The Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Organisation:
For a powerpoint presentation summarising the organisation and activities, see here.
The Oslo Coalition is organised under the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law. Unlike the other programmes run by the Centre, the Coalition enjoys a great deal of autonomy, since it has its own executive board. For the Oslo Coalition Statutes, see here.
The Oslo Coalition is run by an executive board consisting of 3 members nominated by The Council for Religious and Life Stance Communities in Norway, 3 members nominated by the Norwegian Centre of Human Rights, and 1 member nominated by the The Church of Norway Council on Ecumenical and International Relations.
The Oslo Coalition has a secretariat physically situated in the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights. It has access to the infrastructure, meeting and seminar rooms of the Centre. The coalition has one permanent employee: the Oslo Coalition Programme Director. At present the programme director is Barbara Sivertsen.
The Oslo Coalition works on a project basis (see the menu in the left margin), establishing partnerships with organisations, institutions of education and religious communities with the aim of strengthening the commitment and the capacity to work for freedom of belief. The work is generally carried through by project groups. Each project group should contain at least one board member.
Funding for the secretariat and for many of the projects comes from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but participants in project groups are not paid for their time by the Oslo Coalition, unless special funding is obtained to carry out a survey or for special tasks requiring an outside expert. Project participants may however be funded by their own organisations, that support the Oslo Coalition in this way.
Funding for projects may also come from our international partner organisations - indeed we often share project costs with interntional Partners.
In early years, the Oslo Coalition was given help and guidance from an International Advisory Committee. This is no longer active in itself, although several of its members continue to work closely with the Oslo Coalition.