Front Line Defenders — Protection Planning Template
Summary
Front Line Defenders’ fillable template that walks a human-rights defender (individual or organisation) through a structured risk = threats × vulnerabilities ÷ capacities analysis and produces a written protection plan.
Body
The Front Line Defenders Protection Planning Template is a workbook for human-rights defenders (HRDs) at risk: an individual defender, an organisation, or a network that wants to move from an intuitive sense of “this is dangerous” to a written plan with concrete mitigations [source: front-line-protection-template]. The template’s analytic core is the FLD risk equation: Risk = Threats × Vulnerabilities ÷ Capacities. Working through it forces the defender to name the threats (state, non-state, family, internal organisational), the vulnerabilities (visibility, isolation, single points of failure), and the capacities they already have (allies, technology, secure communications, support network), and then to derive a written protection plan with time-bound actions [source: front-line-protection-template].
The template covers the four domains defenders usually need to plan across: digital (devices, accounts, communications, metadata hygiene); physical (travel, public movement, home, office); psychosocial (stress, isolation, family, group dynamics); and legal (arrest procedures, document security, emergency contacts). For each domain, the template asks the defender to (a) state the current practice, (b) identify the gap, (c) set the target, (d) name who is responsible, and (e) set a review date [source: front-line-protection-template].
It is explicitly a fill-in document, not a book: defenders are meant to print it, work through it on their own or with a trusted colleague, and produce a written plan that they revisit every six months or after any incident. FLD recommends pairing the template with the Holistic Security Manual (Tactical Tech / FLD) for the deeper conceptual scaffolding [source: front-line-protection-template].
Treat as link-only; reuse terms are not explicitly free; reproduce by paraphrase. The template is used globally and is jurisdiction-neutral; its strongest applications are with HRDs in repressive contexts (Central America, South Asia, Middle East, North Africa).
Use it for
Designing a security plan for a high-risk organisation or individual defender; running a six-month security review; cross-linking threat model and capacity inventory.
Related
- affinity-groups
- boycotts-and-strikes
- dilemma-actions
- escalation
- framing-and-narrative
- leadership-development
- methods-of-nonviolent-action
- noncooperation
- nonviolent-direct-action
- one-to-ones
- pillars-of-support
- public-narrative
- structure-tests
- the-tactic-star
Open Questions
- Confirm current URL — Front Line Defenders re-publishes the template every few years; the older versions remain circulating.
- Cross-link to T3’s
protection-planningconcept (concurrent Terminal 3 work).