Crisis response fund

• Delivering emergency help for targeted activists is easier said than done

  FRENCH 

  By Lesego Moshikaro and Yessenia Soto

  This article is part of the #StoriesOfResilience series, coordinated by CIVICUS to feature groups and activists on their journey to promote better resourcing practices for civil society and to mobilise meaningful resources to sustain their work.

  Imagine you lead a non-profit feminist organisation in Egypt.

  Your work involves empowering women and lobbying the government to respect and protect their rights. In repressive Egypt, the authorities don’t like what you’re doing, and they want it to stop. So, they attack you – hitting you with a travel ban, freezing all your assets and charging you with receiving illegal foreign funding for your civil society organisation (CSO), which could lead to life in prison if you’re found guilty by Egypt’s notoriously biased courts. In aggressive and threatening interrogations, officials pressure you to shut down your CSO ‘voluntarily’, or things could get worse for you. 

  Photo: Activists, civil society organisations and emergency fund managers during the “Resource the resistance” convening at ICSW 2019.