In fulfillment of the objectives set forth in GIHR statute as represented by acting to promote the international principles of human rights and the dissemination of human rights culture on the widest possible scale by providing training, consultancy and research services to civil society organizations in addition to governmental and non-governmental organizations, together with other actors in the public and private spheres, as well for seeking to streamline the principles of equality, dignity and respect in both actual practice and policies at all levels, GIHR implemented last year a range of training courses in various human rights issues which amounted to 34 training courses attended by 753 trainees from 15 Arab countries, of whom 477 participants represented civil society organizations, 207 participants represented national human rights institutions and 69 participants represented government agencies. This total number of those who participated in these training activities was 151 male and female trainees.

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While the Geneva Institute for Human Rights is exerting these efforts in the field of human rights with special focus on the Middle East and North Africa, it still believes that its activities are yet falling short of its set ambitions, which aim to minimize the gap between what is said, written, and published on human rights, on the one hand, and what is practiced on the ground, on the other. This is because in spite of the unprecedentedly wide circulation of human rights through the communications revolution which helped to a significant degree in monitoring, documenting, reporting, and exposing human rights violations wherever they existed, there is still much to be done before a world where the values of human rights and the principles of freedom and human dignity prevail can be realized. It is a long and difficult march, fraught with roadblocks in the form of despotic regimes that still control the destiny of many human beings, as well as in the form of dominant cultural concepts and local traditions which run counter to human rights concepts, just not to mention conflicts and wars that bring about more human rights violations incomparable to peace-time records.

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GIHR hopes, in the course of presenting statistics on the activities undertaken in the field of human rights during 2012, that the achievements of the year to come will be much larger than those of the year just elapsing, and that number of beneficiaries of GIHR activities will keep on growing to graduate more new generations of human rights activists and defenders. Equally, GIHR hopes that the interaction of individuals, institutions, donors, and governments with such activities will accelerate for the sake of a better future for mankind.

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