NGOs in OSI’s EU Monitoring and Advocacy and views of OSI scholars Central Asia, the Baltics, and the Program issued follow-up reports on Caucasus. And it promoted open nine countries covered in an earlier studying abroad in information policies by working with report, Television across Europe. issues of ScholarForum. both corporations and human rights The new reports found an increase www.soros.org/ar08/ in channels but reductions in media groups to create the Global Network scholarforum Initiative for protecting the rights of independence in almost all the information technology users. countries examined.

soros foundations network Report 2008 57 Other The Open Society Institute Programs operates programs that focus on the roles that art, photography, independent intellectual inquiry, and exchanges of people from different countries can play in establishing tolerant, democratic A patient at the Louisiana State Penitentiary’s hospice program is greeted by a fellow inmate | Lori Waselchuk societies. The Arts and Culture Network volunteers at the Angola Prison independent policy centers that help Program supported Roma arts and hospice program in Louisiana. strengthen democracy by identifying culture in the Balkans, Central Asia, To facilitate the sharing of and analyzing policy options, and Central and Eastern Europe, information to further reform and advocating recommendations, and and helped develop independent social change, the East East: consulting with governments. In cultural activities in Afghanistan, the Partnership Beyond Borders 2008, the fund issued 27 institutional Caucasus, Central Asia, Mongolia, Program uses exchange programs grants and 14 project grants in and Turkey. Everything’s OK, a film to foster collaboration among civil more than 20 countries. In Kosovo, about street children produced by society organizations in more than the Institute for Advanced Studies a program grantee in Kyrgyzstan, one country. A long-term initiative used an institutional grant to support received positive reviews at the in Poland helped analysts and civil NGOs that organized televised Rotterdam international film festival society activists monitor EU member debates on local government policies and then toured the Netherlands. To state visa policies toward neighboring and priorities in 25 municipalities. The fight stereoptypes and build the self- non-EU countries. In Bosnia and fund’s project grants supported 14 esteem of young Roma, the program Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, initiatives that responded to issues supported Roma painters, musicians, and Serbia, the program brought including minority integration in Latvia and other cultural professionals who together civil society activists and and Estonia, civil oversight of security mentored ethnically mixed children organizations to develop strategies to agencies in the Czech Republic, and and youth groups at schools and advance the EU accession process in political party financing in Hungary. community centers. South Eastern Europe. The program OSI’s Documentary Photography worked with Soros foundations in Project uses exhibits, workshops, the Czech Republic and Ukraine grantmaking, and public programs to on reform and European integration explore how photography can shape issues, and with foundations in public perception and effect social Slovakia and Tajikistan to organize change. The project’s Moving Walls exchanges of experts working on exhibition series works to depict housing policy and civic engagement. societies in transition and promote The Open Society Fellowship, democratic values. From 2006 to launched in 2008, supports 2008, the project, in partnership individuals who develop innovative with OSI’s Middle East and North solutions to pressing social and OSI ONLINE Africa Initiative, supported a touring political challenges. The program See how six documentary exhibition of seven past Moving aims to shape policy and inspire Walls photographers to cities in critical debate among activists, photographers depict the region. At each venue, a local intellectuals, and decision-makers; it abuse of power at Abu photographer was included in the also works to sharpen OSI’s thinking Ghraib and in North Korea, exhibit and the project organized about significant political and social HIV education in Lesotho, photography workshops for local issues. The program’s first seven industrial pollution in professionals and young people. The fellows came from Australia, Belarus, Bangladesh, daily life Documentary Photography Project’s Colombia, South Africa, and the various grants supported a number United States and focused on issues in Azerbaijan, and the of activities, including the publication ranging from new technologies in separation wall between of The Useful Image: Using Images authoritarian societies and the AIDS Mexico and the United to Change Today’s World and a epidemics in Russia and South Africa States. www.soros.org/ Louisiana and Mississippi correctional to the mixed results of international ar08/movingwalls facilities tour of Lori Waselchuk’s advocacy on Darfur. photographs documenting inmate OSI’s’s Think Tank Fund supports

soros foundations network Report 2008 59 U.S. Programs

The Open Society Institute’s U.S. Programs supports individuals and organizations that nurture the development of a more open society, a society that allows all people to participate actively and equitably in political, economic, and cultural life; encourages diverse opinions and critical debate; protects fundamental human rights, dignity, and the rule of law; and promotes broadly shared prosperity and human security.

The 2008 election process represented a number of advances for open society in America: increased levels of civic engagement, renewed respect for the power of grassroots activism, and a milestone in the struggle for racial justice. Yet much work remains to be done for the United States to live up to its potential as an open society. Crowd watching U.S. presidential election returns in New York | Eric Bouvet Transparency and from Arab-American, Asian, and and legal assistance to stem the Integrity Latino communities. Grants made crisis in New York City. The Transparency and Integrity by the fund in 2008 included one Fund seeks to increase government to a network promoting an urban Criminal Justice transparency and accountability at the agenda on housing, jobs, policing, The Criminal Justice Fund seeks federal and state levels. In 2008, OSI and gentrification issues, and another to reverse policies and practices and its grantees strengthened and to a collaborative project advancing that criminalize race, poverty, coordinated the field of nonpartisan a public investment and equal mental illness, and drug and alcohol organizations working to reform the opportunity agenda. dependency, and confront the voting system and protect all votes on destructive and costly impact of and before Election Day. Successes Equality and these policies on individuals and included an executive order in Opportunity communities. With help from an Florida extending the hours for early The Equality and Opportunity OSI grantee, the state of Kansas voting, advocacy that stopped voter Fund’s mission is to eliminate averted nearly $80 million in new suppression in Michigan where voters barriers that prevent people from prison construction and operating whose homes had been foreclosed participating fully in economic, costs over the next five years by on faced residency challenges, and social, and political life in the United adopting measures to reduce its legal action remedying flawed voter States. Among other objectives, prison population. OSI convened purges in many contested states. the fund focuses on reversing advocates to brainstorm litigation OSI grantees developed a institutional policies and practices strategies to combat the continued Change for America blueprint to that contribute to racial inequality, plague of racial profiling, and helped help guide the government in a strengthening the civil and human host a public forum to discuss how new, more progressive direction, rights of immigrants, supporting to create a criminal justice system a comprehensive “Right-to-Know policies that advance lesbian, gay, structured neither by race nor by Agenda” to enhance transparency bisexual, and transgender rights, economic inequality. and accountability and increase and elevating women’s issues citizen engagement with government, and leadership within larger Black Male Achievement and a Bailout Watch to demand progressive movements. The Campaign for Black Male greater fiscal transparency around In a legal victory involving an Achievement was launched in the government’s bailout of the OSI grantee, a U.S. appeals court 2008 as a three-year, cross- financial sector. ruled that federal immigration program campaign to provide authorities may not treat simple expanded resources to address, Democracy and Power drug possession offenses, which and help reverse, the ways in which The Democracy and Power Fund are misdemeanors under state law, African American boys and men expands on OSI’s longtime support as “drug trafficking” aggravated are stigmatized, criminalized, and of efforts that inspire and motivate felonies to secure mandatory excluded from full participation in people of color, young people, deportation of immigrants. In another economic, cultural, and political life immigrants, and low-income victory, a district court upheld the in the United States. In its first communities. Over 20 OSI grantees constitutionality of the Voting Rights year, the program made grants to registered more than 1.5 million new Act, which requires certain states and organizations in the areas of youth and updated voters nationwide before localities to submit changes in voting media and civic engagement, faith- the U.S. presidential election. OSI procedures to the federal government based organizing and capacity emphasized support for community- for approval. building, education equity and based nonprofit organizations that OSI launched its Neighborhood reform, strengthening families enfranchised and inspired new Stabilization Initiative in response to through responsible fatherhood, voters, such as young people, the subprime lending and foreclosure economic opportunity, and community people of color, and new citizens crisis, funding outreach, counseling, leadership and organizing.

soros foundations network Report 2008 62 National Security and Open Society Institute– Guantánamo Human Rights Baltimore Detainees Win With one year remaining of the The Open Society Institute–Baltimore Bush administration, OSI and The made substantial progress on three Right to Judicial Atlantic Philanthropies launched the of the most difficult challenges facing Review National Security and Human Rights the city—inadequate drug addiction Among the year’s most Campaign to take advantage of the treatment, poorly performing schools, important legal decisions opportunities that a changed political and unacceptably high rates of was the Supreme Court’s environment could offer to promote incarceration. ruling that foreign nationals progressive national security policies OSI helped Baltimore Substance held as “enemy combatants” that respect human rights, civil Abuse Systems, the agency at Guantánamo have a liberties, and the rule of law. responsible for the city’s public drug constitutional right to file a OSI’s grantees mobilized broad addiction treatment system, introduce writ of habeas corpus in U.S. opposition to U.S.-sponsored torture, performance-based contracting and courts requesting release from organizing faith-based communities use data to change traditional funding unlawful detention. The 5-4 in denouncing the use of torture on allocations, ensuring higher utilization ruling speaks to the efforts of moral grounds; building grassroots of treatment services. The agency OSI’s grantees to reverse the support on college campuses; launched a cooperative effort that Bush administration policy of enlisting the military, intelligence, provided buprenorphine treatment detaining individuals indefinitely law enforcement, and foreign policy for heroin addiction to over 1,100 without judicial review. OSI communities in the movement patients in 2008. OSI grantees joined an amicus brief filed in against torture; exposing the ethical began working to remove barriers for the case. issues raised by the participation Medicaid patients and providers using of psychologists in abusive buprenorphine. Under the leadership interrogations; and documenting the of OSI-Baltimore, a policy team has physical and psychological harms developed a program that will provide from the use of torture. eligible prisoners with addiction treatment in prison and parole them Strategic Opportunities to treatment and support services in OSI ONLINE The Strategic Opportunities Fund the community. View Trouble the enables U.S. Programs to respond OSI-Baltimore’s collaborative Water, a documentary quickly to urgent situations, as well initiative to reform school suspension film codirected and as to support grant strategy research and expulsion practices resulted in and explore emerging areas of the drafting of a new student code coproduced by OSI interest. OSI prioritized location- of conduct, which the school district fellow Tia Lessin, which based philanthropy, with New is now implementing. The new code was nominated for Orleans and the broader Gulf supports programs, including several the 2008 Academy Region as a focus of further research launched by OSI in 2007 as pilots, Award for Best Feature and the development of cross- that teach appropriate behavior, use Documentary. Lessin was program strategies. Exploratory suspension and expulsion as a last grantmaking included support for resort, and add enriching and/or one of six filmmakers groups that utilize art and culture to physical activities that attract children who received an OSI advance organizing, advocacy, and to school. OSI released three white Katrina Media Fellowship social change. papers addressing the issue of in 2006. www.soros.org/ student absences in public schools ar08/trouble with recommendations to remedy the problem.

soros foundations network Report 2008 63 Open Society in Eastern Europe Since the creation of the first foundation in Hungary

25 years ago, the Open

Society Institute and the

Soros foundations have made education reform and inclusion a major priority in

Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Support for programs from early childhood to higher education continues today with the goal of helping all young people become informed and active citizens.

Young women participating in local group that provides language and art classes and counseling, Akhaltsikhe, Georgia | Maria SteEn The Open Society Institute since 1995 has supported hundreds of programs in Eastern Europe to reduce HIV and other harms related to injecting drug use. It advocates for drug policy reforms to increase the availability and quality of needle exchange, drug dependence treatment, and treatment for HIV. Returning used syringes to a mobile needle exchange van, St. Petersburg, Russia | Lorena Ros The struggle to eliminate discrimination against minorities has gained ground over the years, with more and more people willing to publicly show their support. With hard times bringing new episodes of discrimination and violence, the Open Society Institute is increasing its efforts to fund education and legal responses to the problem.

Participants march in a nonpartisan, peaceful demonstration against discrimination and violence, Budapest, Hungary, 2008 | Ferenc Isza To strengthen democracy in Eastern Europe, the Open Society Institute continues to support measures to ensure free and fair elections. During election campaigns, the Soros foundations focus attention on crucial open society issues, provide the public with information about candidates, and monitor voter registration and vote counting.

Man in Berende, Bulgaria, waits to vote in EU parliamentary elections, June 7, 2009 | Boryana Katsarova A subway stop in Belgrade, Serbia, spattered with graffiti sprayed during protests in 2008 against Kosovo’s independence | Roger Lemoyne Europe

Priorities for the Soros foundations in Europe included good governance issues such as democratic elections and open, corruption-free institutions, and the human rights and living conditions of minorities, migrants, mentally disabled people, and other marginalized groups. Many foundations worked on strengthening the candidacy and participation of their countries in the European Union. OSI’s EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program focused on the integration of Muslim communities in European cities, the role television plays in European democracy, and the dire educational situation of Roma children. Elections and institute reforms. based on its findings that Roma Foundations in a number of A Polish court gave a significant children continued to be assigned to countries used election campaigns victory to whistle blowers when it separate and unequal classes and to focus attention on open society ruled in favor of a former national park schools. A review of education reform issues such as the transparency of employee who claimed he had been found that government policies in public funds and access to public fired for exposing managers who Bulgaria had actually increased Roma health. The foundation in Moldova allowed parks to be used as illegal dropout rates and many rural schools supported projects monitoring waste dumping sites. Responding had closed. voting lists and providing the public to a watchdog coalition, authorities In Macedonia, an education with information about candidates. in Serbia disclosed information on program developed by OSI and The foundation’s efforts in Albania 38 cases that raised questions funded by USAID graduated 198 helped prompt the election agency about whether the use of public Roma students from high school— to prepare recommendations for funds was in compliance with public an initial graduation rate of more reform, addressing procedures for procurement laws. A watchdog than 75 percent, considerably vote counting, ballot administration, project examined shortcomings in higher than the national Roma and political party financing. The the use of Montenegro’s access to secondary school completion rate of foundation in Poland also funded information law to obtain data on 56 percent. The foundation in Turkey the development of recommendations environmental protection. assisted in establishing a program for election campaign financing. In Azerbaijan, the foundation that awarded scholarships to 20 After a brutal government supported monitoring of state social Roma university students and 10 crackdown following Armenia’s assistance spending that prompted high school students preparing for presidential elections, the foundation reforms, increasing the number of university entrance exams. helped the human rights community eligible recipients of state social The foundation in Romania document abuses and report assistance by 60 percent. organized a regional conference on conditions before and after Natural resource revenues also of Roma activists and OSI and the elections. It organized legal came under scrutiny. Pressured foundation staff to share successful representation for victims of the by the foundation, other NGOs, grassroots organizing strategies, violence. and the state, more oil companies while the foundation in the Czech in Azerbaijan began to disclose Republic campaigned for a national Corruption their payments to the government antidiscrimination act and supported In its long-term efforts against in greater detail, making it easier lawsuits that contributed to a corruption, the country’s biggest for the public to monitor how the decrease in discrimination against problem, the foundation in the Czech government is using these revenues. the Roma. Roma candidates were Republic helped develop new legal The foundation in Romania organized elected to legislative bodies in provisions to promote transparency, meetings of employers, workers, seven municipalities in Bosnia and establish a legal counseling center, officials, and others to make the Herzegovina, where the foundation and create materials for tracking mining industry more receptive trained Roma leaders in election law. budget expenditures. to socially and environmentally A survey on student attitudes The foundation in Bulgaria responsible operating methods. toward minorities, supported by produced a report on informal the foundation in Slovakia, showed payments in the health care system Roma that most students had strong that showed general practitioners Access to quality education for the predjudices and little knowledge of were evading taxes on a large scale. Roma was an important focus for OSI multiculturalism and minorities. Among A study of the judiciary in Kosovo, and the Soros foundations, including the foundation’s efforts to improve the supported by the Kosovo foundation, those in Bulgaria, Macedonia, situation was a high school contest revealed a lack of political will to Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey. using music and drama to explore prosecute certain corruption cases EUMAP advocated for improvements diversity and tolerance.

soros foundations network Report 2008 72 Mentally Disabled People The foundations in Europe, often in Restoring Power The foundation in Moldova collaboration with OSI programs, also to Roma and its partners, including the worked on a whole range of other A public-private partnership government, agreed to end any open society issues, from advocating restored electricity for further institutionalization of mentally for better HIV and AIDS treatment in 35,000 residents in the Roma disabled children and to develop Turkey, to providing indigent criminal settlement in Stolipinovo, community-based services instead. defendants with legal assistance Bulgaria. The community’s deep Efforts supported by the foundation in Moldova, to protecting the rights debts to the electricity provider in Turkey prompted numerous of vulnerable immigrant workers had created an ugly cycle of changes in the treatment of mentally in Romania, to securing equal power cuts followed by illegal disabled people, from increased opportunities for women in the electricity taps. The foundation patient access to outdoor activities Czech Republic. brought together electricity and improvements in hospital food, The Soros foundation in Georgia providers, local authorities, to a ban on the use of electroshock responded to the 2008 conflict in and a microfinance institution therapy without anesthesia. the South Ossetia region by working to invest 1.5 million euros in with civil society groups to provide improving the electricity grid European Union food, medication, and clothing to and to create a plan allowing In Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, and displaced civilians. In the aftermath of residents to pay off their debts Serbia, the foundations promoted the fighting, the foundation focused on while receiving electricity. the value of integrating policies and human rights issues facing internally institutions into the European Union. displaced people, and supported The foundation in Latvia encouraged efforts to ensure transparent allocation democratic reform in other Eastern and use of a $4.5 billion international European countries, particularly aid package to rebuild Georgia’s Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia. economy and infrastructure. In Poland, the foundation worked A study funded by the foundation in to make the EU more accessible Estonia exposed poor living conditions to Eastern European citizens by at refugee camps in Georgia: only advocating for fairer and more 3 to 4 percent of people displaced reasonable EU visa policies and by the conflict were receiving food, border-crossing procedures. clothing, and medical assistance. The Recognition of Kosovo as an foundation’s campaign resulted in independent state by a majority of improving conditions, including the EU members in 2008 triggered closing of a number of camps. a political crisis in Serbia. The A mentoring program created by OSI ONLINE foundation in Serbia responded by the foundation improved the Estonian Learn why changes in helping mobilize civil society groups language skills of Russian-speaking ownership and viewing to defend democratization and teachers by pairing them with habits are threatening EU integration. Its efforts helped Estonian-speaking colleagues. the independence of shape the European Commission’s Years of education work by the recommendations on how Serbian Ukrainian foundation and other television broadcasting authorities could speed up reforms NGOs came to fruition when Ukraine in OSI’s 2008 reports, and better harmonize policies with implemented external testing of Television across EU standards. students’ educational achievements. Europe. www.soros. The new system reduces corruption org/ar08/television in admissions and improves equal access to higher education.

soros foundations network Report 2008 73 Asia OSI programs and Soros foundations in Asia made significant efforts to defend and improve human rights, particularly for migrants, children, and victims of conflict. Many foundations and programs responded to governance and development issues by promoting election reform, democratic institutions, and use of natural resources that benefits the Uzbek women weed a cotton field in southern Tajikistan | Carolyn Drake public and respects the environment. OSI’s Central Eurasia Project monk-led protests in 2007. EU funds for election reform projects addressed a number of key human Malaysian NGOs funded by that produced recommendations rights and governance issues by the Southeast Asia Initiative used used by the parliament for new supporting activities ranging from monitoring and advocacy to protect amendments to election legislation. helping develop coalitions challenging the human rights of migrant workers The foundation also used EU support forced child labor in Uzbekistan’s abused by quasi-government for a study tour to Brussels that cotton industry to working with civil organizations charged with enforcing familiarized Kyrgyz officials with EU society and Soros foundations in travel regulations. electoral best practices, and for a Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to promote Working with the Open Society project to develop legal mechanisms accountability in the management Justice Initiative, the Southeast Asia combating domestic violence. of water and electricity. Several Initiative helped support the Khmer A civil society coalition supported foundations and programs also Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia by by the foundation in Mongolia focused on public health and funding civil society groups that monitored legislative elections and information and media issues. informed people about the tribunal, helped reveal substantial irregularities justice issues, and government that undermined the integrity of the Human Rights accountability. The initiative also elections. The monitoring results The foundation in Mongolia developed radio programming and gave new momentum to electoral responded to the government’s violent a web portal that provided news reform efforts. postelection crackdown on opposition about the tribunal in Khmer and Prodemocracy activists supported parties and demonstrators by English. OSI’s Afghanistan office by the Burma Project responded supporting documentation of human and a number of partners organized to the junta’s flawed constitutional rights abuses, media monitoring, a conference on documenting war referendum by organizing campaigns and legal aid for those arrested. The crimes, sharing lessons from the in over 250 townships throughout Kazakhstan foundation supported Cambodia experience. Burma to raise awareness about the efforts documenting rights violations The Tifa Foundation in Indonesia illegitimate constitution. and discrimination experienced by the supported successful efforts to pass Local groups working with the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and a law protecting the rights of migrant foundation in Indonesia created a transgender community. laborers and worked with Microsoft “People’s Charter” to hold elected In May, Cyclone Nargis hit Burma, to establish 10 migrant worker officials in Jakarta accountable to their disrupting more than 2.4 million lives resource centers. campaign promises. The city’s mayor and, according to Burma’s military The Chinese government’s responded by participating in public junta, causing at least 140,000 ratification of the UN Convention on discussions with city residents about fatalities. OSI’s Burma Project the Rights of the Disabled in 2008 accountability issues. The foundation responded to the junta’s interference bolstered OSI’s continuing support also helped train citizen groups that with aid efforts by supporting groups for civil society efforts to strengthen monitored regional water privatization inside the country that provided disability rights protections. proposals and government spending shelter, food, and medicine to cyclone of revenues from water use fees. victims. The project’s media grantees Governance and Development In Turkmenistan, the project sent uncensored news and images The Central Eurasia Project supported collaborated with a coalition of of the junta’s ineffective disaster a network of scholars and experts independent experts to sponsor response to the outside world and to monitor the implementation of the research on environmental back into Burma. An international EU’s Central Asia strategy, which degradation and promote policies campaign led by Burma Project seeks to share European experience for progressive development. OSI’s grantees aimed to free Burma’s on regional integration and aid the Pakistan office, established in political prisoners, particularly those development of stable, prosperous, 2008, helped civil society monitor imprisoned after the army’s violent democratic societies in Central Asia. reconstruction efforts following the crackdown against participants in In Kyrgyzstan, the foundation used massive earthquake of 2005.

soros foundations network Report 2008 75 Information programs that covered 80 percent of Businesses Join Bloggers in Kazakhstan used Nepal’s territory. Campaign Against mobile technology training from OSI and the foundation to do online Public Health Uzbekistan’s civic journalism that targeted and In a major breakthrough for Forced Child Labor engaged young people. Kazakhstan’s public health reform, the Tajik An international campaign prime minister started his own blog parliament adopted amendments supported by OSI helped and encouraged ministers and to bring existing laws into line with prompt major European and U.S. representatives to use blogs to international standards for providing retailers and trade associations, communicate with their constituents. access to HIV prevention and including Wal-Mart, to demand In Tajikistan, the foundation treatment. The foundation worked that the government of helped establish a Linux center to with international agencies to analyze Uzbekistan stop using child develop free and open software regulations and advise advocates on labor to harvest cotton. Cotton for civil society groups. The center developing HIV treatment policies. picked primarily by children also developed a web portal to Local civil society groups in Uzbekistan generates unite civil society organizations monitoring mental health care almost $1 billion in export across the country. Regional budgets in Kyrgyzstan revealed revenues, which are controlled information agencies established significant misuse of government by three state companies not by the foundation provided assets at the national center for publicly accounted for in the accurate alternative information to psychiatry. The foundation helped government’s budget. A global areas that were previously out of the groups use the findings to stop coalition of rights advocates, broadcast range or only received this misuse, improve the center’s socially responsible investors, foreign or state-controlled media. financing, and increase pay for companies, governments, and In Pakistan, OSI provided safety psychiatric health care workers. international organizations training for journalists and supported The foundation also implemented an have stepped up pressure independent media. HIV and AIDS program supported on Uzbekistan to renounce A viewer-based TV rating and by the government that provided these practices. monitoring project supported by the harm reduction and rehabilitation Tifa foundation allowed TV viewers in services for drug users in prisons. In Indonesia to express their preferences Kazakhstan, the foundation worked more clearly than the widely used to advance citizens’ health rights and OSI ONLINE Nielsen system. The project used access to medicine, particularly for “Missed Opportunities— viewer responses to organize local the terminally ill. How the West ‘Lost’ discussions about making TV more responsive to community needs Soros foundations and programs Central Asia.” Listen and interests. Tifa also helped a in Asia supported numerous to OSI Fellow Alex civil society coalition prompt the other activities addressing issues Cooley discuss why government to adopt a freedom of important to open society, including recent United States information act in 2008. In Nepal, OSI establishing transparent higher and European policies focused on support for developing a education admissions systems in radio network and content syndication Tajikistan, helping develop a national toward Central Asia have system to bring reliable, independent juvenile justice system in Kazakhstan, done little to improve news and information to large supporting independent filmmakers governance in the region. numbers of Nepalese underserved in Tajikistan, and helping arrange www.soros.org/ar08/ by other media. By the end of 2008, training and concert exchanges cooley the network provided local stations among symphony orchestras in with a mix of news and feature Central Asia and Russia.

soros foundations network Report 2008 76 Middle East and North Africa

OSI’s Middle East and North Africa Israel’s Arab minorities. Other groups of Thought and Expression in Initiative, with its Arab Regional Office worked to develop legal challenges Egypt used funding from OSI in Amman, focuses on governance to state discrimination and promote to promote media creativity and and rights, media and information, equality in Israeli cities with sizeable reduce censorship. OSI financed youth, and education. Arab and Jewish populations. media outlets that achieved In the Occupied Palestinian OSI funded efforts by the significant operational and editorial Territories, the regional office Egyptian Initiative for Personal independence by broadcasting supported the monitoring of human Rights to improve individual over the Internet. The regional rights violations by both Israeli forces liberties, including freedom of office provided Radio Al-Balad in and the Palestinian National Authority. religion and rights for people with Jordan with additional funding for a For example, OSI helped human mental disabilities, and supported community program targeting the rights activists monitor Israeli troops’ organizations in Lebanon and Jordan Iraqi refugee population in Amman. treatment of Palestinian civilians that defended the rights of migrant The Arab Regional Office partnered at security checkpoints in the and foreign workers. With OSI’s with OSI’s Early Childhood Program West Bank. International Women’s Program, the to support preschool programs for In Israel, OSI sought to reduce regional office supported initiatives children in Nazareth, and increase the inequalities facing Palestinian to counter violence against women parental involvement in their children’s citizens. The Galilee Society received in conflict and postconflict situations, education in northern Israel, and funding for its efforts to achieve particularly in Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, supported an association of public equitable health, environmental, and the Occupied Palestinian libraries in Lebanon that worked to and socioeconomic conditions, Territories. bring children and teenagers together particularly in areas inhabited by The Association for Freedom across sectarian divides.

Iraqi civilians stare through window of U.S. Army vehicle in Abu Gharib, Iraq | Benjamin Lowy

soros foundations network Report 2008 77 Internally displaced people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the forest near their refugee camp | Lynsey Addario Africa

Whether it was supporting democratic struggles of citizens against corrupt despots in Zimbabwe and Swaziland or responding to a political crisis in Kenya, the promotion of democracy and good governance in Africa remained a priority for the Open Society Institute in 2008. As a world increasingly hungry for worked with church groups and and increase the public benefits oil, gas, and minerals pursued new trade unions to stop the delivery of a of diamond mining for all of Sierra ventures in Africa, OSI programs Chinese arms shipment to Zimbabwe. Leone’s citizens. and Soros foundations worked OSI activities in Swaziland—a to ensure the sustainable and country decimated by HIV and AIDS Human Rights and Justice equitable use of the continent’s and extreme poverty—helped citizens To address human rights violations natural resource wealth. Many OSI challenge the country’s deeply in northern Uganda, OSI supported programs and foundations in Africa corrupt monarchy with boycotts, International Criminal Court trainings also addressed issues such as work stoppages, protests, and for Ugandan law professors and defending and strengthening human legal actions. In South Africa, the recent law school graduates. An East rights, responding to HIV and AIDS, foundation worked to strengthen Africa initiative grantee developed and improving public access to democratic political processes and position papers to help Uganda’s information. freedom of expression by supporting proposed special war crimes court independent journalists covering use international, domestic, and Governance and Justice parliament and the build-up to traditional law to achieve justice OSI’s AfriMAP monitoring project elections in 2009. and reconciliation. published a report on the judiciary OSI’s Southern Africa initiative in Senegal that revealed a judicial Natural Resources and led a solidarity mission of African commission’s lack of independence Transparency feminists and activists to the from the executive branch. With OSI support, NGOs in Uganda Democratic Republic of the Congo. Senegalese officials promised that developed environmental abuse The mission aimed to draw attention the report’s conclusions would databases that bolstered efforts to and support to women in the east of inform public discussions and judicial get regional and national leaders to the country struggling against sexual sector reforms. reform natural resource management violence, sex trafficking, poverty, and In Kenya, the Open Society policies. Strategic litigation supported HIV and AIDS. Initiative for East Africa funded a by the East Africa initiative helped Two Angolan human rights civil society group that challenged NGOs monitor transparency in the organizations supported by the the country’s endemic political extraction of recently discovered Southern Africa initiative challenged corruption with publicly distributed oil resources. government reports on living commentaries and analytical In Angola, a group of conditions in Angola by submitting blogging. The group’s website parliamentarians responded to an shadow reports to the African documented Kenya’s election crisis OSI-supported transparency and Commission on Human and Peoples’ and received nine million hits between budgets conference by forming MPs Rights and the United Nations. December 2007 and January 2008. for Transparency, which aims to The Open Society Foundation The initiative also worked with civil improve the legislature’s monitoring of for South Africa protected refugees society groups to bring Kenya’s public spending. and asylum seekers from xenophobic postelection crisis and the continent- In Sierra Leone, the Open Society attacks in South Africa by helping wide problem of statelessness Initiative for West Africa developed evacuate them from black townships to the attention of African Union a resource management strategy to places of safety. The foundation policymakers. that helped the country become a promoted public discussion about OSI helped democracy advocates candidate for participation in the the xenophobic violence through in Zimbabwe call for international Extractive Industries Transparency journalism fellowships that supported responses to the Mugabe regime’s Initiative. The West Africa initiative reporting on South Africa’s refugee election rigging and continued also worked with a monitoring communities. The foundation’s repression of the democratic political group to develop review policies for prison sentencing project opposition. The Open Society diamond mining contracts, strengthen demonstrated that the South African Initiative for Southern Africa also citizen monitoring of the industry, government’s overemphasis on

soros foundations network Report 2008 80 imprisonment has done little to sustain public affairs TV programs in OSI Helps Lead reduce crime. A civil society coalition Uganda and Kenya that held officials Kenya Past Election used the project’s results to promote accountable by featuring panels of alternatives to imprisonment. politicians, lawyers, and activists Fraud and Political taking unscripted questions from the Violence Public Health public about politics, economics, The Open Society Institute Working with OSI’s Public Health and culture. responded to Kenya’s fraudulent Program, the East Africa initiative presidential elections in supported human rights and health December 2007 and the violence service training for caregivers at 10 that followed by supporting health facilities. The project gave initiatives to mediate solutions people living with HIV and AIDS and pursue justice and training on how to get officials to reconciliation. With support challenge discrimination and meet from the Open Society Initiative their health care needs. for East Africa, the Kenyans for The foundation in South Africa Peace with Truth and Justice also worked with the Public Health coalition gathered evidence Program to address the government’s to document human rights inability to manage deepening HIV violations. Coalition appeals to and AIDS and tuberculosis epidemics Europe, the United States, and by continuing to support NGOs like the African Union helped the the Treatment Action Campaign and development of the African Union Health Systems Trust. mediation process that brought an end to the violence. The Media and Information coalition documented the election Preliminary findings from a 12-country fraud that precipitated the AfriMAP and OSI Media Program violence and worked to ensure survey showed a large public the inclusion of excluded groups broadcasting gap between South in the mediation process. It also Africa and the rest of the continent spearheaded ongoing efforts to and confirmed the importance of ensure accountability for victims state and public broadcasting, of violence, resettlement of particularly radio, due to the internally displaced persons, and expense or inaccessibility of TV, constitutional reform. print publications, and the Internet. The survey also indicated that many OSI ONLINE Africans could benefit from further View Gasping for Air and development of mobile phones to other multimedia pieces access radio broadcasting. NGOs in Uganda supported on OSI efforts to address by the East Africa initiative worked the needs of people to improve implementation of the infected with drug- national freedom of information law resistant TB and HIV in by conducting public surveys and Africa. www.soros.org/ outreach campaigns to increase ar08/gasping people’s interest in using the law. The initiative also helped launch and

soros foundations network Report 2008 81 In 2008, OSI’s Latin America Latin America Program, the Soros foundations in and the Guatemala and Haiti, and many OSI initiatives pursued projects ranging Caribbean from helping communities in Haiti get clean drinking water to increasing the role of Mayan women in local governance to bringing together former presidents and civil society leaders to contemplate the region’s In Latin America and the enduring challenges and possibilities. Caribbean—regions largely Human Rights and Justice marked by revitalized or emerging Three grantees supported by the Latin democracies bearing the legacies America Program led a coalition that advocated for the U.S. government of authoritarian rule and colonial to withhold free trade agreements exploitation—the reinforcement of human rights and democratic governance have been key priorities People in Haiti walk through flood waters for the Open Society Institute. after Hurricane Gustav | Jacob Silberberg and $110 million in military aid to helped bring together representatives Civil Society Colombia until government protection from civil society, government, the In Haiti, the Soros foundation worked of human rights and labor rights private sector, and indigenous with the European Union to fund improved. Activities by civil society communities to pursue mediation to the development of a 17-acre park and other groups have made human create clear and peaceful solutions in the midst of an impoverished rights a key issue in U.S.-Colombia to land conflicts. neighborhood in Port-au-Prince. relations and as of the end of 2008 The project uses the creation of no trade agreement had been signed. Governance green space to anchor neighborhood The program also provided grants Working with OSI’s Global Drug projects run by European NGOs to two groups in Peru that raised Policy program, the Latin America that address gang violence, improve international and domestic awareness Program funded the work of the high- sanitation and water treatment, about the trial of former President level Latin American Commission on provide education and professional Alberto Fujimori and provided crucial Drugs and Democracy, comprised of training, and foster microenterprises. legal support to the prosecution. three former presidents and prominent In the aftermath of the September To address public concerns social leaders. The commission hurricanes in Haiti, youth involved in many Latin American countries produced a highly publicized report on with the Soros foundation helped over increasing petty and organized drug policy failures in Latin America keep the foundation’s library and crime, the program financed the and made recommendations for viable community center open and used establishment of the Civil Society regional alternatives. the space to provide shelter and Center for Monitoring and Evaluating In Venezuela, the program assistance to others. Violence in El Salvador, a country sponsored an ongoing study by the with one of the highest homicide Universidad Central de Venezuela rates in the region. In the violence- assessing the effectiveness of plagued and impoverished Mexican government social services funded by state of Guerrero, OSI funded a oil profits. OSI’s foundation in Haiti Citizen’s Council civilian police monitoring project to used water supply and purification document police practices, analyze projects in Haitian neighborhoods and Fights Corruption the impact on citizen security and rural villages to strengthen community in Panama human rights, and mediate between governance and organizing. Citizens in Panama exposed public security officials and the local the illegal sale of communal population. The Soros foundation Information and Media property to tourism developers in Guatemala challenged violent The Latin America Program continued and uncovered thousands groups that operate with impunity to work with OSI’s Open Society of dollars worth of faulty or by helping establish a government- Justice Initiative to promote freedom incomplete equipment in a approved commission to work with of information legislation throughout community aqueduct project. the UN in investigating illegal groups the region. Advocacy efforts financed With OSI support, the Centro and clandestine forces that commit by the program and involving several de Estudios y Acción Social political violence in Guatemala. Central American organizations Panameño trained citizens Working with Mayan communities influenced the passage of freedom of and helped them form an devastated by conflict and historically information legislation in Honduras, anticorruption council that marginalized by Guatemalan society, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. discovered these scandals. the foundation helped legal activists A new television cartoon series The council went on to make and communities integrate traditional supported by the Guatemalan sure that public officials were approaches to justice into mainstream foundation helped children held accountable and that legal practices. To address long- understand issues of identity and companies reimbursed the simmering land rights abuses and culture, tolerance, human rights, and money they received for the issues, the Guatemala foundation environmental preservation. construction contracts.

soros foundations network Report 2008 83 Open Society Institute

The Open Society Institute works to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. Open societies are characterized by the rule of law; respect for human rights, minorities, and a diversity of opinions; democratically elected governments; market economies in which business and government are separate; and a civil society that helps keep government power in check.

To achieve its mission, OSI seeks to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. On a local level, OSI implements a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, OSI builds alliances across borders and continents on issues such as corruption and freedom of information. OSI places a high priority on protecting and improving the lives of people in marginalized communities. A cadet trains at a military school in Crimea, Ukraine. | Justyna Mielnikiewicz OSI and the Soros foundations Brussels London network, which was started by The Open Society Institute–Brussels The Open Society Foundation– investor and philanthropist George represents the Soros foundations London is an independent UK Soros in 1984, operate throughout network to partners in Western Europe. charity that houses initiatives such the world, with offices and foundations It facilitates collaboration between the as the East East: Partnership encompassing the United States and network and various European Union Beyond Borders Program, the Media more than 60 countries in Europe, institutions, the Council of Europe, Program, the Information Program, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. OSI and the Organization for Security and the Early Childhood Program, and the Soros foundations have Co-operation in Europe, as well as Muslims in EU Cities, the Public given away nearly $7 billion to build bilateral donors and nongovernmental Health Program’s Mental Health open, democratic societies, including organizations. OSI-Brussels works Initiative, the Justice Initiative’s $540 million in 2008. OSI has offices to influence EU policies and raise Equality and Citizenship Program, in New York, Brussels, Budapest, awareness in European institutions, some of the staff of the Scholarship London, Paris, and Washington, D.C. governments, and opinion-making Programs and the Central Eurasia circles about issues of concern to Project, and OSI’s International New York the network. Advocacy office. The Open Society Institute’s office In 2008, for example, the Brussels The Open Society Foundation in New York is the headquarters for office supported a campaign to stop hosts independent initiatives both OSI and the Soros foundations ethnic profiling and attacks on Roma supported by OSI, including Publish network. It provides the other OSI in Italy, Kenyan civil society advocacy What You Pay, a global civil society offices, affiliated organizations, and to strengthen the EU’s response to coalition working on accountability Soros foundations with administrative, the postelection crisis in that country, for natural resource revenues, financial, and technical support. It is and efforts to establish visa free the European Council on Foreign also the hub of communications for travel from neighboring countries into Relations, a think tank addressing the entire network and the main grant- the EU. The office also organized European foreign policy issues, and giving center. meetings and debates in Brussels on the Media Legal Defence Initiative, a OSI administers a number of large issues such as forced child labor in new organization that trains lawyers initiatives from New York, including Uzbekistan; the postelection crisis in in media law and helps journalists the Open Society Justice Initiative, Armenia; legal aid in Turkey; and the defend their rights. The office the Public Health Program, the education of migrant, minority, and facilitates contacts between the Central Eurasia Project/Middle East marginalized children in Europe. Soros foundations network and and North Africa Initiative, the Burma donor and NGO partners in the Project/Southeast Asia Initiative, Budapest United Kingdom. the Scholarship Programs, the In addition to providing administrative International Women’s Program, the support to the network, the Open Paris Open Society Fellowship, and U.S. Society Institute–Budapest houses The Open Society Institute–Paris Programs. The office is also home to the following initiatives: Arts and serves as a liaison and resource independent organizations supported Culture Network Program, the office for the Open Society Institute by OSI, such as the Revenue Watch International Higher Education and the Soros foundations network. Institute and the Soros Economic Support Program, the Human Rights It also acts as the OSI board liaison Development Fund. The New York– and Governance Grants Program, office, helping Soros foundations based OSI Russia Project supports the Local Government and Public implement appropriate board rotation civil society and human rights Service Reform Initiative, the Think procedures. The Belarus Project, groups, access to information efforts, Tank Fund, and Roma Initiatives. operated by OSI-Paris since 1997 and public debate and discussion when the OSI foundation in that initiatives. country was forced to close, supports the development of open society in

soros foundations network Report 2008 86 Belarus by enhancing civic culture the Second Chance Act, a bill foundations network. Another form of and preparing the country for a that helps people released from partnership of enormous importance democratic future. incarceration reintegrate into society, to the Soros foundations is that of the fought for legislation banning relationships with grantees that have Washington, D.C. torture, and worked to eliminate the developed into alliances for pursuing The Open Society Institute— sentencing disparity between crack crucial parts of the open society Washington, D.C. office works and powder cocaine. agenda. A list of some of our donor in collaboration with the Soros and NGO partners can be found foundations network to raise the Chairman’s, Presidential, and at www.soros.org/ar/partners. The profile of OSI priorities and to Institutional Grants Open Society Institute and the Soros encourage the United States Chairman’s and presidential grants foundations are deeply grateful to all government to adopt policies that totaled over $14 million in 2008. our partners and thank them for their support open societies. Domestic Funding was committed or went role in building open societies. priorities include criminal justice to, among others, the following: reform, encouraging humane 1,383,493 British pounds over OSI Ombudsman immigration policies, and supporting three years to the London School The OSI ombudsman addresses civil liberties. OSI-D.C.’s engagement of Economics to support a new complaints from within and outside on international issues includes Global Policy Centre; $250,000 the Soros foundations network advancing OSI’s public health to the International Senior Lawyers about acts or practices that appear agenda, promoting human rights and Project to promote and place pro- to constitute abuses of authority by international justice, and supporting bono assistance to NGOs and Soros foundations, by OSI-Budapest, the development of civil society. governments across the world; or by those parts of OSI in New In 2008, with the increase in and $250,000 to the International York that serve the network. More news about the CIA’s use of torture, Center for Transitional Justice for information can be found at www. OSI-D.C. helped educate legislators, their work helping countries deal with soros.org/ar/ombudsman. U.S. officials, journalists, and others war crimes and mass human rights The ombudsman may be about torture and called upon the abuses committed during conflict or contacted at: CIA to follow the U.S. Army’s ban by authoritarian regimes. Irena Veisaite against it. Internationally, OSI played Large institutional grants were OSI Ombudsman a key role in the coalition against also given to longtime OSI grantees e m a i l [email protected] child labor in Uzbekistan and in Human Rights Watch ($1 million), coordinating a response to the the American Civil Liberties Union Application Information election crises and their aftermaths Foundation ($1 million), and the Potential applicants should consult in Kenya and Zimbabwe. International Crisis Group ($2 the Grants, Scholarships, and million). The Soros Humanitarian Fellowships section of the OSI Open Society Policy Center Foundation commissioned the website, www.soros.org, to determine The Open Society Policy Center, Overseas Development Institute to their eligibility and access appropriate a nonpartisan 501(c)(4) public do a review of the Millennium Villages application guidelines. Soros policy organization funded directly Initiative and paid out $10 million foundations award grants principally by George Soros, works to for the third year of a five-year $50 to local organizations and individuals; advance legislation on key U.S. and million commitment to address the potential applicants should contact international issues, focusing on problem of extreme poverty in Africa. individual foundations for informaton protecting civil liberties, encouraging about their application procedures. multilateralism and economic Donor and NGO Partnerships development, and promoting human Partnerships with other donors rights, and criminal justice reform. In contribute to the work of the Open 2008, the center helped pass Society Institute and the Soros

soros foundations network Report 2008 87 Expenditures

Soros Foundations Open Society Foundation for Albania $ 3,235,000 Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation–Armenia 2,478,000 Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation–Azerbaijan 3,297,000 Open Society Fund–Bosnia and Herzegovina 3,471,000 Open Society Institute–Sofia (Bulgaria) 2,737,000 Open Society Fund–Prague (Czech Republic) 1,641,000 Open Society Initiative for East Africa 7,435,000 Open Estonia Foundation 3,129,000 Open Society Georgia Foundation 4,303,000 Fundación Soros–Guatemala 4,134,000 Fondation Connaissance et Liberté (Haiti) 4,460,000 Soros Foundation–Kazakhstan 3,367,000 Kosovo Foundation for Open Society 2,184,000 Soros Foundation–Kyrgyzstan 2,686,000 Soros Foundation–Latvia 2,052,000 Open Society Fund–Lithuania 966,000 Foundation Open Society Institute–Macedonia 7,268,000 Soros Foundation–Moldova 4,440,000 Open Society Forum (Mongolia) 1,346,000 Foundation Open Society Institute–Representative Office Montenegro 1,676,000 Stefan Batory Foundation (Poland) 6,816,000 Soros Foundation–Romania 3,654,000 Russia Project 5,711,000 Fund for an Open Society–Serbia 5,175,000 Open Society Foundation–Bratislava (Slovak Republic) 2,202,000 Open Society Foundation for South Africa 7,497,000 Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa 20,652,000 Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation–Tajikistan 3,105,000 Open Society Foundation (Turkey) 1,828,000 International Renaissance Foundation (Ukraine) 7,687,000 Open Society Initiative for West Africa 20,207,000 TOTAL SOROS FOUNDATIONS $151,714,000 Note: The above expenditures of $151,714,000 include the following; $131,498,000 of the Soros foundations network plus $20,216,000 against third party contributions. In order to fully reflect foundation expenditures, the Soros Foundations information above also includes OSI program expenditures against allocations made by the various network programs of OSI. However, the Network Programs section also reflects these expenditures, therefore resulting in a double count. This double count is accounted for as a deduction in the Interorganization Elimination indicated in the summary on the following page.

International Initiatives OSI–Paris Belarus Support 1,891,000 Burma Project/Indonesia/Southeast Asia Initiative 10,296,000 Central Eurasia Project/Middle East and North Africa Initiative 11,349,000 China Grants 3,981,000 Global Drug Policy 3,915,000 Latin America Regional Initiatives 11,968,000 Nepal and Bhutan Initiatives 1,151,000 Other African Initiatives 9,515,000 Other International 23,747,000 TOTAL INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVES $ 77,813,000 Note: The above expenditures of $77,813,000 include the following; $76,440,000 of the Soros foundations network plus $1,373,000 against third party contributions.

soros foundations network Report 2008 88 Network Programs AfriMAP $ 1,535,000 Arts and Culture Network Program 2,070,000 Early Childhood Program 3,906,000 East East: Partnership Beyond Borders Program 5,911,000 Education Support Program 6,376,000 EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program 1,786,000 Information Program 5,127,000 International Higher Education Support Program 19,307,000 International Women’s Program 6,286,000 Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative 10,559,000 Media Program 10,666,000 Open Society Fellowship 977,000 Open Society Justice Initiative 12,162,000 Public Health Program 28,234,000 Roma Initiatives 9,575,000 Scholarship Programs 18,402,000 Think Tank Fund 2,541,000 Youth Initiative 2,582,000 TOTAL NETWORK PROGRAMS $148,002,000 Note: The above expenditures of $148,002,000 include the following; $144,753,000 of the Soros foundations network plus $3,249,000 against third party contributions. In order to fully reflect foundation expenditures, the Soros Foundations section also includes OSI program expenditures against allocations made by the various network programs of OSI. However, the Network Programs information above also reflects these expenditures, therefore resulting in a double count. This double count is accounted for as a deduction in the Interorganization Elimination indicated in the summary below. The Early Childhood Program expenditures exclude a returned grant in the amount of $423,802.

U.S. Programs Criminal Justice Fund 12,559,000 Equality and Opportunity Fund 9,006,000 Democracy and Power Fund 17,386,000 Transparency and Integrity Fund 9,252,000 National Security and Human Rights Campaign 9,000,000 Campaign for Black Male Achievement 2,001,000 Neighborhood Stabilization Initiative 3,644,000 Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap 7,010,000 Strategic Opportunities Fund 3,870,000 Other U.S. Initiatives 13,836,000 OSI-Baltimore 6,498,000 OSI-Washington, D.C. 2,883,000 TOTAL U.S. PROGRAMS $ 96,945,000 Note: Other U.S. Initiatives include grants related to cooperative global engagement ($1,000,000) and global warming ($10,024,450). OSI-Baltimore expenditures include $245,000 of prior year accruals and $4,253,303 in third-party funds raised from other donors.

Soros Foundations Network Soros Foundations 151,714,000 Network Programs 148,002,000 International Initiatives 77,813,000 U.S. Programs 96,945,000 All Other Organization, Programs, and Costs 97,929,000 Interorganization Elimination (31,514,000) TOTAL SOROS FOUNDATIONS NETWORK EXPENDITURES $540,889,000 Note: The above expenditures of $540,889,000 include the following; $539,542,000 of the Soros foundations network plus $32,861,000 against third party contributions minus $31,514,000 in Interorganization Elimination. In order to fully reflect foundation and network program expenditures, the Soros Foundations section includes OSI program expenditures against allocations made by the various network programs of OSI. However, the Network Programs section also reflects these expenditures, therefore resulting in a double count. Thus, there is a double count of, $31,514,000, which is accounted for as a deduction in the Interorganization Elimination category indicated above.

soros foundations network Report 2008 89 Directory (as of July 2009) Villagers along a canal near the border between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan | Carolyn Drake Soros Foundations Open Society Fund–Prague TIFA Foundation (Indonesia) (Czech Republic) Jl. Jaya Mandala II No. 14E Open Society Foundation Seifertova 47 Menteng Dalam for Albania 130 00 Praha 3, Czech Republic Jakarta 12870 Rruga Qemal Stafa email [email protected] Indonesia Pallati 120/2 Tirana, Albania website www.osf.cz email [email protected] email [email protected] executive director Marie Kopecka website www.tifafoundation.org website www.soros.al executive director Tri Nugroho executive director Andi Dobrushi Open Society Initiative for East Africa Soros Foundation–Kazakhstan ACS Plaza, Lenana Road Open Society Institute Assistance 111a-9 Zheltoksan str. Foundation–Armenia P.O. Box 2193-00202, Nairobi, Kenya Almaty, Kazakhstan, 050000 7/1 Tumanyan Street, cul-de-sac #2 email [email protected] email [email protected] 0002, Yerevan, Armenia website www.soros.org/initiatives/osiea (cc: [email protected]) email [email protected]; [email protected] executive director Binaifer Nowrojee website www.soros.kz; www.budget.kz website www.osi.am chair, executive council Anna executive director Larisa Minasyan Open Estonia Foundation Alexandrova Estonia Avenue 5a Open Society Institute Assistance EE10143 Tallinn, Estonia Kosovo Foundation Foundation–Azerbaijan email [email protected] for Open Society 117A, Hasan Aliyev website www.oef.org.ee Ulpiana, Villa No.13 Baku 1110, Azerbaijan executive director Mall Hellam 38 000 Pristina, Kosovo email [email protected] email [email protected] website www.osi.az Open Society Georgia Foundation website www.kfos.org executive director Farda Asadov 10 Chovelidze Street executive director Luan Shllaku 0108 Tbilisi, Georgia Open Society Fund–Bosnia email [email protected] Soros Foundation–Kyrgyzstan and Herzegovina website www.osgf.ge 55a, Logvinenko St. Marsala Tita 19/III executive director Ketevan Khutsishvili 720040 Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan 71 000 Sarajevo, Bosnia and email [email protected] Herzegovina Fundación Soros–Guatemala website www.soros.kg email [email protected] Edificio Plaza Marítima, 6 Nivel executive director Kumar Bekbolotov website www.soros.org.ba 6a Avenida 20-25 Zona 10 executive director Dobrila Govedarica Guatemala City 01010, Guatemala Soros Foundation–Latvia email [email protected] Alberta 13 Open Society Institute–Sofia website www.soros.org.gt Riga, Latvia LV 1010 (Bulgaria) executive director Elena Díez-Pinto email [email protected] 56, Solunska Str. website www.sfl.lv Sofia 1000, Bulgaria Fondation Connaissance executive director Andris Aukmanis email [email protected] et Liberté (Haiti) website www.osi.bg 143 Avenue Christophe Foundation Open Society Institute– executive director Georgi Stoytchev Port-au-Prince, Haiti, HT 6112 Macedonia Alternate mailing address: Blvd. Jane Sandanski 111, P.O.B. 378 P. O. Box 2720 1000 Skopje, Republic of Macedonia Port-au-Prince, Haiti email [email protected] email [email protected] website www.soros.org.mk website www.fokal.org executive director Vladimir Milcin executive director Lorraine Mangones

soros foundations network Report 2008 92 Soros Foundation–Moldova Open Society Foundation Open Society Initiative 32 Bulgara Street for South Africa for West Africa Chisinau, MD-2001 P.O. Box 143, Howard Place, 7450, Immeuble EPI Cape Town, South Africa Republic of Moldova Boulevard du Sud X 2nd floor, B2, Park Lane, Corner of Park email [email protected]; Rue des Ecrivains and Alexandra Roads [email protected] Point E, Dakar, Senegal Pinelands, 7405, Cape Town, South website www.soros.md Postal address: B.P. 008, Dakar-Fann Africa executive director Victor Ursu email [email protected] (general email [email protected] inquiries); [email protected] (grant website www.osf.org.za applications) Foundation Open Society executive director Zohra Dawood Institute–Representative website www.osiwa.org Office Montenegro executive director Nana Tanko Njegoseva 26 Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa 81 000 Podgorica, Montenegro 1st Floor, President Place, Cnr Baker email [email protected] OSI Regional Directors & Hood Avenue website www.osim.org.me Rosebank, Johannesburg, South Africa director Sanja Elezovic East Africa South Africa mailing address: Binaifer Nowrojee (Nairobi) P. O. Box 678 Stefan Batory Foundation (Poland) Wits 2050, South Africa Latin America and the Caribbean 10a Sapiezynska Street email [email protected] Sandra Dunsmore (Washington, D.C.) Warsaw 00-215, Poland website www.osisa.org email [email protected] director Sisonke Msimang website www.batory.org.pl Southern Africa, West Africa, South Africa executive director Anna Rozicka Open Society Institute Assistance Julie Hayes (New York) Foundation–Tajikistan Soros Foundation–Romania 37/1 Bokhtar Street, Vefa Business Southeast Asia 33 Caderea Bastiliei Str. Sector 1 Center, 4th floor Maureen Aung-Thwin, Director of the Bucharest 010613, Romania Dushanbe, Tajikistan 734002 Burma Project/Southeast Asia Initiative email [email protected] email [email protected] (New York) website www.soros.ro executive director Zuhra Halimova executive director Gabriel Petrescu Afghanistan, Pakistan, Open Society Foundation (Turkey) Turkmenistan, Middle East Fund for an Open Society–Serbia Cevdet Pasa Caddesi and North Africa Kneginje Ljubice 14 Mercan Apt., No. 85, D.11 Bebek Anthony Richter, Director of the Central Eurasia Project/Middle East and North 11000 Belgrade, Serbia Istanbul 34342, Turkey Africa Initiative (New York) email [email protected] email [email protected] website www.fosserbia.org website www.aciktuplumenstitusu.org.tr Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, executive director Jadranka Jelincic director Hakan Altinay Moldova, Romania, and Slovakia Jonas Rolett (Washington, D.C.) Open Society Foundation– International Renaissance Bratislava (Slovak Republic) Foundation (Ukraine) Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Bastova 5 46 Artema Str. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, 811 03 Bratislava, Slovak Republic Kyiv 04053, Ukraine and Tajikistan email [email protected] email [email protected] Michael Hall (New York) website www.osf.sk website www.irf.kiev.ua executive director Alena Panikova executive director Yevhen Bystrytsky Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia Beka Vuco (New York)

soros foundations network Report 2008 93 Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Education Support Program Media Program Poland, Russia, and Ukraine Hugh McLean, Director (London) Gordana Jankovic, Director (London) Leonard Benardo (New York) Biljana Tatomir, Deputy Director EUMAP–EU Monitoring (Budapest) Turkey and Advocacy Program Algirdas Lipstas, Deputy Director Annette Laborey (Paris) Katy Negrin, Project Manager (London) (Budapest) Miriam Anati, Advocacy and Open Society Fellowship OSI Initiatives Communications (Budapest) Leonard Benardo, Director (New York) (Initiative and network program personnel can Nazia Hussain, Project Director, be contacted at OSI offices as indicated) Muslims in EU Cities (London) Open Society Justice Initiative James Goldston, Executive Director AfriMAP–Africa Governance Global Drug Policy Program Monitoring and Advocacy Project (New York) Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, Director Robert Varenik, Director of Programs Ozias Tungwarara, Director (Warsaw) (Johannesburg) (New York) Pascal Kambale, Deputy Director Zaza Namoradze, Director (Budapest) (Washington, D.C.) Human Rights and Governance Grants Program Bronwen Manby, Senior Program Public Health Program Yervand Shirinyan, Program Director Adviser (London) Françoise Girard, Director (New York) (Budapest) Mugambi Kiai, Program Officer Marine Buissonnière, Deputy Director (Nairobi, OSIEA) (New York) Information Program Shari Turitz, Director of Programs Arts and Culture Network Program Darius Cuplinskas, Director (London) (New York) Andrea Csanadi, Senior Program Daniel Wolfe, Program Director, Manager (Budapest) International Higher Education International Harm Reduction Support Program Development (New York) Burma Project/Southeast Rhett Bowlin, Director (Budapest) Rebecca Tolson, Deputy Director, Asia Initiative Katalin Miklos, Deputy Director International Harm Reduction Development (New York) Maureen Aung-Thwin, Director (Budapest) (New York) Judith Klein, Program Director, Mental Health Initiative (Budapest) International Women’s Program Kathleen M. Foley, MD, Medical Maryam Elahi, Director (New York) Central Eurasia Project/Middle Director, International Palliative Care East and North Africa Initiative Sarah Wikenczy, Advocacy Project Initiative (New York) Director (New York) Anthony Richter, Director (New York) Mary Callaway, Project Director, International Palliative Care Initiative Documentary Photography Project Latin America Program (New York) Amy Yenkin, Director (New York) Sandra Dunsmore, Regional Director Jonathan Cohen, Project Director, (Washington, D.C.) Law and Health Initiative (New York) Early Childhood Program Heather Doyle, Project Director, Sexual Health and Rights Project (New York) Sarah Klaus, Director (London) Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative Cynthia Eyakuze, Project Director, Adrian Ionescu, Director (Budapest) Public Health Watch (New York) East East: Partnership Beyond Borders Program Scott Abrams, Deputy Director (Budapest) Roma Initiatives Mary Frances Lindstrom, Director (London) Robert Ebel, Chair of LGI Steering Bernard Rorke, Director (Budapest) Committee (USA) Kristof Varga, Manager of Local Government Information Network (LOGIN) (Budapest)

soros foundations network Report 2008 94 Scholarship Programs OSI Offices Open Society Institute–Budapest Martha Loerke, Director (New York) Oktober 6. u. 12 Alex Irwin, Deputy Director (New York) Open Society Institute H-1051 Budapest, Hungary Audrone Uzieliene, Deputy Director 400 West 59th Street tel (36 1) 327 3100 (London) New York, NY 10019 USA fax (36 1) 327 3101 tel (212) 548 0600 email [email protected] Special Initiatives fax (212) 548 4679 website www.soros.org Emily Martinez, Director (Washington, website www.soros.org Katalin E. Koncz, Executive Director D.C.) George Soros, Chair governing board Katalin E. Koncz, Aryeh Neier, President Aryeh Neier, Istvan Rev, William Think Tank Fund Stewart J. Paperin, Executive Vice Newton-Smith Goran Buldioski, Director (Budapest) President Annette Laborey, Vice President Open Society Foundation–London Youth Initiative Maija Arbolino, Chief Financial Officer Cambridge House Noel Selegzi, Director (New York) and Director of Finance 100 Cambridge Grove Stephanie C. Behrens, Director of London W6 0LE, United Kingdom International Human Resources tel (44) 207 031 0200 Ricardo A. Castro, General Counsel U.S. Programs fax (44) 207 031 0201 (The Open Society Institute’s U.S. Programs Tawanda Mutasah, Director of Programs email [email protected] are headquartered in New York, except for Anthony Richter, Associate Director and Marijke Thomson, Managing Director OSI–Baltimore) Director of the Central Eurasia Project/ Fiona Napier, Director of International Middle East and North Africa Initiative Advocacy Ann Beeson, Executive Director, Laura Silber, Director of Public Affairs U.S. Programs and Senior Policy Advisor Open Society Institute–Paris Nancy Youman, Deputy Director, Yalan Teng, Chief Information Officer U.S. Programs 38 Boulevard Beaumarchais George Vickers, Director of International Erlin Ibreck, Director, Strategic Operations 75011 Paris, France Opportunities Fund tel (33 1) 48 05 24 74 Laleh Ispahani, Director, Transparency OSI International Advisory Board fax (33 1) 40 21 65 41 and Integrity Fund Marieclaire Acosta, Suliman Baldo, email [email protected] Raquiba LaBrie, Director, Equality Leon Botstein, Maria Livanos Cattaui, Annette Laborey, Executive Director and Opportunity Fund Asma Jahangir, Ivan Krastev, Pierre Leonard Noisette, Director, Criminal Mirabaud, Aryeh Neier (President), Open Society Institute– Justice Fund Wiktor Osiatynski, Istvan Rev, Ghassan Washington, D.C. William Vandenberg, Director, Salame, John Shattuck, George Soros Democracy and Power Fund (Chair), Jonathan Soros 1120 19th Street, N.W., 8th Floor Washington, D.C. 20036 USA Open Society Institute–Baltimore U.S. Programs Board tel (202) 721 5600 Diana Morris, Director Deepak Bhargava, Leon Botstein fax (202) 530 0128 201 North Charles Street, Suite 1300 (OSI Trustee), Geoffrey Canada, email [email protected] Joan Dunlop, Sherrilyn Ifill, Aryeh Neier Baltimore, MD 21201 website www.osi-dc.org (OSI Trustee), George Soros (OSI Stephen Rickard, Director email [email protected] Trustee), Jonathan Soros (OSI Trustee), Morton H. Halperin, Senior Policy Advisor Bryan A. Stevenson, Ethan Zuckerman After-School Program Herbert Sturz, Founding Chairman of Open Society Institute–Brussels The After-School Corporation Rue d’Idalie 9-13 B-1050 Brussels, Belgium tel (32 2) 505 46 46 fax (32 2) 502 46 46 email [email protected] Heather Grabbe, Director

soros foundations network Report 2008 95 Credits

Soros Foundations Network Report 2008

Published by the Open Society Institute 400 West 59th Street New York, New York 10019 USA www.soros.org

Produced by the Office of Communications Laura Silber, Director of Public Affairs Ari Korpivaara, Director of Publications

Editors Ari Korpivaara, William Kramer

Photography Editors Pamela Chen, William Kramer

Story Writers Chuck Sudetic, OSI senior writer, wrote the three feature stories in this report: “Securing Citizenship for Millions of Stateless People,” “Dominican by Birth, Haitian in Name Only,” and “Roma Health Scholars Learn to Help Their People.” Photographer Karen Robinson interviewed the people quoted in the “We Are British” photo essay. Reporter Cecilia Vaisman interviewed the people quoted in “We Are Mauritanians.”

Editorial Assistants Rachel Aicher, Gabi Chojkier, Karynn Fish, Rachel Hart, Alexander Krstevski, Paul Silva, Laura Wickens

Designer Jeanne Criscola | Criscola Design

Printer GHP Media, Inc.

Photography Lynsey Addario for the New York Times: 78–79 Roger Lemoyne/Redux: 70–71 Jon Anderson for the Open Society Institute: 20–27 Benjamin Lowy/VII Network: 77 Marcus Bleasdale/VII: 46–47 Justyna Mielnikiewicz/Altemus: 84–85 Eric Bouvet/VII Network: 60–61 Karen Robinson/Panos Pictures for the Open Society Pamela Chen/Open Society Institute: 30–33 Institute: 2–3, 38–45 Carolyn Drake/Panos Pictures: 74, 90–91 Lorena Ros for the Open Society Institute: 66–67 Christian Holst/Reportage by Getty Images: 50–51 Jacob Silberberg/Panos Pictures: 82 Ferenc Isza/AFP/Getty Images: 68 Maria Steen/Moment: 64–65 Boryana Katsarova/AFP/Getty Images: 68–69 Aubrey Wade/Panos Pictures for the Open Society Institute: 6–13 Marvi Lacar/Reportage by Getty Images: 54–55 Lori Waselchuk: 58

soros foundations network Report 2008 96 This annual report describes 2008 activities of the Open Society Institute and the Soros foundations network. For daily reports about open society issues, go to OSI’s website, www.soros.org.

SOROS FOUNDATIONS NETWORK REPORT 2008

Complete photography credits appear on page 96. s Foundation Soro Soros Foundations Network Report 2008 s N etwork R etwork

Human Rights 2008 eport Justice Accountability

We ArE . . .