A session titled Youth Movements and Democratic Futures in South Asia at International Civil Society Week, held at Bangkok’s Thammasat University. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
BANGKOK, Nov 5 2025 (IPS)

The message is clear: today’s youth are not “wishy-washy.” They are not just the future—they are the present, full partners in shaping it, and “power-sharing” is the new mantra. The veterans of activism are being reminded not merely to listen but to hear and to leave their egos at the door.

These were among the many resonant takeaways from the five-day International Civil Society Week, held at Bangkok’s Thammasat University.

Yet beneath the optimistic rhetoric, a different mood lingered. Many young participants seemed despondent, feeling short-changed by their elders—empowered in words, but excluded in practice.

At a session titled “Youth Movements and Democratic Futures in South Asia,” young voices from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, and Nepal shared their frustrations and fears for the future.

Student activist Ammad Talpur at the Youth Movements and Democratic Futures in South Asia session at International Civil Society Week, held at Bangkok’s Thammasat University. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

In Pakistan, said student activist Ammad Talpur, nepotism runs deep, inequality is horrific and brutal, and the powerful break laws with impunity. “We long for change, but fear silences us, as those in power will not brook dissent.”

A similar sense of frustration echoes beyond Pakistan.

“Though sometimes its exercise may come at a cost, youth in India are free to say anything and freedom of speech does exist,” Adrian D’ruz, another panelist, told IPS after the session. And journalists, academics, students, and comedians who questioned those in power, he said, reportedly faced legal action, online harassment, or institutional pressure.

To curb dissent, legal provisions are misapplied, resulting in people “leaning towards self-censorship rather than risking consequences,” said D’Cruz, a member of a network of NGOs in India called Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, which promotes governance accountability and inclusion of marginalized communities.

While Pakistan and India illustrate the pressures youth face under entrenched power, in Nepal the response has taken a more visible, street-level form, riding a wave of unrest that began in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

In Kathmandu, “rising unemployment, corruption, nepotism, and broken promises” fueled the unrest, said Tikashwari Rai, a young Nepali mother of two daughters, worried for their future.

Tikashwari Rai, a Nepali mother of two daughters, at the Youth Movements and Democratic Futures in South Asia session at International Civil Society Week, held at Bangkok’s Thammasat University. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

“We don’t want to work as domestic help in the Middle East; we want opportunities here, in our own country. But because there are none, many young people are forced to leave,” she explained.

Yet, she admitted, the protests came at a heavy cost—lives lost and infrastructure destroyed. “Our youth need guidance and stronger organization to lead social movements effectively,” she added.

Beyond the immediate triggers of street protests, some activists argue that deeper systemic issues fuel youth disenchantment.

Melani Gunathilaka, a climate and political activist from Sri Lanka, at the Youth Movements and Democratic Futures in South Asia session at International Civil Society Week, held at Bangkok’s Thammasat University. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

Melani Gunathilaka, a young climate and political activist from Sri Lanka, who was also on the panel, believed the roots of disenchantment ran deeper. “While these protests are often labeled as anti-government, at their core, they demand systemic change and true accountability from those in power.”

The immediate triggers seem to spread across corruption, authoritarian governments, repression, lack of access to basic needs and more,” she said.

A closer look at the situation in countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Kenya, however, exposed economic hardship, debt burdens, and deepening inequalities. And this trend is also observed globally, she pointed out.

Despite these frustrations, the conference also explored how young and older activists can work together, not just to protest, but to reshape movements constructively.

“Across civil society, there is growing recognition that youth must be meaningfully included in development and nation-building. While progress varies from group to group, the direction of change is unmistakably forward,” said D’cruz.

Talpur further fine-tuned D’Cruz’s sentiment. “It’s not about taking over; it’s about working together through collaboration.” He also found it “unfair for the boomers to create a mess and leave it to the millennials and Gen Z to fix it.”

Interestingly, the sentiment found an echo among the older generation itself. Founder of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma, Debbie Stothard, said it was unfair to leave the mess her generation had created to the young and then expect them to “fix it.”

Speaking at the closing plenary titled “Futures We’re Building: Youth, Climate and Intergenerational Justice, she noted that she had been talking about “intergenerational equity” for 40 years, yet many in her generation of activists still fail to “walk the talk” in how they live and lead. Still, she added, it is not too late: “We can still make space.”

That space, she explained, begins with a change in mindset. “It’s not our job to empower the youth; it’s recognizing that they have power,” she said—a reminder that true equity lies not in giving power away, but in acknowledging it already exists.

This shift in perspective is already reshaping how movements operate. Youth no longer need to “look up to” traditional authority figures for inspiration, said D’cruz. Many within their generation are already leading change.

Mihajlo Matkovic, a member of the Youth Action Team at CIVICUS, from Serbia, also at the closing, demonstrated how real change required innovation and persistence. “Because our generation did not have any great example of what a direct democracy looks like,” he said, adding, “We had to basically reinvent it.”

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Rajagopal P.V. at the International Civil Society Week (ICSW2025) in Bangkok. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
BANGKOK, Nov 4 2025 (IPS)

“If nations can have defense ministries, why not peace ministries?” asks Rajagopal PV, the soft-spoken yet formidable founder of Ekta Parishad. “We are told to see issues through a gender lens—why not a peace lens? Why can’t we imagine a business model rooted in non-violence or an education system that teaches peace?”

Founded in 1989, Ekta Parishad—literally Forum for Unity—is a vast people’s movement of more than 250,000 landless poor, now recognized as one of India’s largest and most disciplined grassroots forces for justice.

To Rajagopal, these aren’t utopian dreams—they’re blueprints for a possible world.

Over the decades, Ekta Parishad has secured land rights for nearly half a million families, trained over 10,000 grassroots leaders, protected forests and water bodies, and helped shape key land reform laws and policies in India.

All this has been achieved not through anger, but through disciplined, nonviolent marches that stretch across hundreds of kilometers. Along the way, many leaders have walked beside him—among them, the current Prime Minister of Armenia.

In an age marked by deep disorder—where wealth concentrates in few hands, poverty spreads, and the planet itself trembles under human greed—the 77-year-old Gandhian remains unshaken in his belief that peace alone can redeem humanity.

“We must rescue peace from the clutches of poverty and all its evils,” he told IPS on the sidelines of the International Civil Society Week, standing on the football ground of Bangkok’s Thammasat University.

“And it can be done,” he insists—and his life is proof. In 1969, the centenary year of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth, the Government of India launched a unique exhibition on wheels, a ten-coach train carrying Gandhi’s life and message across the nation. Rajagopal was part of the team that curated and travelled with it.

“For an entire year, we journeyed from state to state. Thousands of schoolchildren would gather at railway platforms, their faces lit with curiosity, waiting to meet Gandhi through our displays,” he recalls.

Yet somewhere along those long railway tracks, Rajagopal began to feel that displaying Gandhi’s ideals wasn’t enough. “The exhibition was beautiful,” he says, “but what was the use of preaching non-violence if we couldn’t live it, breathe it, and bring it to life?”

That realization led him to one of the most daring experiments in peacebuilding India had ever seen—negotiating with the feared bandits of the Chambal valley. “It was 1970,” he recalls. “We moved cautiously, first meeting villagers on the periphery to build trust. Once we had their confidence, we sent word to the dacoits: we wanted to talk. With the government’s consent, we ventured into what we called a ‘peace zone’—often by night, walking for hours through deep ravines—to meet men the world only knew as outlaws.”

The dialogues continued for four years. Eventually, as many as 570 bandits laid down their arms before a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi—a sight India had never seen before. The government, in turn, promised they would not face the death penalty and would receive land and livestock to rebuild their lives. Rehabilitation took another four painstaking years, but it was a victory of conscience over fear.

“They didn’t just surrender their weapons—they surrendered their anger,” Rajagopal says quietly. “There was real repentance, and that takes time—but it lasts.” His commitment came at a cost. At his ashram—a spiritual retreat he had founded—he was threatened, beaten, and ordered to abandon his peace efforts. He talked them through to accepting his presence.

“Today that same region is heaven,” he smiles, his eyes crinkling with memory. “Fifty years ago, people trembled at sunset—terrified of the bandits. Today, you can travel at 2:00 pm in the night, where fear ruled once.”

The mass surrender may have looked like a triumph for the state, but Rajagopal urges people to look deeper. “It’s the invisible violence—poverty, injustice, and oppression—that breeds the visible one: dacoities, kidnappings, and killings,” he explains.

Though Rajagopal and his companions had ended one form of violence, the deeper, quieter kind—born of poverty and neglect—still festered. Until that was confronted, he knew, peace would remain incomplete.

Years of working alongside the poor had taught him one truth: non-violence needs structure. If India’s Indigenous and landless communities were to be heard, they had to be organized.

“We began training young people from dozens of villages,” he says. “They went door to door, teaching others not only about their rights—especially the right to land—but also how to claim them peacefully.”

With that foundation, a five-year plan took shape. Each village home chose one member to take part. Every day, the family set aside one rupee and a fistful of rice—a humble but powerful act of commitment.

They even created a “playbook” of possible scenarios—how to stay calm under provocation, how to respond to setbacks, and how to practice non-violence in thought and action. “In one of our marches, a truck ran over three of our people, killing them,” he recalls softly. “There was grief, but no retaliation. Instead, they sat in silence and meditated. That was our true test.”

In 2006, 500 marchers walked 350 kilometers from Gwalior to Delhi, demanding land rights. Nothing changed. But they didn’t stop.

A year later, in 2007, 25,000 people—many barefoot—set out again on the national highway. “Imagine that sight,” Rajagopal says, eyes gleaming. “Twenty-five thousand people walking for a month, powered only by hope.”

The march displayed not just India’s poverty but also its power—the quiet power of the poor united. It was among the most disciplined mobilizations the country had ever seen. “There was one leader for every hundred people,” Rajagopal explains. “We walked by day and slept on the highway by night. Those in charge of cooking went ahead each morning so that by sundown, a single meal was ready for all.”

In a later march, Rajagopal recalls, the government sent a large police force. “I was worried,” he admits. “I called the authorities to tell them this was a non-violent protest—we didn’t need protection. The officer replied, ‘They’re not there for you; they’re here to learn how disciplined movements should be.’”

Along the route, villages greeted them like family—offering bags of rice, water, and prayers. “There was never a shortage of food,” Rajagopal smiles. “When your cause is just, the world feeds you.”

By the time the march reached Delhi, the government announced a new land reform policy and housing rights and agreed to enact the Forest Rights Act.

The government dispersed the marchers with hollow promises and the reforms never happened.

So Ekta Parishad planned an even larger march—a Jan Satyagraha of 100,000 people in 2012.

“Halfway through, the government came running.”

Rajagopal’s face lights up as he recalls the event. “They agreed to our ten-point agenda and signed it in front of the people. That moment was historic—governments almost never do that; the Indian government certainly never does it!”

The agreement included land and housing rights, a national task force on land reform, the prime minister’s oversight of policy implementation, and fast-track courts to resolve land disputes.

Today, because of these long, barefoot marches, more than three million Indigenous people in India now have legal rights to land and housing. The struggle also gave birth to India’s Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Act—a landmark in people’s movements.

“The Act also safeguards fertile land,” Rajagopal explains. “Before the government can acquire any area, a social impact study must be done. And if farmland is taken, the owners receive four times its value in compensation.”

“The purpose of our marches,” Rajagopal says, “is not to fight the government, but to win it over. The government is not the enemy; injustice is. We must stand on the same side of the problem.”

For Rajagopal, peace is not a sentiment but a system—something that must be built, brick by brick, through dialogue and respect. “Non-violence,” he says, “isn’t passive. It’s active patience—listening, accepting differences, never policing thought.” The same principle, he believes, can heal families, neighborhoods, nations—and the world itself.

His next mission is to create a Youth Peace Force, ready to enter conflict zones and resolve disputes through dialogue. He has also launched the Peace Builders Forum, or Peace7, uniting seven countries—South Africa, Japan, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Canada, India, and Armenia. His dream is to expand it to Peace20, where, as he smiles, “wealth will never be a criterion for membership.”

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Mandeep Tiwana, Secretary General, CIVICUS Global Alliance. Credit: CIVICUS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO & BANGKOK, Oct 31 2025 (IPS)

From the streets of Bangkok to power corridors in Washington, the civil society space for dissent is fast shrinking. Authoritarian regimes are silencing opposition but indirectly fueling corruption and widening inequality, according to a leading global civil society alliance.

The warning is from Mandeep Tiwana, Secretary General of CIVICUS Global Alliance, who points to a troubling trend: civil society is increasingly considered a threat to those in power.

That is a sobering assessment from CIVICUS, which reports that a wave of repression by authoritarian regimes is directly fueling corruption and exploding inequality.

“The quality of democracy on hand around the world is very poor at the moment,” Tiwana tells IPS in an exclusive interview. “That is why civil society organizations are seen as a threat by authoritative leaders and the negative impact of attacking civil society means there is a rise in corruption, there is less inclusion, there is less transparency in public life and more inequality in society.”

His comments come ahead of the 16th International Civil Society Week (ICSW) from 1–5 November 2025 convened by CIVICUS and the Asia Democracy Network. The ICSW will bring together more than 1,300 delegates comprising activists, civil society groups, academics, and human rights advocates to empower citizen action and build powerful alliances. ICSW pays tribute to activists, movements, and civil society achieving significant progress, defending civic freedoms, and showing remarkable resilience despite the many challenges.

The ICSW takes place against a bleak backdrop. According to the CIVICUS Monitor, a research partnership between CIVICUS and over 20 organizations tracking civic freedoms, civil society is under attack in 116 of 198 countries and territories. The fundamental freedoms of expression, association, and peaceful assembly face significant deterrents worldwide.

Protests at COP27 in Egypt. Mandeep Tiwana, Secretary General of CIVICUS Global Alliance, is hopeful that COP30, in Belém, Brazil, will be more inclusive. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

“It is becoming increasingly dangerous to be a civil society activist and to be the leader of a civil society organization,” Tiwana tells IPS. “Many organizations have been defunded because governments don’t like what they do to ensure transparency or because they speak out against some very powerful people. It is a challenging environment for civil society.”

Research by CIVICUS categorizes civic freedom in five dimensions: open, narrowed, obstructed, repressed, and closed. Alarmingly, over 70 percent of the world’s population now lives in countries rated in the two worst categories: ‘repressed’ and ‘closed.’

“This marks a regression in democratic values, rights, and accountability,” Tiwana noted, adding that even in the remaining 30% of nations, restrictions on civic freedoms remain.

Repression Tools in Tow

The ICSW, being held under the theme ‘Celebrating citizen action: reimagining democracy, rights, and inclusion for today’s world,’ convenes against this backdrop.

Multifaceted tools are used by governments to stifle dissent. Governments are introducing laws to block civil society organizations from receiving international funding while simultaneously restricting domestic resources. Besides, laws have also been enacted in some countries to restrict the independence of civil society organizations that scrutinize governments and promote transparency.

For civil society activists, the consequences are sobering.

“If you speak truth to power, uncover high-level corruption and try to seek transformative change in society, whether it’s on gender equality or inclusion of minorities you  can be subjected to severe forms of persecution,” Tiwana explained. “This includes stigmatization, intimidation,  imprisonment for long periods, physical attacks, and death.”

Multilateralism Tumbles, Unilateralism Rises

Tiwana said there is an increasing breakdown in multilateralism and respect for international laws from which civil society draws its rights.

This erosion of civic space is reflected in the breakdown of the international system. Tiwana identified a surge in unilateralism and a disregard for the international laws that have historically safeguarded the rights of civil society.

“If you look at what’s happening around the world, whether with regard to conflicts in Palestine, in the Congo, in Sudan, in Myanmar, in Ukraine, in Cameroon, and elsewhere, governments are not respecting international norms,” he observed, remarking that authoritarian regimes were abusing the sovereignty of other countries, ignoring the Geneva conventions, and legalizing attacks on civilians, torturing and persecuting civilians.

This collapse of multilateralism has enabled a form of transactional diplomacy, where narrowly defined national interests trump human rights. Powerful states now collude to manipulate public policy, enhancing their wealth and power. When civil society attempts to expose these corrupt relationships, it becomes a target.

“They are colluding to game public policy to suit their interests and to enhance their wealth.  The offshoot of this is that civil society is attacked when it tries to expose these corrupt relationships,” said Tiwana, expressing concern  about the rise in state capture by oligarchs who now own vast swathes of the media and technology landscapes.

Citing countries like China and Rwanda, which, while they have different ways of functioning, Tiwana said both are powerful authoritarian states engaging in transactional diplomacy and are opposed to the civil society’s power to hold them to account.

The election of Donald Trump as US President in 2025 has shattered the foundation of the US as a democracy, Tiwana noted. The country no longer supports democratic values internationally and is at home with  attacks on the media and defunding of civil society.

The action by the US has negative impacts, as some leaders around the world are taking their cue from Trump in muzzling civil society and media freedoms, he said, pointing to how the US has created common cause with authoritarian governments in El Salvador, Israel,  Argentina, and Hungary.

The fight Goes On

Despite facing repression and threats, civil society continues to resist authoritarian regimes. From massive street protests against corruption in Nepal, and Guatemala  to pro-democracy movements that have removed  governments in Bangladesh  and Madagascar,

“People need to have courage to stand up for what they believe and to speak out when their neighbors are persecuted,” Tiwana told IPS. “People still need to continue to speak the truth and come out in the streets in peaceful protest against the injustice that is happening. They should not lose hope.”

On the curtailing of civil society participation in climate change negotiations, Tiwana said the upcoming COP30 in Brazil offered hope. The host government believes in democratic values and including civil society at the table.

“Past COPs have been held in petro states—Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt—which are all authoritarian states where civil society has been attacked, crushed, and persecuted,” he said. “We are hopeful that there will be greater inclusion of voices and the commitments that will be made to reduce emissions will be ambitious but the question is really going to be after the COP and if those commitments will be from governments that really don’t care about civil society demands or about the well-being of their people.”

Young people, Tiwana said, have shown the way. Movements like Fridays for Future  and the Black Lives Matter have demonstrated the power of solidarity and unified action.

But, given the massive protests, has this resistance led to change of a similar scale?

“Unfortunately, we are seeing a rise in military dictatorships around the world,” Tiwana admitted, attributing this to a fraying appetite by the international community to uphold human rights and democratic values.

“Conflict, environmental degradation, extreme wealth accumulation, and high-level corruption are interlinked because it’s people who want to possess more than they need.”

Tiwana illustrated what he means by global priorities.

“We have USD 2.7 trillion in military spending year-on-year nowadays, whereas 700 million people go to bed hungry every night.”

“As civil society, we are trying to expose these corrupt relationships that exist. So the fight for equality, the struggle to create better, more peaceful, more just societies—something CIVICUS supports very much—are some of the conversations that we will be looking to have at the International Civil Society Week.”

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Activists, CSOs and faith-based leaders this week pondered how you get a seat at the table when they couldn't even get access to the UN building.

By Abigail Van Neely
NEW YORK , Jul 21 2023 (IPS)

How do you get a seat at the table when you can’t even access the building? This question loomed as activists, faith-based leaders, and NGO representatives gathered at the NY Ford Foundation. They discussed how to amplify the voice of civil society organizations at the UN Headquarters across the street.

“How to UNMute” was hosted on July 20, 2023, as a side event during the ongoing 2023 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF). The event kicked off the creation of a manual to break down barriers to civil society engagement as the first step towards turning ideas into action.

Maithili Pai, the UN advocate for the International Service for Human Rights, illustrated the divide between the UN’s verbal commitments and its actual practices. Sometimes, Pai said, civil society representatives could not enter UN meeting rooms or waited years for UN accreditation. According to Pai, some representatives even faced retaliation for trying to interact with UN bodies.

“We understand very well that civil society is under attack and that there are people pushing you back,” Costa Rica’s Ambassador to the UN, Maritza Chan, told the audience.

Chan stressed that meeting the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) required empowering civil society organizations that provide critical insight.

“We need a civil society in the room at all times, providing advice, supporting states, and also calling us when we are not doing things right,” Chan said.

Recommendations for the manual on ‘unmuting’ civil society were developed at a recent workshop. They include better-resourced UN NGO support offices, increased financing for participation in UN events, and more supportive visa processes, especially for delegates from the global south who have been historically excluded. Advocates also called for more systematic flows of information, methods of participation, and pathways into the UN.

Arelys Bellorini, the senior UN representative from World Vision, said she has to go to friendly missions to facilitate children under the age of 18 access to the UN.

Carmen Capriles, an environmental policy expert at the United Nations Environment Program, said she could not attend meetings on climate change because they were closed.

The Ambassador to the UN from Denmark, Martin Bille Hermann, pushed these advocates to present specific action items. “You’re not giving me easy avenues to deliver,” Hermann said. “Develop a toolbox that would allow us to continue to live in an old house.”

“We cannot expect different results by doing the same things,” Chan added.

This is not the first time these issues have been raised.

On the 75th anniversary of the UN in 2020, the General Assembly committed to making the UN more inclusive to respond to common challenges. The following year, a set of steps to strengthen the meaningful participation of stakeholders across the UN was presented to the secretary general by a group of civil society organizations and the permanent missions of Denmark and Costa Rica. The recommendations were endorsed by 52 member states and 327 civil society organizations.

The 2021 letter focused on the use of technology to make UN meetings more accessible. It cited an evaluation survey that found 50 percent of participants during the virtual 2020 HLPF joined for the first time. Most of these new participants represented civil societies in developing countries.

One suggestion for bridging digital divides and incorporating a more diverse range of participants was to host hybrid events and offer internet connection at UN country-based offices. However, Rakhimova pointed out that some events still do not have hybrid options.

The 2021 letter also called for a civil society envoy to the UN and an official civil society day. Neither recommendation has been formally implemented yet.

Mandeep Tiwana, chief officer of CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations with a strong presence in the global south, addressed inequalities in who influences international decision-making. Tiwana expressed concern that wealthy members of the private sector can “come in through the backdoor.” Meanwhile, activists already facing restrictions on their work wait outside.

“The time to open the doors to the UN virtually, online, and in person has come,” Chan said.
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Nelson Mandela, then Deputy President of the African National Congress of South Africa, raises his fist in the air while addressing the Special Committee Against Apartheid in the General Assembly Hall, June 22, 1990. Credit: UN Photo/Pernaca Sudhakaran

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI , Jul 18 2023 (IPS)

As human rights increasingly deteriorate, rights defenders are being violently suppressed. Abducted, detained, tortured, and humiliated, many now live one day at a time. They have been told, in no uncertain times, that anything could happen. They are now asking the global community to stand as a witness.

“Like Nelson Mandela was, hundreds of human rights defenders around the world are in prison for their human rights activities. Just like him, they are unjustly treated, fictitious charges levelled against them and handed the most serious sentences that are often used against criminals. One of our priorities is to work with human rights defenders to advocate for their release,” says David Kode from CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society with a presence in 188 countries around the world.

Inspired by the life story of the late iconic South African President Nelson Mandela, the Stand As My Witness Campaign was launched on Nelson Mandela Day in 2020 by CIVICUS, its members and partners.

In commemoration of the third anniversary of the Stand As My Witness campaign, CIVICUS and its partners, including human rights defenders, hosted a public event titled, ‘Celebrating Human Rights Defenders through Collaborative Advocacy Efforts’, to celebrate the brave contributions of human rights defenders and raise awareness about those who are still in detention.

David Kobe said that CIVICUS had profiled at least 25 human rights defenders since the Stand As My Witness Campaign started three years ago. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

“Over the last three years, we have profiled more than 25 human rights defenders collectively because some human rights defenders are profiled as individuals and others, such as those in Burundi, are profiled as a group because they were arrested as a group. More than 18 human rights defenders have been released over the last three years. As we celebrate, we must recognize that the journey has just started, it is quite long, and the battle is far from over,” Kode said.

The event brought together families and colleagues of detained human rights defenders, previously detained human rights defenders, representatives from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and other human rights mechanisms and civil society organisations.

Lysa John, the Secretary General of CIVICUS, spoke about how special Mandela Day is, for it is the one day of the year when the spirit of solidarity is celebrated in his memory. It is also a day to look back at what has been achieved and how much more could be achieved in solidarity.

She further addressed issues of civic space restrictions, closure of civic space and how these restrictions impact societies and individuals. John stressed that the event was held in the context of the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and the 75th anniversary of the UNDHR or Human Rights 75 to promote their objectives.

“One-third of the population of the world live in contexts which are closed. Where attacks on people who speak out or exercise their civic freedoms are attacked or arrested without any accountability. More and more people in the world, in fact, the largest section of the world, estimated at 44 percent live in countries where civic space and civic freedoms are restricted. In this regard, civic society is more than ever reinventing itself, and there is increased support for them,” she said.

Birgit Kainz from OHCHR spoke about the importance of bringing to life the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders for its adoption was a consensus that human dignity is at the core of everything.

She spoke about the need to be deliberate in the defence of civic space as it enables people to shape their future and that of their children. Kainz said that protection and security are two sides of the same coin and urged participants to network and connect to improve civic space and to also play a complementary role. Further emphasizing the need to maintain data, especially about who is in detention and where in line with SDGs.

Maximilienne Ngo Mbe from Cameroon is one of the most prolific human rights defenders in Africa. She spoke about the need to create safe spaces for women rights defenders. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Maximilienne Ngo Mbe spoke about the life and times of human rights defenders today. She is one of the most prolific human rights defenders in Africa and continues to receive a lot of restrictions for her fearless human rights activities that often have her fleeing from Cameroon to other countries for safety.

“We need a network for women rights defenders because of the special challenges they face as girls, wives, mothers and vulnerable people. Women are engaging less and less because of these challenges and the multiple roles they play in society,” she said.

The event was an opportunity for released human rights defenders such as Maria Esperanza Sanchez from Nicaragua to speak about resilience in the face of brutal regimes. She spoke about how armed men often came to her house to threaten and intimidate her. Of her arrest, humiliation and torture in 2020, being sentenced to 10 years in prison and her eventual release.

It was also an opportunity to speak on behalf of those who cannot. They include Khurram Parvez, a prolific human rights defender in India. At the time of his arrest for human rights activities, he was leading two critical organizations at the national and regional levels.

Parvez is being charged as a terrorist. His story aligns with that of Kenia Hernandez, a 32-year-old indigenous Amuzga woman, mother of two, lawyer and an advocate for human rights who is currently detained in a maximum-security prison in Mexico and has been sentenced to 21 years. Her story is illustrative of the high-risk female rights defenders and people from marginalized groups face.

Ruben Hasbun from Global Citizen spoke about how to effectively advocate for the release of human rights defenders, sharing lessons from Stand As My Witness campaigners.  The event further opened up space to address the role of the private sector.

Christopher Davis from Body Shop, a brand that continues to be at the forefront of supporting human rights and rights defenders, fighting social and environmental injustice.

At the end of the session, participants were invited to sign a petition to have the United Arab Emirates immediately and unconditionally release all those detained solely for the exercise of their human rights and end all abuse and harassment of detained critics, human rights defenders, political opposition members, and their families.

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Irene Grace says human rights defenders hiding in Kenya fear harassment and intimidation due to a decline in civic rights. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Jun 20 2023 (IPS)

While leaving one’s country and becoming a refugee is a last resort, it is a decision that many, like Steve Kitsa, have had to make. As conflict becomes increasingly protracted in many African countries, many others will take this step.

“In a matter of life and death, I fled the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) five years ago and left my elderly mother behind. One day we were seated in a group of young men, chatting and enjoying the morning sun, when a lone gunman in uniform approached us and started firing away unprovoked. Such incidences had become too common in the eastern region, and some of my friends were killed,” Kitsa tells IPS.

Kenya hosts one of the largest refugee populations in Africa. Kitsa is one of more than 520,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers. But human rights defender Irene Grace, who fled Uganda two years ago, says the number is much higher because borders are porous.

Nevertheless, official records show that about 287,000 refugees come from Somalia, 142,000 from South Sudan, 50,000 from DRC, and 32,000 from Ethiopia; many live in Dadaab and Kakuma camps.

Others, like Kitsa, have found their way into the urban centers of Nairobi, Kisumu, Mombasa, and Eldoret. Outdated statistics from 2017 indicate that more than 67,267 refugees live in Nairobi.

“There is a lot of exploitation because we need the locals to survive. Along the highways, you will find many young men hawking peanuts. You can tell they are from DRC because of the kind of Swahili they speak. They sell these peanuts under the hot sun, all day, every day, in exchange for a plate of food and somewhere to sleep as the profits go to the host. Most of us are desperate to go to France,” he explains.

Irene Grace fled Uganda for promoting the rights of the LGBTQI community as the country clamped down on their rights. As the government-endorsed crackdown against the community intensified, so did threats against her life.

“The issue of human rights defenders in exile is one aspect of the refugee situation that is hardly ever talked about. The risk is very high because you are under an alias in a foreign country, and if murdered, you are likely to remain unidentified for a long time, and it might take years to connect the dots. The question of who bears the duty of protection for us remains unanswered,” Grace says.

Her fears and concerns reflect the 2022 report findings by the global civil society alliance, CIVICUS, and the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), highlighting the decline in civil rights in Kenya. According to the report, the government was using excessive force to quieten dissent.

Kenya was placed on the CIVICUS Monitor’s human rights ‘Watchlist’ in June 2022. The Watchlist highlights countries with a recent and steady decline in civic freedoms, including the rights of free speech and peaceful assembly.

Kenya was rated Obstructed by the CIVICUS Monitor. There are 42 countries in the world with this rating. The rating is typically given to countries where power holders heavily contest civic space and impose a combination of legal and practical constraints on the full enjoyment of fundamental rights.

In 2021, Front Line Defenders released a report accusing the governments of Uganda and Kenya of giving the South Sudanese National Security Service (NSS) intelligence agency the freedom to target refugee human rights workers who fled the country.

“It is very difficult to continue with activism in such a hostile environment, on top of the many other challenges confronting us, such as a lack of documentation and access to services. Some of us left our families behind, exposed and unprotected. Over the eight years, I have lived in Kenya, I have received many threatening calls from South Sudan, but I know the information of my whereabouts came from within this country,” Deng G, an activist from South Sudan, tells IPS.

“Our situation worsens when local activists are targeted. In exile, you must connect with local networks to survive and continue with your activism. I am aware of activists in Kenya currently being held without trial for protesting against the high cost of living.”

KHRC continues to express concerns over the misuse of laws to undermine peaceful protest and recently responded with speed when five activists from the Social Justice Center, a Nairobi-based grassroots group, were arrested during a peaceful protest against the controversial Finance Bill 2023.

A pre-independence Public Order Act requires activists to notify authorities of protests at least three days in advance. Police have mistakenly understood the provision as a requirement for protests to be approved or denied, using it as an excuse to deem protests ‘unpermitted.’ Even though the right to peaceful assembly is guaranteed in Kenya’s constitution, it is continually undermined, says CIVICUS and KHRC.

Irene Grace says ongoing hostilities have derailed efforts to promote the safety and security of LGBTQI asylum seekers and refugees in the Kakuma Refugee Camp complex in northwestern Kenya whose lives are at risk. She says they are experiencing discrimination, and physical and sexual violence, among other forms of human rights violations.

“I am unable to travel there to determine how we can mobilize and improve their safety, working hand in hand with grassroots activists in Kenya. There are corrupt security officers, and once they discover you are hiding in the country, you become a target. They want you to pay them to turn a blind eye as you go on with your activities,” she says.

Kitsa says the issue of bribes is a most pressing challenge for many refugees seeking to integrate with the locals.

“They usually threaten to send you to the refugee camps despite having refugee documentation allowing you to live among the locals. They can create many problems for you.”

Against this backdrop, Irene Grace says activism is being suppressed from multiple angles, and human rights activists, local and those operating from exile, must now go back to the drawing board to find safer, impactful ways to speak truth to power and take the powers that be head-on.
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Founder of Wagner private mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin (here pictured with fighters), claims that Bakhmut is now in Moscow’s control. However his claims are disputed by Ukraine.

By Fawzia Moodley
JOHANNESBURG, May 24 2023 (IPS)

The Wagner Group, a shadowy mercenary group that has been operating for many years in African countries such as Sudan, Mali, the Central African Republic, and other mainly Francophone countries, has again been thrust into the limelight due to its involvement in the Ukraine war on behalf of Russia.

Wagner is believed to have a presence in 18 countries in Africa – and its influence goes far beyond security matters.

Julian Rademeyer of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime told DW.com, “Wagner itself has developed over time as an organization that’s gone from being a purely private military contracting entity into a multiplicity of business alliances and relations and a network of companies. Some of them are front companies across the countries in which they operate on the African continent.”

He sees the Wagner Group as primarily a Kremlin military tool to boost Russia’s economic and military influence in Africa.

Rademeyer’s colleague and lead author of a study titled Russia’s military, mercenary and criminal engagement in Africa, Julia Stanyard, told IPS, “The Wagner Group is unique as an organization in the breadth, scale, and boldness of its activities. However, our study also shows that Wagner did not emerge in a vacuum: The group’s activities and characteristics reflect broader trends in the evolution of Russia’s oligarchs and organized crime groups, their respective relationships with the Russian state, and their activities in Africa.”

“The group comprises a network of political influence operations and economic entities such as mining companies.

“It appears to target unstable governments embroiled in civil wars and forms alliances with the ruling elite and offers them military support and weapons.”

This is exactly what happened in the CAR, where the government has been fighting multiple rebel forces since December 2020. A beleaguered President Faustin-Archange Touadéra reached out to Russia shortly after taking power in 2016.

“He received Russian military instructors and weapons, and Wagner mercenaries soon followed,” says CIVICUS, a global alliance promoting civic action.

In return, Wagner receives economic and mining concessions. According to the New York Times, the group has been involved in mining operations in the CAR, where it has secured contracts to mine gold and diamonds.

Stanyard says: “The group comprises a network of political influence operations and economic entities such as mining companies.”

While the governments and sections of their population have welcomed the group, Wagner’s been accused of gross human rights abuses, with local communities reporting forced labour and sexual violence.

Human Rights Watch says it has collected compelling evidence that Russian fighters have committed grave abuses against civilians in the CAR with complete impunity since 2019. The HRW interviewed 40 people between February 2019 and November 2021 about abuses by men speaking Russian.

Stanyard’s research substantiates the allegations of abuse: “Wagner Group has been accused of using whatever means necessary to achieve its aims, including criminal activity.”

Russia officially does not recognize mercenaries, but Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch, has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Significantly, on Sunday, May 21, Putin reportedly congratulated the Wagner mercenary force for helping in what he called the “liberation” of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Reuters quoted Putin from a statement on the Kremlin’s website, saying: “The Head of State congratulated Wagner’s assault groups, as well as all members of the units of the Russian Armed Forces who provided them with the necessary support and cover on their flanks, on the completion of the operation to liberate Artyomovsk (Bakhmut).”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, said Bakhmut had not been occupied by Moscow.

Wagner’s activities go beyond promoting the military and economic interests of the Kremlin.

Stanyard says the group is also involved in promoting Russian propaganda and interests by “targeting the social media profiles of Kremlin critics — spamming them with pro-Putin and pro-war comments.”

Britain, in particular, has expressed concern that among the targets are “senior UK ministers’ social media accounts, alongside other world leaders.”

“The operation has suspected links to Prigozhin,” she says, quoting a UK report exposing the misinformation campaign by Russia.

The Wagner Group’s involvement in Africa has raised concerns about the role of private military contractors in the continent’s conflicts. While some African governments have welcomed its presence, others are concerned about the lack of oversight and accountability.

In 2019, the African Union adopted the African Standby Force Concept of Operations, which seeks to strengthen the capacity of African states to respond to crises and reduce their reliance on external actors. However, the implementation has been slow, and there are concerns that the Wagner Group and other mercenary groups will continue to operate with impunity.

CIVICUS warns that Wagner’s involvement is “contributing to the closing of civic space. In the CAR, with his position bolstered, Touadéra has further repressed dissenting voices. Humanitarian workers and independent journalists are among those subjected to violence and intimidation by Wagner forces.”

Likewise, in Mali, French media outlets have been banned and “the junta banned the activities of civil society organizations that receive French support, at a stroke hindering civil society’s ability to help people in humanitarian need due to the conflict and monitor human rights abuses.”

The issue of private military contractors in Africa is not limited to the Wagner Group. Other companies, such as Academi (formerly known as Blackwater), a private firm hired by the U.S. that became synonymous with civilian killings in the Iraq war, have been involved in conflicts in the continent, often with little oversight or accountability.

Dyck Advisory Group (DAG) was also involved in Mozambique in areas where the country is trying to deal with the Islamist insurgency. DAG claimed to have worked closely with the government to keep the insurgency at bay before the Southern African Development Community (SADC) sent deployments to Cabo Delgado province. Wagner was reportedly also involved in the conflict but left after experiencing a number of losses.

The use of private military contractors has raised questions about the role of states and the responsibility of corporations in conflicts, as well as the need for greater transparency and accountability.

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Youth involvement in Nigeria’s election is at an all-time high. Here the top three candidates, Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu take to the campaign trail in a country where there are 93 million registered voters. Credit: Photos Twitter/Graphic: Cecilia Russell

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 24 2023 (IPS)

Youth have already transformed the narrative of the 2023 elections, and it would be crucial for Nigeria’s newly elected president to consider their issues as he takes on the enormous task of rebuilding the country, says CIVICUS’ Advocacy and Campaigns Lead David Kode.

Speaking on the eve of the Presidential election, Kode told IPS there had been an 11 percent increase in registration since the 2019 elections, and youth have shown more interest in these elections than any other since 1999.

“Youth are really eager to see change.”

Youth activism which established itself as a political force during the 2020 #EndSars protests against police brutality and impunity, has continued on the trajectory of demanding change in the troubled country. The demand for change has gone far beyond just a change in government and leadership, but affected institutions like the church too, says Kode.

It would be necessary for the Nigerian president to tackle youth unemployment and ensure that those looking for jobs can access them. Going hand in hand with this, the civil society organization CIVICUS would like to see accountable and democratic leadership emerging during the election season, one that takes into consideration the concerns of the people.

David Kode, Advocacy and Campaigns Lead for CIVICUS.

Kode refers to the recent saga with the recall of the old naira currency, where people protested after the Central Bank of Nigeria imposed a deadline for swapping old notes. The bank was forced to extend the deadline, but it’s clear that decision-making was an example of a government and administration out of touch with its people.

“In general, as civil society organizations, we can facilitate between decision makers and the people – and that wasn’t done, and the views of the majority of Nigerians were not taken into account,” Kode said.

“And that’s a big problem for a society like Nigeria because once the decision makers are in positions of authority, it’s like they’re far removed from the lived experiences of ordinary Nigerians. They don’t access the schools that ordinary Nigerian access; they send their kids to schools in Western nations. They don’t access the hospitals when they are sick, they go out of the country, so they don’t experience these challenges on a day-to-day basis and do not really take time to consult the people about big decisions.”

He says it would have been logical to consult extensively before changing a currency.

No matter if it is the candidate that seems to have caught the imagination of the youth – Peter Obi – or another of the front runners, Bola Tinubu or Atiku Abubakar, that wins the election, it’s clear that the country needs a reset. No matter who wins, he hopes Nigeria responds in a way that strengthens the democratic process and doesn’t end in violence.

If there are protests, he hopes that they are not violently repressed – and that a free flow of information remains sacrosanct.

“If you have a leader who really has a vision for the country and prioritizes inclusivity, that might be the beginning of the change that is needed.

“Nigeria is a very, very complex, society with a huge population. And so much needs to be done, and it will take years to fix the system.”

Kode believes many challenges today are tied to the current president, Muhammadu Buhari, especially those concerning the economy and security exacerbated by his “ambivalence to the plight of citizens.”

The advantage that the new president will have, for the first time since 1999, is that the leader is not tied in some way to the country’s military dictatorship. Within the country’s constitution, there are structures available for wide consultation – from the federal to national level, where people have direct access to representatives at the national level. However, ordinary people’s concerns were not considered.

“So, we had leaders that are far removed from the lived realities of the ordinary people. And that’s why somebody like Peter (Obi) resonates very much with the youth and many Nigerians, particularly because he’s seen as somebody who is not really part of the establishment. Many people think he might be that person who could start instituting change.”

Youth represents more than 39 percent of the registered 93,4 million voters in Nigeria. Credit: INEC, Nigeria

Kode believes youth activism is exciting for Nigeria and the continent; after all, youth drove many liberation movements. Conversations around the continent prioritize youth, including the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

The youngest presidential candidate is 38 years old, and it is almost as if the youth are saying: In the past, they “stayed away because they are ambivalent, but it’s not led to change.” Youth apathy is an issue because “in Africa, there are more elections (than before), but the same leaders are being recycled.”

With youth involvement, Kode believes Nigeria can perhaps lead the continent in encouraging “active participation.”

“Irrespective of the outcome, I think the call from civil society to the new leadership will be to respect the constitution and democratic institutions. If people want to protest about the outcome, allow them to – it’s their constitutional right,” Kode says. “And I think it’s the responsibility of the state to ensure security and also allow diverse voices to be able to express themselves.”

He points out that elections are exciting because nobody knows who the winner will be. The other good thing is that this is the first election since the return to democracy in 1999 where the incumbent isn’t contesting.

“That provides in itself an opportunity for change, right, because you haven’t got people who may have been tied to some of the vices of the past … but it is the democratic process that should be built upon, and the rights of citizens need to be respected. Because there will be another election in the next few years, and if you kill certain institutions now, you could set Nigeria a few steps back.”

Nobody can predict an election, and while not everybody will be happy, it would be important for the post-election period to be carefully managed.

“Don’t disrupt the internet. Allow the information to flow as necessary. Be conscious of security issues. There are still some uncertainties; people in rural areas may not be well connected. Security or insecurity might prevent many people from voting. We know there are about 93 million registered voters, but some may not be able to vote because of security issues or even because of technical challenges. So irrespective of the outcome, I think the call from civil society will be to respect the rule of law.”

Finally, Kode says they are “encouraged that the youth are actively involved in this process, from what we see from the statistics, many are willing to vote … Let’s hope this is the beginning of a new dawn for Nigeria. A lot of countries on the continent would benefit from a democratic Nigeria.

“When Nigeria is safe, sound secure. Many other African countries will be safe, sound, and secure as well.”

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Journalists in Zambia protest against attacks on the media. Credit: Kelvin Kachingwe/IPS

By Zubair Sayed
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 30 2016 (IPS)

Imagine a world without the media, where we have no verified information about what’s going on around us. Where everything is hearsay and gossip, where there are no trusted sources of information. It would be hard to operate in a world like that: to make decisions about what to do about the things that affect our lives.

Think for a minute too about what it would mean for those in power; they would be able to act as if we, the people, did not exist. It would be impossible to hold them to account, to know that they’re keeping the election promises they made in their wordy manifestos, and it would be impossible for our voices to be heard. Similarly, it would be difficult to know how companies are behaving, how they are treating their workers and the environment, and whether they are colluding to extract ever more from our pockets.

The role of the media in providing credible information, of giving voice to the people and holding those in power to account is fundamental to the realisation of our freedom and human rights. Whilst there are differences of opinion about whether the media are part of civil society, what is undisputed is the key role that they play in social and economic development, democracy, human rights and the pursuit of justice. Organisations and activists that work on social issues and help articulate public opinion need the media to disseminate the voices they represent. Without a plurality of voices, ideas are diminished, debate is stifled and tolerance is weakened.

Yet, or perhaps because of their role in giving voice and speaking truth to power, the media are increasingly under attack from both governments and corporate interests.

In its recently released World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders say that there has been a “deep and disturbing decline in respect for media freedom at both the global and regional levels” and that there is a “climate of fear and tension combined with increasing control over newsrooms by governments and private-sector interests.”

This assault on journalistic freedom takes many forms, including regular harassment of journalists, censorship, confiscation of equipment, closure of media outlets, arrests and in some cases direct and dire attack. Research by the Committee to Protect Journalists is quite chilling: 72 journalists were murdered in 2015 and a further 199 imprisoned.

In Africa, the situation for media varies in different countries across the continent. Alongside Eritrea and Ethiopia as two of the most censored countries in the world – in first and fourth place respectively – there are countries like Namibia, Ghana, Cape Verde and South Africa that score highly when it comes to freedom of information (even though those countries too experience challenges to media freedom). However, in far too many African countries the media come under regular attack and freedom of information remains a distant right.
                              
There is perhaps no clearer indication of both the importance of the media and the assault it faces than when governments crackdown on journalists and media houses in the run up to and during elections. In January this year, Ugandan officials shutdown an independent radio station after it broadcast an interview with a leading opposition candidate. A few months earlier, police shot and injured radio journalist Ivan Vincent as he covered squabbles between supporters of the leading opposition candidate and the police. Between October 2015 and January 2016, the Human Rights Network for Journalists–Uganda documented about “40 election-related incidents in which journalists have been shot at, assaulted, their gadgets damaged, detained and released without charge and blocked from accessing news scenes.”

The situation for media in Burundi following the violence and repression that started ahead of last year’s election has not improved, and some say that the country has seen the near complete destruction of independent media with journalists and civil society being targeted. Facing shutdowns and direct attacks, many journalists have fled the country out of fear for their lives.

Similarly, during the last year in Djibouti and the Republic of Congo, the desire of leaders to hold onto power and to silence voices opposing them, contributed to election-related violence and media repression.

Of course, the media don’t only face attack during elections. In Angola, the government has kept a decades-long close watch on the media, frequently arresting and harassing those it disagrees with. Currently, journalist Domingos da Cruz is one of 17 activists in prison for his participation in a private gathering to discuss non-violent strategies for civil disobedience.

An Ethiopian human rights advocate that spoke with CIVICUS recently reiterated that “Ethiopia has for a long time severely restricted press freedom and the work of civil society. It is one of the top countries when it comes to jailing journalists, many of whom it charges under the 2009 anti-terrorism law.”

This attack on the media is itself part of a broader attack on the fundamental freedoms of expression, association and assembly that CIVICUS has been documenting during the last few years (in 2015 there were serious violations of these freedoms in more than 100 countries). Attacks on the media often go hand in hand with those on activists and organisations that challenge or question the powers that be. In many countries, this crackdown happens with impunity and attacks often go unpunished.

While governments are the main culprits when it comes curtailing media freedom, the private sector also often seeks to control or manipulate media outputs in ways that favour them and their narrow interests: putting profit before people. This takes place in multiple ways, from the concentration of media ownership and the power that allows corporates to yield, to bribing journalists and influencing editorial content in exchange for paid advertising.

Often caught between state repression and corporate influence, media in many African countries face huge challenges. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution to these challenges a key part of the solution must be to support independent media, including citizen-journalism; for regional governance institutions to hold African countries accountable and for African countries to hold each other accountable; and for education and awareness about rights related to freedom of information and expression.

With regard to the latter, recent research shows that there is widespread support for media freedom and freedom of expression in Africa but that support for these rights is not universal.  In some contexts, journalistic ethics need to be strengthened; media outlets need to invest more in their journalists and support for independent media amongst civil society and the general public needs to be amplified. We need to look towards innovation too, to think of ways to use inexpensive technology to produce people-powered information and data.

Media that is accurate, credible, ethical and impartial is crucial to development, freedom, human rights and justice in Africa – as it is elsewhere. A study on freedom of expression across 34 African countries in 2013 showed the link between this most basic right and a range of factors, stating that “freedom of expression is also consistently linked to better ratings of government performance, especially with respect to government effectiveness in fighting corruption, but also in other sectors such as maintaining roads and managing the economy.”

Given the challenges we face on the continent, the current media crackdown is untenable and dangerous, and does nothing to facilitate the progress so many are working hard to achieve. As citizens of Africa, we need to increase our efforts to protect those that give us voice and help us realise the full scope of our rights.

Zubair Sayed is the Head of Communication and Campaigns at CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organisations.

Follow him on Twitter @zubairsay

Excerpt:

By Teldah Mawarire
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 10 2015 (IPS)

Europe is in the throes of a refugee crisis and it’s not difficult to see that it does not quite know how to respond to it. By mid-October more than 600,000 people had reached Europe by sea.

Teldah Mawarire

The International Organisation for Migration estimates that more than 3,100 people have died or are missing this year alone as they try to make their way to Europe. The flow is likely to continue with the UNICEF saying more Syrians could head to Europe as the conflict in their country continues.

The response to the crisis has been markedly different by different sectors and in different countries. On the whole, it is civil society and not governments or regional unions that have led the effort to help those escaping the horror of war. Civil society organisations (CSOs) have responded by providing food, water, shelter, health services and skills programmes for arriving migrants. CSOs are lobbying the European Union and its members intensely to tackle the intolerance towards refugees. Even the monitoring of refugee arrivals and the database on deaths is being done by CSOs.

The response from those in power however has been inadequate. From bickering in the European Union to hard-line stances taken by the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban that his country must defend its borders from “migrants.”

There are, however, glimmers of hope. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has been more welcoming to refugees until the recent vote by Germany’s lower house of parliament to limit the number of refugees, although the country still projects to receive about 1.5 million refugee arrivals this year. The European Union last month agreed to share 120,000 refugees through a quota system to some member states.

The United Kingdom has promised that it would take in 4,000 refugees this year and 20,000 refugees over the next five years, although it is one of the European Union members that have refused to be part of the quota system. After unhelpful remarks by British lawmakers earlier this year that refugees must not make their way to London because its streets are “not paved with gold,” taking in refugees is a step in the right direction but it is still a “pitifully small” response, as stated by Green MP Caroline Lucas in the UK parliament.

Worryingly, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has said that the money to support refugees should be taken from the Department for International Development (DFID) – the United Kingdom’s official agency in charge of administering aid. DFID is involved in a wide range of projects that include preventing malaria deaths, improving child education and child immunisations, infrastructure development, humanitarian work, civil society support and research among others.

DFID substantially spends about 12 billion pounds per year on international aid. Although the bulk of DFID funding is disbursed through governments, there is a possibility of reduction in allocations to projects led by civil society that rely on funding from the United Kingdom if the Osborne proposal is implemented.

Given the important work being done by CSOs in dealing with refugee crisis, it makes little sense for the UK government to cut or divert aid budgets from CSOs especially when efforts to implement the Sustainable Development Goals, agreed to by world leaders in September this year, will need additional resources. Instead, the UK should make a greater effort to support refugees from its domestic budget.

While the current rules around Official Development Assistance (ODA) allow for donors to count some expenditure for resettling displaced people in their own countries as part of their aid allocation, only a relatively small amount of aid given to refugees has been counted as part of ODA in previous years.

The concern for civil society is that faced with the immensity of the current refugee crisis, coupled with fiscal austerity, donor countries will divert more aid in this way.

Reducing funding could set a bad precedent and lead to other donor governments reducing their funding of projects in the Global South. Already there are concerns in Sweden as the government is considering diverting development aid to refugee reception aid.

In an environment where civil society around the world already faces a funding crisis, while the demand for its work increases, diverting funding is the last thing that the sector needs.

Funding the response to the refugee crisis should be seen as separate from regular development assistance support. If anything, additional resources need to be made available for civil society organisations to continue the essential work they are doing to respond to the crisis, while governments do their best to help refugees in line with humanitarian principles.

(End)

Excerpt:

By Mandeep S.Tiwana
JOHANNESBURG, Jun 10 2015 (IPS)

Whistle-blowers like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are hounded – not by autocratic but by democratic governments – for revealing the truth about grave human rights violations. Nobel peace prize winner, writer and political activist Liu Xiaobo  is currently languishing in a Chinese prison while the killing of Egyptian protestor, poet and mother Shaimaa al-Sabbagh, apparently by a masked policeman, in January this year continues to haunt us. 

CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, has documented serious abuses of civic freedoms in 96 countries in 2014 alone. The annual report of the international advocacy group, Human Rights Watch, laments that the once-heralded Arab Spring has given way almost everywhere to conflict and repression while Amnesty International’s Annual Report 2014/2015 calls it a devastating year for those seeking to stand up for human rights.

Mandeep S. Tiwana

In recent years, there has been a perceptible rise in restrictions on civic space – the fundamental freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly. While the reasons for the eruption of repressive laws and attacks on dissenters vary, negative effects are being felt in both democracies and authoritarian states.

It is increasingly evident that the dangers to civic freedoms come not just from state apparatuses but also from powerful non-state actors including influential business entities and extremist groups subscribing to fundamentalist ideologies. This begs a deeper analysis into the extent and causes of this pervasive problem.

In several countries, laws continue to be drawn up to restrict civic freedoms. They include anti-terror laws that limit freedom of speech, public order laws that limit the right to protest peacefully, laws that stigmatise civil society groups through derogatory names such as ‘foreign agents’, laws that create bureaucratic hurdles to receive crucial funding from international philanthropic institutions as well as laws that prevent progressive civil society organisations from protecting the rights of marginalised minorities such as the LGBTI community.

In this situation, it is indeed possible to identify four key drivers of the pervasive assault on civic space. The first is the global democratic deficit.  Freedom House, which documents the state of democratic rights around the world, has reported declines in civil liberties and political freedoms for the ninth consecutive year in 2015.

In too many countries, peaceful activists exposing corruption and rights violations are being stigmatised as ‘national security threats’, and subjected to politically motivated trials, arbitrary detentions and worse. There appears to be no let up in official censorship and repression of active citizens in authoritarian states like China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Vietnam.“It is increasingly evident that the dangers to civic freedoms come not just from state apparatuses but also from powerful non-state actors including influential business entities and extremist groups subscribing to fundamentalist ideologies”

Freedom of assembly is virtually non-existent in such contexts, and activists are often forced to engage online. But when they do so, they are demonised as being agents of Western security agencies.

Ironically, excessive surveillance and/or hounding of whistle-blowers by countries such as Australia, France, the United Kingdom and United States – whose foreign policies are supposed to promote democratic rights – are contributing to a global climate where close monitoring of anyone suspected of harbouring dissenting views is becoming an accepted norm.

The second driver – and linked to the global democratic deficit – is the worldwide obsession with state security and countering of ‘terrorism’ by all actors except the state. The decline in civic space began after the attack on the World Trade Centre in September 2001 when several established democracies introduced a slew of counter-terror measures weakening human rights safeguards in the name of protecting national security.

The situation worsened after the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 as authoritarian leaders witnessed the fall of long-standing dictators in Egypt and Tunisia following widespread citizen protests. The possibility of people’s power being able to overturn entrenched political systems has made authoritarian regimes extremely fearful of the free exercise of civic freedoms by citizens.

This has led to a severe push back against civil society by a number of repressive regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. Governments in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have stepped up their efforts to prevent public demonstrations and the activities of human rights groups.

Similar reverberations have also been felt in sub-Saharan African countries with long-standing authoritarian leaders and totalitarian political parties. Thus repression of civic freedoms appears to have intensified in countries such as Angola, Burundi, Ethiopia, Gambia, Rwanda, Sudan, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

Activists and civil society groups in many countries in Central Asia and Eastern Europe where democracy remains fragile or non-existent such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are also feeling the heat following governments’ reactions to scuttle demands for political reform.

In South-East Asia too, in countries such as Cambodia and Malaysia which have a history of repressive government and in Thailand where the military seized power through a recent coup, new ‘security’ measures continue to be implemented to restrict civic freedoms.

The third major driver of closing civic space is the rampant collusion and indeed capture of power and resources in most countries by a handful of interconnected political and economic elites.

Oxfam International projects that the richest one percent will own more wealth than 99 percent of the globe’s population by 2016.  Thus civil society groups exposing corruption and/or environmental degradation by politically well-connected businesses are extremely vulnerable to persecution due to the tight overlap and cosy relationships among elites.

With market fundamentalism and the neo-liberal economic discourse firmly entrenched in a number of democracies, labour, land and environmental rights activists are facing heightened challenges.

At least 29 environmental activists were reported murdered in Brazil in 2014. Canada’s centre-right government has been closely monitoring and intimidating indigenous peoples’ rights activists opposing large commercial projects in ecologically fragile areas. India’s prime minister recently urged judges to be wary of “five-star activists“ even as the efforts of Greenpeace India to protect forests from the activities of extractive industries have led it to be subjected to various forms of bureaucratic harassment including arbitrary freezing of its bank accounts.

The fourth and emerging threat to civic space comes from the disturbance caused by religious fundamentalist and evangelist groups seeking to upend the collective progress made by civil society in advancing the human rights discourse.

Failure of the international community to prevent violent conflict and address serious human rights abuses by states such as Israel and Syria is providing a fertile breeding ground for religious extremists whose ideology is deeply inimical to the existence of a vibrant and empowered civil society. 

Besides, religious fundamentalists are able to operate more freely in conflicted and politically fragile environments whose number appears to be rising, thereby exacerbating the situation for civil society organisations and activists seeking to promote equality, peace and tolerance.

Current threats to civic space and civil society activities are a symptom of the highly charged and polarised state of international affairs. The solutions to the grave and interconnected economic, ecological and humanitarian crises currently facing humanity will eventually have to come from civil society through a reassertion of its own value even as political leaders continue to undermine collective efforts.

Beginning a series of conversations on how to respond to common threats at the national, regional and international levels is critical. Establishment of solidarity protocols within civil society could be an effective way to coalesce around both individual cases of harassment as well as systemic threats such as limiting legislation or policies.

Further, the international legal framework that protects civic space needs to be strengthened. The International Bill of Rights comprising the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) leaves scope for subjective interpretation of some aspects of civic freedoms.

It is perhaps time to examine the possibility of a comprehensive legally binding convention on civic space that better articulates the extent and scope of civic space, so essential to an empowered civil society.  However, laws are only as good as the commitment of those charged with overseeing their implementation.

Importantly and urgently, to reverse the global onslaught on civic space and human rights, we need visionary political leadership willing to take risks and lead by example.

Over the last few years, analysts have noted with horror the steady dismantling of hard won gains on civic freedoms. Many thought things could get no worse. … but they did.

It is time to start thinking seriously about stemming the tide before we reach the point of no return. Ending the persecution of Assange, Snowden and Liu Xiaobo could be a good start for preventing precious lives such as Shaimaa’s from being lost.

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

By Lydia Alpízar Durán
SAO PAULO, Apr 2 2015 (IPS)

When you are faced with the task of moving an object but find it is too heavy to lift, what is your immediate and most natural response? You ask someone to help you lift it. And it makes all the difference.

And so in the face of unprecedented economic, ecological and human rights crises, we should not hunker down in our silos, but rather join together and use our collective power to overcome the challenges.

The recent World Social Forum (WSF) in Tunis, showed that ‘Another World Is Possible’ if we work collectively to address the structural causes of inequality.

It is for this reason that the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) has pledged to work together with ActionAid, Civicus, Greenpeace and Oxfam.

The gathering of approximately 70,000 activists in Tunis, the various workshops held on alternate economic models – including an AWID-led session on ‘Feminist Imaginations for a Just Economy’ – the protests against shrinking spaces for dissent and the calls for social justice are critical in a world where the economic, ecological and human rights crises are interconnected and getting worse.

This is the power of the World Social Forum (WSF). This 13^th edition, held for the second time in Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, is a reminder, and a call to action that it is people power that will change the world.

Changing the world, especially where women’s rights and gender justice is concerned, means recognising and bringing visibility to the interrelatedness of issues.

While in the past 20 years there have been notable achievements for women’s rights and gender justice, there is still so much more to be done.

At the centre of the current global crisis is massive economic inequality that has become the global status quo. Some 1.2 billion impoverished people account for only one percent of world consumption while the million richest consume 72 percent.

The levels of consumption in the global North cannot be sustained on this planet by its peoples or the Earth itself. They are disappearing whole ecosystems and displacing people and communities.

The challenges are not only increasing, but also deepening. Many women and girls, trans and intersex people continue to experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and vulnerability throughout their lives.

These include the disproportionate impact of poverty, religious fundamentalisms and violence on women, growing criminal networks and the increasing power of transnational corporations over lands and territories, deepening conflicts and militarisation, widespread gender-based violence, and environmental destruction.

Women have been caretakers of the environment and food producers for centuries, and are now at the forefront of its defense against habitat destruction and resource extraction by corporations.

Violence against women who defend the earth occurs with impunity, at precisely the moment when ‘women and girls’ are also receiving the attention of various corporate philanthropic actors as drivers for development.

Government and institutional commitments to address inequalities for the most part have been weak. And while people’s mobilisation and active citizenship are crucial, in all regions of the world the more people mobilise to defend their rights, the more the civic and political space is being closed off by decision-making elites.

This year’s Political Declaration from the United Nations’ 59^th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW59) is just the latest example.

Twenty years after the Beijing Declaration – the most progressive ‘blueprint’ for women’s rights of its time and the result of 30,000 activists from around the globe putting pressure on 189 participating government representatives – women’s rights and feminist groups were shut out of the CSW ‘negotiations’ with the result that the Declaration is weak and does not go far enough towards the kind of transformative change necessary to truly achieve the promises made in Beijing.

The forces of justice, freedom and equity are being relentlessly pushed back. There is an urgent need to strengthen our collective voices and power, to further expand our shared analyses and build interconnected agendas for action.

The WSF contributes to doing just that. At this year’s WSF, there was a diversity of feminist activists in attendance and the systemic causes of global inequalities were addressed in intersectional ways linking new relationships to land, and land use to patriarchy, food sovereignty, decolonisation and corporate power.

These connections make the struggle seem huge but also make possible solidarity between movements.

As a global network of feminist and women’s rights activists, organisations and movements, AWID has been working for over 30 years to transform dominant structures of power and decision-making and advance human rights, gender justice and environmental sustainability. In all that we do, collaboration is at the core.

I strongly believe that we cannot achieve meaningful transformation unless we join together in all of our diversity. So for AWID, joining with the struggles for environmental sustainability, just economies and human rights, is another step in a long trajectory of working with and for other movements.

Together we can take bolder steps, push each other further, and draw upon our combined knowledge and collective power to amplify our voices. Working together is the only way to reverse inequality, and to achieve a just and sustainable world.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Excerpt:

By Mandeep S.Tiwana
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 23 2015 (IPS)

For those of us interested in a vibrant civil society, it seems to be best of times and the worst of times.

In recent months, there has been great progress in recognising the importance of civil society in shaping the so-called ‘post-2015’ agenda and an explicit recognition of the important role that civil society will play in delivering sustainable development. However, in many countries around the world, the actual conditions in which civil society operates are getting worse not better.

As we come closer to a new global agreement on sustainable development goals (SDGs), we need to push for an agreement – backed by robust indicators – that will make a tangible difference in protecting civic freedoms.

Mandeep S. Tiwana

Indeed, a perceptible rise in bureaucratic harassment and raids on NGO offices, violent dispersal of citizen demonstrations, attacks on and illicit surveillance of activists, combined with the application of draconian laws to silence dissent and restrict funding, has many civil society observers worried about shrinking space for the sector.

Over the course of last year, CIVICUS, the global alliance for citizen participation, monitored severe threats to civic freedoms in roughly half of the globe’s 193 countries. Amnesty International’s Annual Report for 2014/2015 calls it “a devastating year” for those seeking to stand up for human rights. Front Line Defenders, which works to protect human rights defenders at risk, reports the killing or death in detention of over 130 human rights defenders in the first ten months of 2014 alone.

All of this is happening while the United Nations is making unprecedented efforts to ensure greater civil society participation in the post-2015 global development framework.

While the next generation of sustainable development goals, their associated targets and indicators will be decided by world leaders at their Sep. 25-27 summit in New York this year, civil society’s role in grounding the framework in people’s aspirations and holding duty bearers to account is crucial.“Assurances for a civil society enabling environment and respect for the freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly in the post-2015 framework are integral to greater public involvement and accountability in development”

In light of recent trends which point to shrinkage of civil society space, in both democracies and non-democracies, there is naturally a high level of anxiety whether guarantees on civic freedoms and civil society participation will be included in the final framework. Indeed, a major criticism of the current Millennium Development Goal (MDG) framework is that it has failed to recognise and thereby institutionalise the role of active citizens and civil society organisations in development.

Assurances for a civil society enabling environment and respect for the freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly in the post-2015 framework are integral to greater public involvement and accountability in development.

So far, some progress has been made but the gains remain shaky because many governments which will be involved in adopting the final framework in September are themselves complicit in serious violations of civic freedoms. These include some influential states such as China, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and Turkey whose developmental models are predicated on top-down governance with scant role for independent civil society.

Positively, the U.N. Secretary General’s Synthesis Report on the Post-2015 Agenda, released in December last year, calls for the creation of an “enabling environment under the rule of law for the free, active and meaningful engagement of civil society and advocates reflecting the voices of women, minorities, LGBT groups, indigenous peoples, youth, adolescents and older persons.”

Notably, participatory democracy – without which civic freedoms cannot meaningfully exist – has been described as both an enabler and outcome of development.

From the perspective of civic freedoms and civil society participation, the U.N. Secretary General’s report has done well to elaborate on the proposal submitted to the U.N. General Assembly by the Open Working on Sustainable Development Goals (OWG) in July 2014.

Comprising 30 representatives nominated by U.N. member states from all the regions of the world, the OWG recommended 17 goals and 169 corresponding targets which are the basis of intergovernmental negotiations on the SDGs this year.

Two goals are particularly relevant from the standpoint of civil society’s ability to freely operate and monitor progress on the framework.  These are proposed Goal 16 (“promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels”) and proposed Goal 17 (“strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for development”). 

The proposed goals are further sub-divided into targets. For instance, targets under Goal 16 include “responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision making at all levels” and “public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements.” A key target under Goal 17 is to “encourage and promote effective public, public-private, and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships.”

Progress on the proposed targets will be measured by indicators currently being developed by various U.N. bodies, including the U.N. Statistics Division. Ultimately, it will be the indicators that will anchor the post-2105 agenda because gains will be gauged through their prism. It is therefore crucial that the United Nations is able to identify suitable tools to measure civic space and civil society participation.

Although, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) has produced a report titled ‘Accountability through Civic Participation in the Post-2015 Development Agenda’, much more needs to be done to put in place relevant indicators that are linked to the targets identified by the OWG.

For instance, in relation to proposed Target 16.10 with its focus on “fundamental freedoms”, it would be valuable to evaluate whether both legislation and practice protect civic space, in particular the freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly.  Similarly, under proposed Target 17.17 with its focus on encouraging and promoting civil society partnerships, it will be vital to measure the existence of enabling conditions such as mandated requirements for civil society involvement in official policy making processes at the national level.

Currently, there are a number of initiatives that measure civic space and civil society participation. Some of these, such as the World Press Freedom Index, the Freedom in the World survey and the Enabling Environment Index, are led by civil society organisations, while others such as the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation are being developed by multi-stakeholder initiatives.

With post-2015 negotiations entering the final phase, it is vital that political negotiators and technical experts are convinced that adoption of the above and associated methodologies will lead to better service delivery, citizen monitoring and accountability.

With the attention on the post-2015 agenda now focused on measurement, civil society advocates have their work cut out to also engage and influence the statisticians. Ambitious goals and targets will count for nothing if not backed by relevant indicators. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

In a spirit of inquiry and engagement, participants at the “Toward a World Citizens Movement: Learning from the Grassroots” conference spent much of their time interacting with each other. Credit: Courtesy of DEEEP

By Anthony George
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 26 2014 (IPS)

Has organised civil society, bound up in internal bureaucracy, in slow, tired processes and donor accountability, become simply another layer of a global system that perpetuates injustice and inequality?

How can civil society organizations (CSOs) build a broad movement that draws in, represents and mobilises the citizenry, and how can they effect fundamental, systemic transformation, rather than trading in incremental change?

This kind of introspective reflection was at the heart of a process of engagement among CSOs from around the world that gathered in Johannesburg from Nov. 19 to 21 for the “Toward a World Citizens Movement: Learning from the Grassroots” conference.

Organised byDEEEP, a project within the European civil society umbrella organisation CONCORD which builds capacity among CSOs and carries out advocacy around global citizenship and global citizenship education, the conference brought together 200 participants.“It is important that people understand the inter-linkages at the global level; that they understand that they are part of the system and can act, based on their rights, to influence the system in order to bring about change and make life better – so it’s no longer someone else deciding things on behalf of the citizens” – Rilli Lappalainen, Secretary-General of the Finnish NGDO Platform

Key partners were CIVICUS (the World Alliance for Citizen Participation, which is one of the largest and most diverse global civil society networks) and GCAP (Global Call to Action Against Poverty).

The three-day gathering was part of a larger series of conferences and activities that were arranged to coincide during the 2014 International Civil Society Week organised by CIVICUS, which closed Nov. 24.

Global citizenship is a concept that is gaining currency within the United Nations system, to the delight of people like Rilli Lappalainen, Secretary-General of the Finnish NGDO Platform and a key advocate for global citizenship education.

At the heart of this concept is people’s empowerment, explains Lappalainen. “It is important that people understand the inter-linkages at the global level; that they understand that they are part of the system and can act, based on their rights, to influence the system in order to bring about change and make life better – so it’s no longer someone else deciding things on behalf of the citizens.”

The process of introspection around building an effective civil society movement that can lead to such change began a year ago at the first Global Conference, also held in Johannesburg.

The discourse there highlighted the need for new ways of thinking and working – for the humility to linger in the uncomfortable spaces of not knowing, for processes of mutual learning, sharing and questioning.

This new spirit of inquiry and engagement, very much evident in the creative, interactive format of this year’s conference, is encapsulated in an aphorism introduced by thought-leader Bayo Akomolafe from Nigeria: “The time is very urgent – let us slow down”.

Akomolafe’s keynote address explored the need for a shift in process: “We are realising our theories of change need to change,” he said. “We must slow down today because running faster in a dark maze will not help us find our way out.”

“We must slow down today,” he continued, “because if we have to travel far, we must find comfort in each other – in all the glorious ambiguity that being in community brings … We must slow down because that is the only way we will see … the contours of new possibilities urgently seeking to open to us.”

A key opportunity for mutual learning and questioning was provided on the second day by a panel on ‘Challenging World Views’.

Prof Rob O’Donoghue from the Environmental Learning Research Centre at South Africa’s Rhodes University explored the philosophy of ubuntu, Brazilian activist and community organiser Eduardo Rombauer spoke about the principles of horizontal organising, and Hiro Sakurai, representative of the Buddhist network Soka Gakkai International (SGI) to the United Nations in New York, discussed the network’s core philosophy of soka, or value creation.

A female activist from Bhutan who was to join the panel was unable to do so because of difficulties in acquiring a visa – a situation that highlighted a troubling observation made by Danny Sriskandarajah, head of CIVICUS, about the ways in which the space for CSOs to work is being shrunk around the world.

The absence of women on the panel was noted as problematic. How is it possible to effectively question a global system that is so deeply patriarchal without the voices of women, asked a male participant. This prompted the spontaneous inclusion of a female member of the audience.

In the spirit of embracing not-knowing, the panellists were asked to pose the questions they think we should be asking. How do we understand and access our power? How do we foster people’s engagement and break out of our own particular interests to engage in more systems-based thinking? How can multiple worldviews meet and share a moral compass?

Ubuntu philosophy, explained O’Donoghue, can be defined by the statement: “A person is a person through other people.”

The implications of this perspective for the issues at hand are that answers to the problems affecting people on the margins cannot be pre-defined from the outside, but must be worked out through solidarity and through a process of struggle. You cannot come with answers; you can only come into the company of others and share the problems, so that solutions begin to emerge from the margins.

The core perspective of soka philosophy is that each person has the innate ability to create value – to create a positive change – in whatever circumstances they find themselves. Millions of people, Sakurai pointed out, are proving the validity of this idea in their own contexts. This is the essence of the Soka movement.

His point was echoed the following evening in the address of Graca Machel, wife of the late Nelson Mandela, at a CIVICUS reception, in which she spoke of the profound challenges confronting civil society as poverty and inequality deepen and global leaders seem increasingly dismissive of the voices of the people.

Then, toward the end of her speech, she softly recalled “my friend Madiba” (Mandela’s clan name) in the final years of his life, and his consistent message at that time that things are now in our hands.

What he showed us by his example, she said, is that each person has immense resources of good within them. Our task is to draw these out each day and exercise them in the world, wherever we are and in whatever ways we can.

Those listening to Machel saw Mandela’s message as a sign of encouragement in their efforts to create the World Citizens Movement of tomorrow.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

By Mandeep S.Tiwana
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 25 2014 (IPS)

Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, an advocacy NGO, is facing criminal charges for sending a tweet that said: “many Bahrain men who joined terrorism and ISIS have come from the security institutions and those institutions were the first ideological incubator”.

Yara Sallam, a young Egyptian woman activist, is in prison for protesting against a public assembly law declared by United Nations experts to be in breach of international law.

In Nigeria, it is illegal to support the formation of `gay clubs and institutions’.

Mandeep S. Tiwana

In Bangladesh, civil society groups are subjected to rigorous scrutiny of their project objectives with a view to discourage documentation of serious human rights abuses.

In Honduras, activists exposing the nexus between big business owners and local officials to circumvent rules operate under serious threat to their lives.

In South Sudan, a draft law is in the making that requires civil society groups to align their work with the government-dictated national development plan.

With barely a year to go before finalisation of the next generation of global development goals, civil society groups are facing increasing challenges as they seek to assume their rightful role as partners in development.

Back in 2010, when the United Nations organised a major summit to take stock of progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a number of civil society groups lamented that“too little partnership and too little space” was marring the achievement of MDG targets.“With barely a year to go before finalisation of the next generation of global development goals, civil society groups are facing increasing challenges as they seek to assume their rightful role as partners in development”

They pointed out that, in a large number of countries, legal and practical limitations were preventing civil society groups from being set up, engaging in legitimate undertakings and accessing resources, impeding both the service delivery and watchdog functions of the sector, thereby negatively affecting development activities.

Since then, there has been greater recognition at multilateral levels about the challenges faced by civil society. In 2011, at a high-level forum on aid and development effectiveness, 159 national governments and the European Union resolved to create an “enabling environment” for civil society organisations to maximise their contributions to development.

In 2013, the U.N. Secretary General’s expert High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda recommended that a separate goal on good governance and effective institutions should be created. The experts suggested that this goal should include targets to measure freedoms of speech, association, peaceful protest and access to independent media and information, which are integral to a flourishing civil society.

The Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has also emphasised the importance of ‘partnership with civil society’ in the post-2015 agenda. Even as restrictions on civil society activities have multiplied around the world, the U.N. Human Rights Council has passed resolutions calling for the protection of civic space.

Senior U.N. officials and experts, including the new High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, have spoken out against state-sanctioned reprisals against activists highlighting human rights abuses at home and abroad.

Yet, despite the progress, civic space appears to be shrinking. The State of Civil Society Report 2014 issued by CIVICUS points out that following the upheavals of the Arab Spring, many governments have felt threatened and targeted activists advocating for civil and political freedoms.

In Ethiopia, bloggers and journalists speaking out against restrictions on speech and assembly have been targeted under counter-terrorism legislation for “inciting” disaffection.

Additionally, the near total dominance of free market economic policies has created a tight overlap between the economic and political elite, putting at risk environmental and land rights activists challenging the rise of politically well-connected mining, construction and agricultural firms.

Global Witness has pointed out that there has been a surge in the killing of environmental activists over the last decade.

Notably, abundant political conflicts and cultural clashes are spurring religious fundamentalism and intolerant attitudes towards women’s equality and the rights of sexual minorities, putting progressive civil society groups at serious risk from both physical attacks as well as politically motivated prosecutions.

In Uganda, concerns have been expressed about the promotion of homophobia by right-wing religious groups.

In Pakistan, indiscriminate attacks on women’s rights activists are seriously impairing their work.

Countering these regressive developments will require greater efforts from the international community to entrench notions of civic space in both developmental as well as human rights forums.

A critical mass of leading civil society organisations has written to U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon urging him to ensure that the post-2015 agenda focuses on the full spectrum of human rights, with clear targets on civil and political rights that sit alongside economic, social and cultural rights.

It is being argued that explicit inclusion of the freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly which underpin a vibrant and able civil society should be goals in themselves in the new global development agenda.

It is equally vital to make parallel progress on the human rights front. Many governments that restrict civic freedoms are taking cover under the overbroad provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

They argue that the provisions of the ICCPR on freedom of association and assembly, which are short on detail, are open to multiple interpretations on issues such as the right to operate an organisation without formal registration or to spontaneously organise a public demonstration.

The global discourse on civil society rights would be greatly strengthened if the U.N. Human Rights Committee, the expert body of jurists responsible for interpreting the ICCPR, could comprehensively articulate the scope of these freedoms.

This would complement progress made at the U.N. Human Rights Council and support implementation of comprehensive best practice guidelines issued by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedoms of peaceful assembly and association.

For now, the odds seem to be heavily stacked against civil society groups fighting for economic, social and political justice. Many powerful governments do not subscribe to democratic values and are fundamentally opposed to the notion of an independent sector. And many democracies have themselves encroached on civic space in the face of perceived security and strategic interests.

Civil society around the world must remain vigilant and act collectively to ensure that the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, association and assembly are protected. We have come too far to let those with vested interests encroach on the space for citizens and civil society to thrive. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

By Danny Sriskandarajah
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 7 2014 (IPS)

A few weeks ago, I co-signed perhaps the most important open letter of my career. It was an open provocation to my fellow activists and colleagues, to the members of our organisation, and to all those who, like me, earn their living in the civil society sector.

Danny Sriskandarajah

CIVICUS, the organisation I lead, exists to strengthen civil society and citizen action throughout the world. Yet, I signed my name to an open letter that is critical of civil society; that says that our work has begun to reinforce the social, economic and political systems that we once set out to transform; that we have become too institutionalised, too professionalised, co-opted into systems and networks in which we are being outwitted and out-manoeuvred.

This issue of civil society “co-option” matters so much because we are losing the war – the war against poverty, climate change and social injustice. Many courageous, inspirational people and organisations are fighting the good fight. But too many of us – myself included – have become detached from the people and movements that drive real social and political change.“Our work has begun to reinforce the social, economic and political systems that we once set out to transform; we have become too institutionalised, too professionalised, co-opted into systems and networks in which we are being outwitted and out-manoeuvred”

The corporatisation of civil society has tamed our ambition; too often it has made us agents rather than agitators of the system.

Our intention in publishing this letter was not to berate, but to spark a debate; to challenge all of us to engage in re-configuring, re-imagining and re-energising civil society. A first and small step was to host a Twitter conversation, calling for responses to the ideas expressed in our letter. And it would seem that many civil society activists around the world share our concerns.

As a result we will be devoting as much time as possible during the International Civil Society Week that will take place this November in Johannesburg to discussing the issues raised in the letter. We are expecting more than 500 activists from all over the world to come together to discuss, analyse, challenge, learn and share experiences to tackle the obstacles we all face worldwide.

The week will take the theme ‘Citizen Action, People Power’, and feature more than 40 events – covering topics from good grant-making to new ways of promoting people-powered accountability – that are being organised by our members and partners from around the world.

The week will culminate in the CIVICUS World Assembly and close with the Nelson Mandela-Graça Machel Innovation Awards ceremony.

I still believe passionately in the power of civil society to change the world. Only we can formulate a new set of global organising principles, a new paradigm and an alternative model to the current narrative.

But, in order to do so, we will need to put the voice and actions of people back at the heart of our work. The global partnership that will make up the International Civil Society Week will be bound by this common aim – centred on the voices and actions of the people.

I am very excited about having so many brilliant minds in one creative space – to help us connect the forces that nurture positive social change, to share the tools that enhance citizen action, and to celebrate inspiring examples of people power.

Our primary accountability must be, not to donors, but to all those struggling for social justice. We must fight corporatism in our own ranks, re-connect with the power of informal and grassroots networks, tap into the wisdom of diverse activists, and re-balance our resources. This should not entail abandoning the organisations we have created; but evolving them to be truly accountable to those we seek to serve.

My hope is that the dialogue we have begun will help to re-connect us to an understanding of civil society as a deeply human construct, as a facilitator of empowering social relationships. In this, it will be crucial to reflect on the role of our own organisations. For only solutions that are at once pragmatic and radical will be sufficient to meet the challenges we face. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

CIVICUS welcomes comments on the open letter here.

Register for International Civil Society Week here.

Danny Sriskandarajah can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/civicusSG

Excerpt:

By Mandeep S.Tiwana
JOHANNESBURG, Sep 2 2014 (IPS)

The killings of hundreds of civilians, including scores of children, in Gaza – whose only fault was to have been born on the wrong side of the wall – was a major point of contention at the United Nations Human Rights Council at the end of July.

The high death toll caused by indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas by the Israeli military has resulted in what may very likely be war crimes. The United Nations has said that 70 percent of those killed in Gaza were civilians.

Mandeep Tiwana

Yet Western democracies, normally proactive on human rights issues at the Council, chose to withhold their vote when a resolution urging immediate cessation of Israeli military assaults throughout the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalem, and an end to attacks against all civilians, including Israeli civilians, was brought forward.

Notably, the resolution sought to create an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate all violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the context of military operations conducted since June 13, 2014.

When asked to vote on the above, Austria, France, Ireland, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom chose to abstain. The United States, whose foreign policy mission is to “shape and sustain a peaceful, prosperous, just and democratic world and foster conditions for stability and progress for the benefit of the American people and people everywhere,” was ironically the only country in the 47 member U.N. Human Rights Council to have voted against the resolution.“Institutions of global governance should be able to offer a source of protection and support for people who are being repressed, marginalised or excluded at the national level. Yet, too often, they are captured by state interests which override genuine human rights concerns.”

Essentially, each country standing for election to the Human Rights Council is required to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.” By any yardstick, looking at the wanton death and destruction that has rained down on the people of Gaza, destroying the homes and livelihoods of tens of thousands as well as vital public infrastructure, is a blatant abdication of responsibility.

In 2006, when the Human Rights Council was created, then U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan poignantly remarked that the true test of its ability would be the use that member states make of it. Eight years down the line, sadly the Council remains a house divided on the great human rights matters of the day.

Earlier this year in March, when the Human Rights Council passed a resolution aimed at addressing impunity for the widespread violations of international law committed during and after the Sri Lankan civil war, many of the countries strongly in favour of accountability for crimes committed in the Gaza conflict – such as Algeria, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Viet Nam – voted against the Sri Lanka resolution. Conversely, Western democracies that abstained on the Gaza vote robustly supported action to tackle impunity in Sri Lanka.

This double standard represents perhaps the greatest challenge to the world’s premier human rights body.

Notably, the Human Rights Council was established in response to well-founded criticism of rampant politicisation of human rights issues by its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights.  At the Human Rights Council too, geopolitical interests of the more powerful states are driving selective blocking and support for human rights causes by elected member states, weakening respect for international standards. 

Notably, the formation of blocs presents a grave threat to the Council’s work. Its members have unfortunately slotted themselves into various informal groups such as the Western European and Others Group (WEOG),  African Group, Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) countries, and even a motley ‘Like-Minded Group’ that shares little in political culture and world view except that it largely opposes whatever the Western group comes up with.

These unfortunate political dynamics have weakened the ability of the Council to be a beacon for the advancement of human rights discourse. Tellingly, the issue of discrimination against and violations of the personal freedoms of sexual minorities including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) individuals remains another hotly contested area.

A regressively worded June 2014 resolution on the ‘protection of the family’ – which excludes LGBT individuals from the ambit of the family – witnessed en-masse voting in favour by the African, OIC and ‘Like-Minded Group’.

Worryingly, far too many countries are caught up in the herd mentality of en-masse voting coupled with advancement of strategic interests at the Human Rights Council. Too often, principle is being abandoned at the altar of politics. Every time this happens, the legitimacy of the global governance institution suffers, further exacerbating conflict.

A report by the global civil society alliance, CIVICUS, points out that in an ever more complex governance environment, where large problems are acknowledged to cross national borders, international level decision-making is starting to matter more.

Institutions of global governance should be able to offer a source of protection and support for people who are being repressed, marginalised or excluded at the national level. Yet, too often, they are captured by state interests which override genuine human rights concerns.

Civil society and the media have their work cut out to expose the hypocrisy and inconsistency that mars action on gross human rights violations in international forums like the Human Rights Council. States need to be held accountable and practice what they preach – on principle, and not only when it suits them. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Excerpt:

By Danny Sriskandarajah
JOHANNESBURG, May 21 2014 (IPS)

I had the privilege of visiting South Sudan a few months after the world’s youngest state had been born in July 2011.  Then, most people were wondering what the future held for the country.  The road has not been easy so far.

Months of fighting between the government and rebels have just ended, leaving behind thousands dead and over a million people displaced.  A peace accord that has been signed has brought some positive outlook for prospects of peace in the country.

However, without a vibrant local civil society, long-term peace and stability in South Sudan is unlikely.  Civil society in the country is weak, partly a consequence of decades of conflict, extreme poverty, low standards of education and emigration. The few stable and sizeable civil society organisations that exist in the country today are generally supported by foreign donors, and even they have struggled to make much of an impact so far.

In South Sudan, like in many other countries, most political energy is focused on the state. The government apparatus dominates policy development and resource allocation, so those that seek influence seek to control the state. This raises the stakes of being in power, with those outside the state having little influence.

Sadly, South Sudan has suffered – in extremis – from an affliction that has plagued many other countries, especially in Africa. This is the unwillingness of leaders, especially those who have liberated their countries from conflict or colonialism, to permit the expression of dissent.

Danny Sriskandarajah

Governments across Africa are clamping down on dissent, hiding their secrets and attacking the funding base of their critics. And it seems that those who fought hardest for freedom are now those least convinced by the virtue of freedom of expression, association and assembly.

The situation in many African countries is particularly acute, especially where political movements that once fought for freedom and prosperity and have now assumed power are undermining both aims by trying to clampdown on civil society.

What they ignore at their peril is that, while solidarity and unity are crucial during liberation struggles, debate and dissent are vital to democracy and economic prosperity in the wake of liberation.

Two post-liberation African countries provide examples of the fork in the road the government of South Sudan faces. It can go the way of South Africa, where debate and dissent is alive – tensions and niggles notwithstanding – or it can go the way of Zimbabwe, where dissent is demonised and civic space is constantly under threat.

We saw an example of this in South Sudan in 2013, when the government presented the ‘Voluntary and Non-Governmental Humanitarian Organizations Bill’which would have sought to limit the activities of civil society organisations in key areas such as tackling corruption, promoting good governance and advocating against human rights violations.

Rather than seeing civil society as a threat, the South Sudanese government should see it as a fundamental building block of a stable democracy that needs to be nurtured, not over-regulated. Any healthy state needs to be buttressed by a robust and active civil society. Civil society organisations are needed to vent grievances, promote dialogue and even carry out service delivery. Civil society then becomes an effective arena, outside party politics, for policy debate to take place and for leaders to be held accountable.

While securing a lasting peace is an immediate priority in South Sudan, a longer-term challenge will be to create an enabling environment for civil society to flourish. This will require paying attention to the legal and regulatory environment for civil society to make sure it is not overly-restrictive. And it will also require developing the skills and expertise of local civil society leaders.

The investment of resources into civil society is a further need. When I visited the country in 2009, I found it tragic that a civil society resource centre that had been funded by aid agencies in the euphoria leading up to independence was already struggling to meet its operational costs. The anticipated income from local civil society using the facilities had not materialised.

There are countless political and economic challenges facing the world’s newest country. Obvious attention needs to be paid to those immediate priorities that will make the South Sudan safer, help end poverty and promote stability. However, investing in a vibrant civil society will be a critical means to helping all of those ends – and indeed an end in itself. Let us hope that South Sudan can lead the way in nurturing positive conditions for civic life to flourish. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By David Kode
JOHANNESBURG, Sep 23 2013 (Columnist Service)

Last July marked 19 years of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh’s inordinately long rule. His legacy during this time is to mark his country as one of the most unapologetically repressive states in Africa.

In June, he told a public gathering he would never compromise on homosexuality. “Those talking about human rights, and saying that preventing homosexuality is a violation of human rights, I have one message for them: let them go and burn their tails in hell.”

Gambia also scores dismally on the well-respected Ibrahim Index of African Governance, just below Swaziland, one of the last remaining totalitarian monarchies in the world. Journalists and human rights defenders are under particular pressure. Many are afraid of being locked up on trumped-up charges for criticising the government’s wanton ways.

On Jul. 3, Gambia’s Information and Communications Act was amended to create new offences including “inciting dissatisfaction” and “making derogatory statements against government officials”, to deter the media and activists from publicly criticising the president and his cronies.

The penalties are severe. Circulating “false information” carries a stiff sentence of 15 years in jail and hefty fines of the equivalent of 87,000 dollars

The above amendment comes on the heels of a recent revision of the country’s Criminal Code which further reinforces the authority of government over citizens. Those found guilty of providing “false information” to a public servant or state authority can be penalised with a fine of 1,500 dollars or sentenced to five years in prison.

The implications are that any government official can make a judgement call on information they consider ‘false’ and take individuals to court on the basis of such information.

These recent actions are a reflection of a broader trend in which the government consistently threatens, intimidates and harasses journalists, dissenters and human rights defenders. Attacks on journalists and media outlets increased drastically in August 2012 in the wake of the execution of nine prisoners following public pronouncements by President Jammeh, who came to power through a coup in July 1994.

In a televised address, he informed Gambians in August 2012 that “all the death sentences would have been carried out to the letter – there is no way my government will allow 99 percent of the population to be held ransom by criminals.”

The executions were the first of their kind in over three decades and they were preceded by public announcements made by the president that all inmates on death row would be summarily executed.

Following pressure from the international community after the executions, the president issued a moratorium, halting further action on condition that the crime rate in the country did not increase.

There are serious concerns that some of those on death row and those executed were convicted on fictitious and politically-motivated charges.

Several national and international news agencies operating in the country that reported on and criticised the executions were targeted during this period. On Sept. 15, 2012, The Standard and Daily News newspapers were arbitrarily banned for apparently publishing stories critical of the executions. In August 2012 Teranga FM, an independent radio station, was shut down after it was warned to desist from broadcasting newspaper publications in local languages.

Journalists are increasingly being forced to resort to self-censorship as critical reporting – more often than not – elicits a backlash from government. In most cases, groups working on human rights issues have had to close down completely or ‘self-censor’ public reports on the state of human rights to avoid government reprisals.

Members and partners have told CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, that they are scared to speak out lest they face the wrath of a state that might trump up ways and means of persecuting them. Some journalists critical of the government have fled the country to avoid persecution and those that have remained are regularly targeted by the authorities.

Ironically, the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) is on Gambian soil, but the government seems to be oblivious to its commitments to regional and international human rights frameworks as it clamps down on critical voices in the media.

It is quite obvious that human rights concerns are only discussed in the Gambia when the ACHPR is in session. The authorities continue to use a variety of strategies, including judicial harassment, intimidation, threats, and repressive laws, to crack down on the media and silence those who question human rights violations.

The international community and African leaders in particular need to take action to halt the downward spiral of abuses of human rights and freedom of expression while Gambia continues to host the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights.

Jammeh needs to be held to account – or face serious consequences if he is not. The next session of the Commission is scheduled for October-November 2013. It is increasingly becoming a joke.

(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

Jenni Williams (in white cap) addresses Women of Zimbabwe Arise members at Zimbabwe’s parliament building in Harare with the police looking on. The clampdown on civil society spreads far beyond Zimbabwe according to a recent CIVICUS report. Credit: Misheck Rusere/IPS

By Nalisha Adams
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 29 2013 (IPS)

As Zimbabwe is expected to head to the polls in a little less than two months, clampdowns on civil society in that southern African nation have increased, according to Godwin Phiri, western region chairperson of the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations in Zimbabwe.

Phiri tells IPS that it was very difficult to disseminate information to rural communities about their rights as voters as they were not allowed to hold public gatherings.

“The battle is in the rural communities where, according to the Public Order and Security Act, we need to inform the police four days before if we want to have a meeting. But the police say that you need to seek their permission, and what we have seen over time is that they decide what meetings can be held,” Phiri says.

He adds that as the elections draw nearer, the police have begun prohibiting meetings by civil society organisations in rural areas.

“Ahead of the elections the main thing we are trying to activate is our local structures to use as points of disseminating voter information. But a lot of communities are living in a context where there is a lot of violence and their movements are curtailed by the fear that anything can happen and can be interpreted as anti-government. So they are afraid to talk about issues,” he says.

And Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), an all-female social justice pressure group, has been no exception in the crackdown on civil society organisations, including arrests, over the past year, strongly believed to be a measure by the coalition government to thwart dissent.

Jenni Williams, founder and national coordinator of the group, tells IPS that she and her co-founder Magodonga Mahlangu have been arrested more than 50 times during the past 10 years that their organisation has been in existence. In April, WOZA laid a complaint with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) at the African Union body’s 53rd session.

However, media and democracy campaigner Pedzisai Ruhanya, who is the director of the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute, says nothing will come of it as President Robert Mugabe’s defiant government has ignored other rulings from the ACHPR.

“They have done that before and they will do it again. Actually there is a precedent; they have done it and what has happened to them? They are still there. What happened to them when they…defied other rulings that came from the Banjul court in the Gambia where the ACHPR is based.

“They will continue to do business as usual because that court (the ACHPR) has no teeth, it is a toothless bulldog and cannot enforce its decisions, hence it’s an appendage of the state parties, including Zimbabwe,” Ruhanya says.

But the experiences of civil society in Zimbabwe are not unique to that country. A new report released by CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, states that despite the expectation that the Arab Spring, Spain’s “indignados “and the global Occupy movements could bring radical change, this has not happened.

The report titled “The State of Civil Society 2013”, released on Apr. 29, says the great people’s movements of 2012 were followed by “a range of negative events that make the work of civil society even harder.”

“The ever-growing diffusion of social media and mobile technology, and the mushrooming of digital platforms for self-expression, might suggest that never before has civil society had so many venues to voice its claims and visions,” Mario Lubetkin, director of Inter Press Service (IPS), says in a chapter of the report co-written with Citizen Lab fellow Stefania Milan.

Milan and Lubetkin state, however, that this is not truly the case and note that “the news agenda is today largely dominated by stories from the global North.

“The mediascape is still characterised by growing media concentration, the predominance of ‘infotainment’ and ‘sensationalism’ over information and analysis, and the prevalence of Western voices at the expense of a silenced global South.”

They recommend that “familiarisation with the journalism world, its needs and practices, is essential for CSOs (Civil Society Organisations), and even more so for those people whose task is to reach out to journalists.”

In his introduction to the report, Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, secretary general and chief executive of CIVICUS, concurs with Milan and Lubetkin.

“New technologies are making it easier to access information, connect with other like-minded people, and mobilise large numbers of people. But restrictions on websites and social media are increasingly being used as tools to keep citizens in the dark and prevent them from scrutinising corruption.”

The report notes that a number of governments have recently introduced or plan to introduce laws that regulate the formation and operation of CSOs. “Laws in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, for example, give the state the power to declare a CSO unlawful or withdraw its registration.”

However, the report states that CSOs are finding innovating ways of tackling social problems. For example, in Kyrgyzstan, “Public Watch Councils have increased accountability and transparency of central governmental agencies. One of the ways in which they have done so is through several TV discussions and public hearings involving the participation of state officials, CSOs and private sector representatives.”

*Additional reporting by Misheck Rusere in Harare.

By Lindsey Walker
NEW YORK, Sep 19 2012 (IPS)

The Global Civil Society Network CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation has a new secretary general – Dhananjayan (Danny) Sriskandarajah, who was appointed Monday by the board of directors following the CIVICUS World Assembly in Montreal.

Dhananjayan (Danny) Sriskandarajah

CIVICUS is a global alliance of organisations and individuals that strives to strengthen citizen action and civil society, particularly in regions of the world where freedom of association is limited or threatened.

Danny Sriskandarajah, previously the director general of the Royal Commonwealth Society, is the youngest ever leader of CIVICUS. He replaces Ingrid Srinath as the outgoing secretary general.

Sriskandarajah spoke with IPS correspondent, Lindsey Walker, about his hopes and intentions for his upcoming term as SG.

Q: What do you offer CIVICUS as its new secretary general?

A: I hope I can bring a real sense of commitment to supporting and nurturing citizen action or civil society throughout the world. That is a fundamental purpose of an organisation like CIVICUS.

Q: Amid a long-term financial crisis and government crackdowns on NGOs and countries across the world, how do you see the influence of civil society evolving in the next years?

A: I think we’re at a low point in public confidence in traditional economic and political institutions. With the Arab Spring, with the “Occupy” movement, with a new sense of the need for accountability in global development issues, I can’t think of a more important time for citizen action. Governments and the multilateral system seem to have failed the public and people of the world and I think civil society will be at the heart of that project.

I get the sense that there will also be a realisation amongst some of those countries that see civil society as a threat that, actually, healthy and vibrant civil society is good for the long-term future of their country. There are regimes around the world which have done all sorts of things to curb the freedom of association and the freedom of expression. But I think we’re seeing some countries realise that’s a short-term strategy that will inevitably backfire. What a demonstration of the power of citizen voice than what happened in the Middle East and North Africa over the last 18 months.

So, if I look ahead, I think the role of citizen action and civil society more generally is going to be at the heart of political and economic development over the next few years.

Q: With governments’ failure to tackle global issues such as climate change, do you believe civil society can step in and have a game changing impact?

A: Absolutely. Look, I can’t see how the current system is going to deliver tangible outcomes on climate change, on global economic equality, on accountability in our financial institutions – no, the list is endless. And something has got to give. To me, what we’re feeling in some of these social movements, including online social mobilisation, is a growth of a new era of citizen action. And I think that it’s never been easier to mobilise across the world. And yet, member states and nation states act as if they have some clear control of these defined boundaries around these nation states.

What I think we’re starting to see is the global citizen action can be truly global and incredibly effective at large-scale change in economic and political institutions.

Q: Is there anything specifically that you are going to focus most of your efforts on, or is there a certain issue that you find most important in this upcoming year?

A: In the last few years we’ve seen this growth of online campaigning and amazing things that various organisations have been able to achieve. My focus is going to be about trying to deepen that mobilisation so that, beyond the click of an internet campaign or a petition, there are civil society institutions that can see through those campaigns.

We have global mobilisation on any particular issue, but we also have these robust and strong civil society organisations within countries across regions that are there doing this sort of every day work of promoting democracy and development long after the viral video has faded away.

My focus is going to be that support of civil society champions who are running the everyday fight or the everyday struggle to promote democracy and development.

Excerpt:

A poster on a wall at Rio Centro. Civil society groups say they are "very disappointed" with formal negotiations at the Rio+20 Earth Summit. Credit: Stephen Leahy/IPS

By Stephen Leahy
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 19 2012 (IPS)

“Very disappointing.” That was the term business and non-governmental organisations used to describe the formal intergovernmental negotiations at the Rio+20 Earth Summit as of Tuesday.

With overwhelming scientific evidence showing that the Earth’s ability to support human life is at serious risk, the Rio+20 summit is being held to help chart a safe course that will steer away from disaster and bring a better future people around the globe.

After two years, negotiators from more than 190 nations agreed Tuesday to a 49-page draft of the document “The Future We Want”, intended to be the roadmap for this transformation. This document will be presented to heads of states in Rio de Janeiro to revise and finalise by the summit’s conclusion on Friday.

Yet the draft document leaves out a 30-billion-dollar fund proposed by a group of developing countries known as the G77 to finance the transition to a green economy. Nor does it define tangible Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will be substituted for the Millennium Development Goals, which expire in 2015.

“This (the revised text) is extremely disappointing….There is no vision, no money and really no commitments here,” said Lasse Gustavsson, head of the Rio+20 delegation from WWF International, which works to stop environmental degradation worldwide.

“Rio+20 should have been about life, about the future of our children, of our grandchildren. It should have been about forest, rivers, lakes, oceans that we are all depending on for our food, water and energy security,” Gustavsson told TerraViva.

Instead, two years of work have resulted in merely a long document that commits to virtually nothing but more meetings, he said.

“This document is a great disappointment. There’s no ambition and little reference to the planetary boundaries we face,” said Kiara Worth, representing the U.N.’s Major Group on Children and Youth at Rio+20.

“The voices of civil society and future generations is going unheard. We ought to call this Rio minus 20 because we are going backwards,” Worth told TerraViva.

“The scientific evidence is clear. We are going to need a major effort global in science and technology to meet the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced,” said Steven Wilson of the International Council for Science, a non-governmental organisation representing national scientific bodies and international scientific unions.

“I don’t understand why there is no section in the document on science – this sends a very unfortunate message.”

“We have a fundamentally flawed economic system, and we in civil society had hoped governments of the world would recognise this reality, but they haven’t,” said Jeffery Huffines of Civicus, World Alliance for Citizen Participation, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Civil society is looking for a balanced economy that respects planetary boundaries and seeks to expand the welfare of all people within a safe operating space for the planet, Huffines told TerraViva.

Instead, there are 49 pages of concepts without any commitments or means of going forward with these concepts. The role of civil society participation has been limited. “We need more democratic decision-making, not less,” he added.

“Speaking personally, as an American citizen, it is quite clear our electoral system has been bought by the corporate sector, by Wall Street. And that’s why our elected politicians are not going to challenge the current economic system. It’s up to civil society to challenge this,” said Huffines.

Others were more cautious in their criticism, such as Meena Raman, a negotiation expert with Third World Network, an international network of organisations and individuals involved environment and development issues.

“The outcome document does not have the ambition needed to save the planet or the poor, but it has not taken us backwards, particularly given our initial fears that Rio+20 might be Rio-40,” Raman said.