The NHRF recognizes that human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent. Thus, the NHRF strives to promote human rights internationally by providing support to human rights defenders locally.

However, the NHRF has developed a set of criteria for its selection of priority countries.

These criteria emphasise:

• The human rights situation,
• Opportunities for improvements through advocacy work and work for access to justice,
• The presence of competent organisations,
• The need for the type of support which the NHRF can offer,
• Input from donors and owners, in addition to possible synergies with networks and owner organisations.

The NHRF assesses and accepts project applications that are either from these priority countries, or directly address human rights defenders at risk.

The current priority countries are: