The South East Asia NHRI Forum of SEANF is poised to strengthen its organization with a five-year strategic plan. A three-day high level strategic planning workshop of the 5-member network was recently held in Jakarta, Indonesia hosted by the Komnas HAM.

All the heads of the five NHRIs, namely, Ifdhal Kasim of Komnas HAM, Tan Sri Hasmy Agam of SUHAKAM, Loretta Ann Rosales of the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines, Prof. Amara Pongsapich of the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, and Sebastiao Dias Ximenes of the Provedore for Justice and Human Rights of Timor Leste participated in the planning exercise. They were joined by other Commissioners and technical staff of their respective Commissions. Chris Sidoti, a former Commissioner of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) of Australia and now consultant at the APF facilitated the workshop.

The workshop identified five objectives of the SEANF: 1) the strengthening of the organization as an independent and credible institution; 2) establishment and strengthening of Paris Principles-compliant NHRIs; 3) networking with academic institutions, NGOs/CSOs, SEA governments, and international HR organizations, particularly the APF and the International Coordinating Council of national human rights institutions; 4) recommendation of human rights laws, policies, measures, ad remedies; and, 5) joint or collective action in response to urgent human rights issues.

The Final Strategic Plan document will be approved at a side meeting of the SEANF during the 16th Annual APF Meeting and Biennial Conference to be held in Bangkok, Thailand on September 2011.