4.10.1. APC-hosted or co-hosted convenings

APC recognises the limitations, challenges and discrimination by visa regimes on the free mobility of its staff, members/partners and invitees to convenings APC it organises or attends with a delegation.

For this reason, APC is committed to not only providing the necessary support to participants throughout the visa process but also to integrate measures from the convening planning stage that will help avoid or reduce discrimination participants may face during the application.

We have learned through organising convenings and managing risk assessments that as an international organisation with registration in the USA and Spain, APC holds a privileged role as an institution, and hence is able to provide support and shield participants from intimidating visa enquiries.

For this reason we record visa as a risk in all our convenings Risk Assessment and as mitigation and safety measure, we indicate that for any convening that APC programmes/teams organise we must use Conference visas as our standard and shared approach. If an exception is envisioned for a different type of visa such as Tourist visa which poses a risk on the participants, this exception needs to be shared well in advance and discussed with the Operations Manger as part of the Event or Individual Risk Assessment.

APC-hosted or co-hosted convenings

For a convening hosted or co-hosted by APC, the country visa requirements constitute one of the basic criteria that can determine if a location is suitable for the convening. This means that visas need to be factored in all country comparison exercises at the early stage of planning.

The convening countries will be identified based on the actual visa information obtained for the intended participants’ nationalities. Countries that offer more flexible and easier visa processes will be preferred against countries with more restrictive visa requirements.

A country with no visa required or easier entry requirements for a majority of the participants and a country that requires most participants to have a visa but offers a clear and expedited electronic visa system can be equally recommended.

Roles and responsibilities

The convening point of contact will ask the convening lead to suggest up to three countries that would best respond to the convening.

The convening point of contact will provide the APC convening lead an indication about expected number of participants, expected nationalities, and any additional available information about the participants (i.e. women's human right defenders, LGBTQIA+ persons, sex workers and so on), and available budget.

The convening lead, based on the information received, has up to two weeks to come back with their recommendation about the location.