Opinions & Features

CIVICUS strategy review workshop: a step into social cohesion and sustainable development

By Mohammad Hasan, Yes Theatre Palestine CIVICUS’ process to mid-term review its strategic plan (2017-2022) is almost finished.
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Innovative 15-year old activist driving social inclusion movement in India

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.
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Burundi: A president “chosen by God” and those who disagree

By Paul Mulindwa, advocacy and campaigns officer at CIVICUS Four years after Burundi’s crisis began, 300,000 people have fled the country for safety.
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Fiji’s review at the Human Rights Council highlights lack of progress on civic freedoms

By Josef Benedict, civic space research officer at CIVICUS This November in Geneva, the United Nations examined Fiji’s human rights record for the third time.
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Out in the cold: The plight of the UWC 143

By Masana Ndinga-Kanga, Crisis Response Fund lead at CIVICUS and Lundi Mazizi, co-ordinator of the UWC Ex-Workers Movement So much can happen in 900 days.
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The UN at 75: Time to Give Citizens a Voice

By Andreas Bummel the Executive Director of Democracy Without Borders, Lysa John Secretary-General of CIVICUS and Bruno Kaufmann is co-president of the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy and board member of Democracy International Next year the United Nations will commemorate its 75th anniversary.
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The Rapid Decline in Civic Freedoms: 5 Countries to Keep an Eye on

By Ine Van Severen, Civic Space Researcher at CIVICUS 2019 has been a year of protest.
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Donors aren't investing in a resilient civil society in Latin America, but philanthropy bodies stand out

By Clara Bosco, civil society resourcing advisor at CIVICUS These last years have marked the tipping point of a growing disconnect between citizens and public institutions in Latin America.
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Celebrating our right to protest!

Secretary General’s Update (Aug-Sep 2019) In the context of increasing attacks on civic space around the world, it seems far more unusual to have an opportunity to celebrate the progress being made through civil society and citizen activism around the world.

Keep moving until the departure of the corrupt

By Ziad Abdul Samad, Executive Director of the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND) The popular protests in Lebanon began after the government announced its intention to impose new taxes on citizens and in an atmosphere of tension and mounting fears of continued economic collapse.

What Constituents Say about CIVICUS in 2019!

By Marina Cherbonnier, CIVICUS member engagement specialist Each year, CIVICUS Constituents are asked what they think about CIVICUS - a global alliance of over 8000 organisations, movements and individuals.
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Vibrant Civil Society Essential for Sustainable Development in Iran

By Masana Ndinga-Kanga, Crisis Response Fund Lead at CIVICUS & Sohrab Razzaghi is Executive Director of Volunteer Activists Institute  2019 has not been a good year for Iranian human rights activists.
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Interview with AfricaNews: Concern over human rights violations in Egypt

In an interview with @africanews @DaveKode speaks about the recent crackdown on protests and mass arrests of #HRDs, academics and journalists in #Egypt https://t.

Why do we need to #RewriteHerStory?

Female leaders in 2018 top films were 4 times more likely to be shown in revealing clothing.

Human Rights Council Elections 2019

In October 2019, in New York, the UN General Assembly will elect 14 new members of the 47-member State Human Rights Council.
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Exposing human rights violations through sport in Eritrea — is anyone taking notice?

By David Kode, advocacy and campaigns lead at CIVICUS Sport is a major unifier among all nations and the plight of Eritrean athletes should be enough to force the international community, particularly states that now host many Eritreans, to exert pressure on President Isaias Afwerki to implement reforms, 26 years after taking power.
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Khashoggi paid the price for being a 'different Saudi'

By Masana Ndinga-Kanga, Crisis Response Fund Lead at CIVICUS Since Jamal Khashoggi disappeared on October 2, 2018, in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the Saudi authorities have continuously changed their narrative of what happened.
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A seat at the table for civil society

By Lysa John, Secretary-General of CIVICUS & Mandeep Tiwana, Chief Programmes Officer at CIVICUS 2019 may well be remembered as the year in which ordinary citizens finally lost patience with incremental changes and called for the bold and urgent actions we need to address the challenges we face.
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Listen to the future – how 26 youth-led organizations are supercharging the UN's Global Goals

By Lysa John, Secretary-General of CIVICUS From gun control marches in the United States to impassioned climate change speeches on the global stage of the UN, youth are leading the charge to hold governments accountable and address our biggest challenges.
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Co-creating grassroots resourcing alternatives: shifting from theory to practice!

By Clara Bosco, senior advisor on civil society at CIVICUS In recent years, inspiring funders and grassroots movements have experimented with different funding and organising models to better support smaller, local, spontaneous and less formal groups, and to make themselves more accountable to these.
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Lysa John: “Attacks on civil society mask the failure of governments”

*Interview with CIVICUS SG, Lysa John.

Enabling Members to Truly Drive the CIVICUS Alliance

By Belen Giaquinta and Merle Rutz As a World Alliance, CIVICUS holds, in its essence and identity, the principles of “people power” and democratic values.
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What a Dhaka slum fire and the Rohingya crisis tell us about enforced disappearances in Bangladesh

By Dominic Perera, CIVICUS Monitor Project Officer at CIVICUS Earlier this month, Bangladesh captured international headlines as an enormous fire ripped through an informal settlement in Dhaka’s Mirpur area.
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Asia's Disappearing Activists

By Josef Benedict, Civic Space Researcher at CIVICUS Since June 2019, over a million people have taken to the streets of Hong Kong on a weekly basis to demonstrate.
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What other African protesters can learn from Sudan

By David Kode, Advocacy and Campaigns Lead at CIVICUS Exactly four months after former President Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan was pushed out of power, and a few weeks after the military rulers and civilians signed a peace deal to thrash out the political transition, ordinary Sudanese continue to pay a heavy price.

More just resourcing, more inclusive workplaces!

Secretary General’s Update (July 2019) July has been an incredibly exciting month and I’m excited to share key headlines from our work in this period! Progressing our efforts on civil society resourcing reforms Since the start of this year, we have had the privilege to hear from activists, organisers, young leaders and progressive funders from around the world on the resourcing challenges faced by civil society – and to understand how bold ideas and creative solutions can help address these barriers.
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Your life or your freedom? The ultimate price to defend the environment

By Natalia Gomez Peña, Advocacy & Network Engagement Officer, Vuka! Secretariat For the family of indigenous Guatemalan activist Jorge Juc, the announcement last week by US President Donald Trump of an agreement declaring Guatemala a “safe third country” could not be more bitterly ironic.
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Success in Sudan

By Paul Mulindwa, an advocacy and campaigns officer with CIVICUS.
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State supported anti-rights groups gaining ground

By Andrew Firmin & Sylvia Mbataru Human rights have always been contested, and groups that attack human rights are nothing new.
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Narendra Modi Has Five Years to Change His Track Record on Democratic Values

By Mandeep Tiwana, Chief Programmes Officer at CIVICUS Recent raids by the Central Bureau of Investigation on the homes and offices of human rights lawyers Anand Grover and Indira Jaising are deeply worrying.
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CIVICUS en RightsCon2019!

Por Marianna Belalba Barreto y Belén Giaquinta Todxs aquellos interesados en la interfaz entre derechos humanos y la tecnología sabrán que el mes pasado se celebró RightsCon 2019 en Túnez.

Lack of funding slowing down young African changemakers

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.
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Tanzania continues clampdown with new restrictive laws that undermine development

By Paul Mulindwa, an advocacy and campaigns officer with CIVICUS.

The CIVICUS Diversity and Inclusion journey

Spanish | French Diversity and Inclusion has become a hot topic within civil society in recent years which has prompted the sector to take a step back and evaluate its own programmes and operations.

AGNA: Sharing Lessons Globally to Scale up Domestic Impact

By Jimm Chick Fomunjong, Head, Knowledge Management Unit, WACSI Civil society organisations (CSOs) across the globe thrive on the implementation of best practices.

Why we need more women leaders in civil society worldwide

By Helene Wolf, Chair, FAIR SHARE of Women Leaders Half of the delegates at CIVICUS’ International Civil Society Week (April, Belgrade) were women.
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Youth movements and funders need to learn to understand each other better

By Gioel Gioacchino, research consultant with CIVICUS As a keynote speaker at a global gathering of a thousand activists and NGO workers in Belgrade in April, the host of a popular Serbian television spoof news show, Zoran Kesic performed 24 minutes of brilliant (and cathartic) satire.
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SG Update: For May-June 2019

Dear members & friends of CIVICUS, The past weeks have been a busy but exciting time for a number of our networks and initiatives! We were proud to have hosted over 80 activists representing work on civic freedoms from across the world in Johannesburg in May for a dialogue with Clement Voule, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association (FoAA).
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Key Lessons from Testing Non-Traditional Development Approaches in Malawi

By Dinah Sandoval & Alexis Banks, Root Change 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.
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Time to act: Sustainable Goals

By Lysa John, Secretary-General of CIVICUS.

Webinar: “How to Resource Youth-Led Movements in the 21st Century”

Did you know that most youth-led groups and movements operate with an annual budget of less than 10,000 USD? It´s known that young people in the activism and development sector in the Global South face significant resourcing challenges: little capacity to attract funding and comply with donor requirements; ​restricted social, political and economic spaces to participate and grow; extensive gaps between the funds available to serve youth versus those managed directly by youth, and significant disparities between the resourcing opportunities that target young individual leaders within groups and movements rather than to the group itself, just to mention a few.
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"Born a refugee, I dream of a place called home"

By Mohammed Eid This story was facilitated by CIVICUS.
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Civic space is shrinking, yet civil society is not the enemy

By Lysa John, Secretary-General of CIVICUS.
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Opinion: Government attacks on humanitarian organisations and human rights rising

By Lysa John, Secretary-General of CIVICUS.

UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association, Clément Voule meets with civil society to discuss threats to rights

  More than 80 representatives of civil society organisations, community leaders and academics met in Johannesburg on 30-31 May and on 3 June with the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Association and Assembly, Clément Voule to discuss the impact of restrictions on freedom of assembly and association on sustainable development.

ICSW 2019, New Board, Opportunities: Updates from Lysa John, CIVICUS SG

  FRENCH For those of us who were in Belgrade a few weeks ago, it is hard to think of April as anything but the culmination of months of preparation towards the International Civil Society Week (ICSW).
How ICSW empowered me to become a better activist

How ICSW empowered me to become a better activist

By Augustine Macarthy, Sierra Leone Last month, I had the opportunity to attend International Civil Society Week 2019 (ICSW).

Webinar: Youth for Diversity

On 17 May, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia & Transphobia (IDAHOBIT), we will hosted a Youth for Diversity webinar under the theme "South-South experiences on the human rights of LGBTIQ+ youth.
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Why don’t we get a say at the UN?

By Caroline Vernaillen, Democracy International When it comes to global issues, citizens have to trust that their governments will do their bidding.
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Women Human Rights Defenders Face Greater Risks Because of their Gender

By Masana Ndinga-Kanga, Crisis Response Fund Lead with CIVICUS.

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