Opinions & Features

Beyond the checklist: what made ICSW/virtual events special?

Opinions & Features
By Bistra Kumbaroska Let me start this blog post with a personal confession: I love organising events, any kind of events - workshops, conferences, hackathons, week-long summits, team building activities, celebrations and anniversaries.

3 hard lessons learned during the ICSW/Virtual webinar series

Opinions & Features
Organising our webinar series was a joy met with a few challenges like dealing with Internet trolls.

3 positive lessons learned during the ICSW/Virtual webinar series

Opinions & Features
After celebrating seven online conversations about people power, we are inspired by the potential of virtual engagements and the resilience of civil society Virtual events can be fertile ground for people power Through our seven ICSW/virtual webinars, over 400 people (between attendees, speakers, collaborators and video viewers) engaged in meaningful conversations and exchanges that enriched our knowledge, souls and amplified the voices of civil society.
Featured

Civil society fights back as smears and vilification intensify

Opinions & Features
By Andrew Firmin and Inés Pousadela The pattern is now clear.
Featured

Women’s groups fight back as gender-based violence surges during the pandemic

Opinions & Features
By Inés Pousadela Barely weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns arose about the safety of women trapped indoors with their abusers, and data showing spikes in gender-based violence (GBV) quickly reached the news headlines.
Featured

Myanmar elections show the regression of civic space over the last five years

Opinions & Features
By Lisa Majumdar, Advocacy Officer, CIVICUS Amidst a flurry of high-profile elections this week, it will be Myanmar’s turn to go to the polls on 8 November.
Featured

CIVICUS report documents how states need civil society as second wave of COVID-19 hits worldwide

Opinions & Features
By Inés Pousadela, Senior Research Specialist and Andrew Firmin Editor-in-Chief at CIVICUS Covid-19 has unleashed a multi-dimensional, once-in-a-generation crisis.
Featured

Amid COVID-19, what is the health of civic freedoms?

Opinions & Features
By Marianna Belalba Barreto, Civic Space Research Lead at CIVICUS and Aarti Narsee, Civic Space Research Officer More than half a year after the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, governments are continuing to waste precious time and energy restricting human rights rather than focusing on fighting the virus.
Featured

With targeted attacks on civil society, the future of democracy hangs in the balance in Tanzania

Opinions & Features
By Sylvia Mbataru, Civic Space Research at CIVICUS Elections in East Africa have faced a wave of recent problems.
Featured

Violence against transgender people in Pakistan

Opinions & Features
TW/CW: transphobia, physical abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse, sexual violence, rape, torture, murder, self-harm, drug and alcohol abuse I am Saro Imran, a transgender activist running a community-based organisation in Pakistan.
Featured

Access to information during a pandemic: a matter of life or death

Opinions & Features
By Inés Pousadela, Senior Research Specialist No year could be more appropriate than 2020 for the world to celebrate its first International Day for Universal Access to Information (September 28).
Featured

High stakes and pent up tensions in Côte d’Ivoire’s presidential election

Opinions & Features
By David Kode, Advocacy and Campaigns Lead As Côte d’Ivoire’s much-anticipated 31 October elections approach, voters are facing a familiar sequence of events.

Case Study on the Power of Radical Collaboration: People Before Projects

Opinions & Features
Conversation between Enhle Khumalo, CIVICUS Youth and Abigail Freeman, Alliance for Gender Justice Liberia in August 2020.
Featured

At 75, is the UN still fit for purpose?

Opinions & Features
By Mandeep Tiwana, Chief Programmes Officer at CIVICUS This 75th anniversary offers a unique opportunity to examine the UN’s failings and reflect on ideas to improve its functioning.
Featured

COVID is no reason to obstruct democracy

Opinions & Features
By Andrew Firmin, Editor-In-Chief of CIVICUS On the International Day of Democracy, it’s time to say that elections can be held under the pandemic.
Featured

Côte d’Ivoire’s democracy in the balance as hotly contested elections loom

Opinions & Features
By David Kode, Advocacy and Campaigns lead at CIVICUS With two months to go before elections in Côte d’Ivoire, the priority is to ensure that there is an enabling environment for campaigns and rallies to be held without violence.
Featured

From local to global: How can social-activism volunteering unite communities?

Opinions & Features
Lysa John, Secretary-General of CIVICUS Participation is a human right, deeply rooted in our need to form and voice opinions and influence the structures shaping our lives.
Featured

Under attack but fighting back

Opinions & Features
By Débora Leão, Civic Space Research Officer at CIVICUS and Marianna Belalba Barreto, Civic Space Cluster Lead at CIVICUS 2019 was a year of collective action, and although the repression of civic space activism continues to rise, human rights defenders, activists, and civil society continue to operate, adapt, and resist.
Featured

Coronavirus: Will it change our politics?

Opinions & Features
Has the Coronavirus crisis changed our view of politicians and what citizens now expect from them? Leaders around the world have dealt with the pandemic very differently, with some being praised for their handling of the outbreak, and some criticised.

Celebrating our 10,000 strong alliance!

Opinions & Features
Secretary General’s Update: August 2020
Featured

Journalists fight back: Media freedom is further eroded in Hungary

Opinions & Features
By Aarti Narsee, Civic Space Researcher at CIVICUS & Orsolya Reich, Advocacy Officer at Civil Liberties Union for Europe What little media independence remains in Hungary hangs by a thread.

India: Rich Land of Poor People

Opinions & Features
On International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples (9 August), we commend the work of imprisoned lawyer and activist Sudha Bharadwaj, defender of Indigenous communities in India.
Featured

Stories from the youth climate movement in the Global South

Opinions & Features
By Inés Pousadela, Senior Research Specialist at CIVICUS In early 2020, as millions went into lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the environment experienced temporary relief from the impacts of human activity.
Featured

Civil society in the post-pandemic world

Opinions & Features
By Inés Pousadela, Senior Research Specialist at CIVICUS In many circles, ‘civil society participation’ has become a fashion accessory that everyone wants to flaunt.
Featured

Ending Systemic Racism

Opinions & Features
Around the world, protesters have gathered in solidarity with the US Black Lives Matter movement as they demand an end to systemic racism.
Featured

3 funding concerns for civil society during this pandemic

Opinions & Features
The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly exacerbated, accelerated, and further exposed global challenges.
Featured

COVID-19 Used as Smokescreen to Undermine Gender Rights Globally

Opinions & Features
By Aarti Narsee, Civic Space Researcher at CIVICUS Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, sexual and reproductive rights are being attacked globally: LGBTQI+ persons are facing heightened discrimination, women find themselves trapped indoors with the perpetrators of domestic violence, and access to abortion is being restricted.
Featured

Coronavirus and European Civil Society

Opinions & Features
By Aarti Narsee, Civic Space Researcher at CIVICUS European civil society is in a tug-of-war between restrictions, which may lead to the rise of a more fragile, authoritarian Europe, and resilience, which may suggest a more optimistic future in which civil society emerges stronger than before.
Featured

Observations on the quest to build back better

Opinions & Features
SDG Knowledge Hub’s interview with Mandeep Tiwana, Chief Programmes Officer Five years since the passage of the SDGs, the impulse in many quarters is still to scale up existing approaches, rather than to push for fundamental changes in how our societies and economies function to better realize rights.
Featured

Right to protest and civic freedoms

Opinions & Features
By Josef Benedict, civic space researcher at CIVICUS The right to peaceful assembly is a fundamental freedom and key pillar for civic space.

Reimagining youth power post COVID-19: Lessons from the Goalkeepers Youth Action Accelerator

Opinions & Features
CIVICUS’ recently concluded experiment with a group of young activists offers interesting insights for youth power in a post-Covid-19 world.
Featured

COVID-19 is a reminder that civil society is vital to the defence of our collective well-being

Opinions & Features
This article was originally published on Revista da Plataforma Portuguesa das ONGD By Lysa JohnSecretary-General, CIVICUS@LysaJohn Covid-19 victims dying in hospital corridors and on the streets of Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Featured

OPINION: Want a better post-pandemic world? Civil society has the answers

Opinions & Features
By Andrew Firmin, CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief  Many of us continue to live in states of lockdown, but even as we do so the debate about what kind of world we want to re-emerge to should be an urgent one.
Featured

To face COVID-19, the human rights community must first protect its own workers

Opinions & Features
By Lysa John, Secretary General of CIVICUS This crisis should be a wakeup call to all of us in civil society to strengthen social protection measures in our own sector.
Featured

Undercurrents: Protecting workers during COVID-19

Opinions & Features
Discussion between Lysa John and Agnes Frimston for Chatham House Undercurrent podcast  In this week's episode of Chatham House's podcast Undercurrents, Lysa John, Secretary General of CIVICUS joins Agnes in discussing the impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had on worker's rights across the world.
Featured

'Can job security be guaranteed?' Interview with Lysa John

Opinions & Features
Interview with Lysa John about why protecting workers during the COVID-19 crisis is crucial.

Here’s what we are achieving through our COVID-19 efforts

Opinions & Features
Secretary General's Update Dear CIVICUS members and allies, This has been a particularly tumultuous period for both civil society and the wider world.
Featured

Future of Civil Society Organisations

Opinions & Features
The COVID-19 pandemic can re-energise the demands of civil society organisations to put people at the heart of the changes we need: to protect the planet from degradation, to ensure that all human beings can enjoy prosperous and fulfilling lives, that economic, social and technological progress occurs in harmony with nature and fosters peaceful, just and inclusive societies.
Featured

World Press Freedom Day: The assault on media freedom in Asia worsens during COVID-19 pandemic

Opinions & Features
By Josef Benedict, civic space researcher at CIVICUS May 3rd marks World Press Freedom Day around the world.
Featured

Fit for the future: Can we emerge stronger from the COVID-19 crisis?

Opinions & Features
By Lysa John (CIVICUS), Chris Worman (TechSoup) and Benjamin Bellegy (WINGS) It seems ironic that only a few months ago, we were celebrating 2019 as the ‘Year of People Power’ and a mass global uprising against autocratic regimes across the world seemed achievable.
Featured

On World Press Freedom Day, the EU must rescue media independence in Hungary before it’s too late

Opinions & Features
By Aarti Narsee, civic space research officer at CIVICUS Censorship, smear campaigns and harassment.
Featured

Reimagining a post-COVID world: Key principles for the future

Opinions & Features
By Mandeep Tiwana, Chief Programmes Officer at CIVICUS Today, the COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting our lives and livelihoods in wholly unanticipated ways, testing the resilience of our social, economic and political structures.

Leading with our values: Protecting our co-workers during COVID-19 must be a priority

Opinions & Features
Secretary General’s Update  Dear CIVICUS members and allies, The past few weeks have been unlike anything we have known or could have imagined.
Featured

7 Q&As about participatory grantmaking

Opinions & Features
In February, CIVICUS hosted an animated webinar called ‘Participatory grantmaking in action’ in partnership with UHAI EASHRI, Africa’s first indigenous activist fund supporting sexual and gender minorities and sex worker human rights, and Candid, an organisation that has extensively researched and promoted participatory grantmaking.
Featured

Resources for civil society in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic

Opinions & Features
Defending civil society, democratic rights, and our fundamental freedoms can be challenging, let alone having to do it while under “lockdown” practicing social distancing in the midst of a global health crisis spreading rapidly across the world.

5 amazing funds that are making a difference for women

Opinions & Features
Did you know that only 4% of the total Official Development Assistance (ODA) supports programmes that integrate gender equality and women’s empowerment as the main objective? And only 3% of that fraction goes to women’s rights organisations.
Featured

Elections test Africa’s democracy

Opinions & Features
By David Kode,  advocacy and campaigns lead for CIVICUS Once again, the state of democracy on the continent will be tested as millions of Africans go to the polls this year to decide who will lead them for the next few years.
Featured

Smeared and vilified by Duterte, activists in the Philippines are fighting back

Opinions & Features
By Josef Benedict, civic space researcher at CIVICUS One tactic that CIVICUS has seen increasingly being used by the government to target activists and NGOs is to label them as “terrorists” or “communist fronts”, particularly those who have been critical of Duterte’s deadly “war on drugs” that has killed thousands.
Featured

Alpha Condé wants a third term in Guinea. The AU must stop him

Opinions & Features
By David Kode, Advocacy and Campaigns Lead  President Ramaphosa and the AU have a crucial role in aiding the continuation of Guinea's democracy.
Featured

Staying true to ambition: Priorities from our mid-term strategy review

Opinions & Features
Secretary General’s Update Dear CIVICUS members and allies, January was replete with the signals that the coming months will require significantly increased levels of ambition and action if we, civil society, are to remain relevant to the issues of our times.

Sign up for our newsletters

Our Newsletters

civicus logo white

CIVICUS is a global alliance that champions the power of civil society to create positive change.

brand x FacebookLogo YoutubeLogo InstagramLogo LinkedinLogo TikTokLogo BlueSkyLogo

Johannesburg Hub

25  Owl Street, 6th Floor

Johannesburg
South Africa
2092

Tel: +27 (0)11 833 5959


Fax: +27 (0)11 833 7997

UN Hub: New York

CIVICUS, c/o We Work

450 Lexington Ave

New York
NY
10017

United States

UN Hub: Geneva

11 Avenue de la Paix

Geneva

Switzerland
CH-1202

Tel: +41 (0)79 910 3428