The State
of Civil Society 2015 report prepared and published by CIVICUS
looked at the state of civil
society in the world from June 2014 to May 2015. The report found that
civil society faces challenges of lack of space, under-resourcing and limited
access to decision-makers.
Civil society also needs continually to
prove its connection with and relevance to citizens, and it needs to
demonstrate its ability to stay ahead of trends and innovate. When civil
society groups do not do these, they fail. But so often, we see civil society
leading the response to crisis (e.g., the
West African Ebola crisis, where civil society was well ahead of the World Health Organisation [although this event also showed the
problem of under-resourcing], and Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu), taking on
difficult issues (e.g., conflict, notably
in Syria, Yemen, the eastern Ukraine, Gaza and central Africa),
contributing to change (e.g., the
democracy movement in Hong Kong, ‘Lwili Revolution’ in Burkina Faso, the '43'
campaign in Mexico and "Black Lives Matter" in the USA), and
winning arguments for social justice.
Much of the above and most of the following
are key sections cited from that Report. MUCH more is available at the Report
site.
> Emergency Response
Civil society, from local to international
levels, is often the first responder in situations of emergency, including
public health emergencies, natural disasters and human induced humanitarian
crises, including those caused by conflict. International civil society can be
effective in rapidly mobilising flexible resources, including from public
donations, while local civil society often has crucial trust and understanding
of context. When they work together they can be particularly effective. In comparison,
governmental bodies are often unable to offer a similarly strong response. This
may be because governments are implicated in conflicts, or poor governance has
exacerbated the emergency, while intergovernmental agencies are stymied by
bureaucracy and deadlocked international politics that play out at the
multilateral level. However, sometimes, despite its best efforts, civil society
is overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis too. This is when closer
collaboration between all parties is most needed.
Key
Points
- Civil society response to emergency works best when it builds upon existing and deep track records of engagement with local communities.
- A history of disenabling conditions for civil society is a huge barrier against effective civil society response to crisis; long term work needs to be done to improve the conditions for civil society, including in the follow-up to emergencies, to develop future emergency response capacities.
- Civil society often finds itself caught between different parties in conflict, and more must be done to assert and adhere to a norm that all sides in a conflict should respect civil society’s political neutrality and independence, and uphold their right to deliver essential humanitarian services and report on human rights violations, where they encounter them.
- Issues of coordination and cooperation, including between local and international CSOs, are inevitable; relations need to be built on mutual respect, while mechanisms need to be put in place to anticipate and resolve any conflicts that may arise.
- Flexibility in the use of resources is crucial and so needs to be built in, but at the same time, issues of transparency and accountability in the use of resources, which are likely to arise, need to be anticipated.
> Civic
Mobilisation
People are mobilising in the most
unexpected places. Protest is not a luxury: in many places around the world,
people are rejecting established politics and modes of participation in which
they are denied real voice and power. People are far from apathetic; rather
they are looking for, and forging, new ways of mobilising, and causes to rally
behind that are being ignored by political elites. Citizens are reaching
tipping points, and once the tipping point has passed, protest is going viral.
But the viral nature of many protests does not mean that these are out of
control. In the above examples, violence is rare, and far more common is for
citizens and civil society groups to take responsibility to limit violence,
self-police and develop demands.
Online activism is an essential and growing
part of how people are mobilising to seek change, but it still needs to be
understood better, and seen as the start of a participation journey that leads
to change, rather than an end in itself. At the same time, even when
progressive movements fall short of their aims, the impact on developing the
future participation and activism capacities of citizens and civil society
groups is important and should not be
underestimated. Most people are engaging in ways that are instinctively
inclusive, and embrace principles of solidarity and collective action. But the
methods and tools available for mobilisation may equally be taken up by
regressive forces that seek to undermine human rights, in the many societies where
inequality is increasing and communities are polarising: the purpose of
mobilisation, and who is mobilising, are more important than the method.
Key
Points
- We need to come up with new and better indicators for predicting and anticipating civic action tipping points, so mobilisations can be supported and tap into available learning earlier. As part of this, we need to research, understand and document better the breakdowns in the social contract, and the failures in governance, that lead to people mobilising.
- The connections between online and offline activism need to be better understood and more strongly connected, so that people can be encouraged to deepen their participation. Better connections are also needed between new civic mobilisations and existing CSOs.
- We need new metrics for assessing the impact of mass civic action, and be better at capturing and sharing the learning from success stories.
- Civil society has a crucial role to play in encouraging tolerance, reducing prejudice and winning the argument against regressive voices, but it can only do so fully if the conditions for civil society are made more enabling.
- Resourcing support for mass civic action needs to be carefully handled, to avoid the accusation that protest is something being fomented from abroad.
> Space for
Civil Society
Despite some hard-won success stories,
including by gender, LGBTI and internet rights activists, civil society
conditions are deteriorating in too many countries. The shrinkage of civic
space is no longer something that can be dismissed as a coincidence, or the
province of a small group of aberrant states. A fight is on to reverse civic
freedoms and human rights that we once believed were firmly established.
Regressive norms are being
propagated, and hard won democratic rights
are being contested and rolled back. Governments are not the only regressive
force here: much of the risk to activists comes from sub-national forces, and
comes when corruption brings together the interests of people working in politics,
government and business. We always need to enquire into, and understand, the
drivers of crackdowns on civil society, which are rarely ideological in
origin, and more often to do with
competition for resources, and a concern by elites to hold onto economic and
political power.
We need to defend and argue for civil
society to play all of its legitimate roles, including that of acting as a
watchdog on power, improving transparency and protecting the rights of the
marginalised, and demonstrate the added value that comes when civil society is
enabled to do so. But while exposing abuses, civil society must be careful not
to propagate a narrative of disempowerment, in which governments and global
corporations are presented as all powerful and civil society can only ever be
vulnerable to their whims. It is important in civil society to recognise and
celebrate our own power, as CIVICUS’ annual Global Day of Citizen Action exists
to do.310 The previous section, on civic mobilisation, tells us that opportunities
come to expand civic space, and must be seized.
Among response strategies identified is the
formation of broad-based alliances between different civil society groups and
activists. Many of our alliance members, who work in very difficult conditions,
emphasise the value of international solidarity in their struggles, in knowing
that they are not alone and that people in different countries are committed to
supporting them. Further, while the intergovernmental sphere is dysfunctional,
as we concluded in the 2014 State of Civil Society Report, and while working
internationally can bring risks, as in the case of Azerbaijan, we believe that
international arenas still offer some value for defending civil society, and
need to be embraced and strengthened. This includes global forums such as the
UN Human Rights Council and regional ones such as the Council of Europe. These
offer opportunities for concerted international action between different civil
society groups and more supportive governments, and should be embraced as key
arenas, not only for defending the rights of civil society organisations (CSOs) in challenging contexts, but
also for strengthening and promoting international norms about the proper role
and status of civil society.
Key
Points
- International solidarity is critical for civil society when it is under attack, but needs to be exercised in ways that do not play to divides between global south and global north. Wherever possible, we should enable affected parties to speak for themselves in global forums.
- Progressive norms that lead to a more enabling environment for civil society need to be propagated, which implies documenting and sharing good practice where it exists, and campaigning to strengthen the role of international institutions and legal instruments to more strongly protect civil society rights.
- Research needs to shed more light on corrupt connections, which often occur at sub-national levels, between politicians, public officials, security forces, organised crime and businesses.
- Horizontal coalitions need to be formed and strengthened between CSOs of different kinds, and human rights defenders, journalists and internet freedom activists, to defend civil society freedoms.
- Resourcing needs to support both the rapid response of CSOs and activists to threats and attacks, and the longer term development of a more enabling environment for civil society.
> At the Global
Level
As with all the sections of this Report,
this section looked at a number of specific examples (some of which I have
referred to above) - arms treaties, Africa vs. the International Criminal
Court, civil society action against the Transatlantic Trade Treaty, "a
global response to climate change, a local response to fracking", and
"looking forward: the post-2015 development goals: what role for civil
society?"
Conclusions and key points were as follows.
A year on since our focus on global
governance in the 2014 State of Civil Society Report, much work still needs to
be done to address the dysfunction of international governance institutions.
Civil society consistently and quietly engages in global forums, and much of
that engagement comes with little influence and yields scant reward. But as the
example of the Arms Trade Treaty shows, civil society is able, through
constructive,
permanent engagement, to play a role in
establishing progressive additions to the global architecture, and developing
progressive norms.
There is a need to ensure that civil
society, when it engages internationally, does not lose its grounding in the
reality of citizens’ concerns. In August 2014, CIVICUS’ Secretary General,
along with several like-minded civil society leaders, wrote an open letter to
activists, urging civil society to take a back to basics approach. The letter
argued that too many in organised civil society have become too
institutionalised and professionalised, and thereby co-opted into systems and
networks in which civil society is being outwitted and outmanoeuvred. It
urged the need to put the voice and actions of people back at the heart of our
work, with primary accountability being not to donors, but to all those
struggling for social justice.
The global anti-fracking movement, and the
movement against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), offer potential models for how the concerns of
communities can be made global, and global matters can be made to resonate with
citizens. They show how global elite interests can be challenged. Now the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
need to demonstrate that they understand and help enable civil society’s proper
role, not just in delivering development, but in contributing to development
decisions and exercising accountability over those decisions.
Key
Points
- Civil society needs to ensure it makes strong connections between ground-level issues and global governance concerns.
- Alliances need to be built and maintained between CSOs, supportive governments and sympathetic intergovernmental officials.
- A broader range of civil society voices needs to be brought into engaging with global level decision making.
- Global coalitions need to be built that cut across existing power blocs and regional blocs, and that bridge divides between the global north and global south.
- Civil society, while continuing to engage constructively with global governance institutions, also needs to keep their fundamental reform on the agenda.
> Overall
Conclusions
As the above has demonstrated, the civil
society canvas is vast. The civil society universe encompasses an incredible
diversity of forms, working on a huge array of issues. This means that the
civil society universe is messy, occasionally incoherent, even contradictory.
But we believe that civil society’s vital contribution is being proved at all
levels, in many different countries, on all kinds of issues. It is needed more
than ever before. Governance is broken: conventional national politics is
failing people, and international governance is demonstrably not fit for
purpose. A tiny elite control most of the world’s wealth, and they have
intimately woven themselves into the fabric of governance, rigging the rules in
their favour, exacerbating global inequality.
Civil society is showing itself to be the
alternative to this, offering a source of solutions and innovation. Yet civil
society is constrained, by political restrictions, attacks and a lack of
financial resources. Further, civil society has its own problems. Formal CSOs
are also not always good at connecting with citizens. Looser citizens’
movements are sometimes superficial, and hard to sustain. Divides persist
between large CSOs and small ones, and CSOs in the global south and global
north. But a world without civil society, and its imaginative creativity and
commitment, cannot be contemplated.
In the year that will pass between the
publication of this report, and the publication of the 2016 State of Civil
Society Report, billions of people will participate, and billions will benefit
from the platform civil society offers to raise people’s voices, and the
services civil society provides. Civil society will keep responding to crises,
mobilisations will break out in unexpected places and civil society groups and
activists will continue to fight back against restrictions and attack.
International solidarity, coalition building and support to develop the
capacity of civil society will be the key responses needed to support civil
society.
Key
Points
- The diversity and ecology of civil society is an important principle in its own right: a range of responses, by different organisational forms, at different levels, need to be supported.
- Connections that link civil society in the global north and the global south need to be supported, but these need to be forged in ways that enable equality, and the full contribution of both to be realised.
- More research and documentation is needed on working models of civil society cooperation that are potentially replicable.
- Civil society needs to develop its analysis of, and capacity to respond to issues of global elite power and control of resources by the global super-rich.
- There is a need for a new campaign that emphasises the overall value and contribution of civil society, and the importance of civil society rights being realised, that capitalises on and brings together the energy and imagination of campaigns on individual issues, involves high profile figures, and makes a point about the impact that civil society can achieve.
> An energetic / spiritual / psychic / metaphysical
point of view
There is a concept that the Earth is a spiritual school. As with all schools, it is likely to work best when it has an atmosphere and culture that enables or facilitates learning. For the Earth as it currently is, promoting civil society is best for this, and, in my view, the phrase "civil society" implies true and
lasting peace, participatory democracy and social equity and justice.
If you do not accept the Earth-as-a-school concept, civil
society still provides the best life overall for the most people – i.e., for the Greatest Good.
to get there from here, we need to continue doing what this site and many other places have been advocating (clear the nonBPLF, build the BPLF): the report this post is about provides some specific insights and perspectives to help guide that work.
[2] Please
see here, here and my post "The
Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons
I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2,
although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather
engagingly - to be the Earth edition of
"The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy").
[3] I apologise for the formatting: it seems Blogger is
no longer as WYSIWYG as it used to be, and there are a lot of unwanted
changes to layout made upon publishing, so I often have to edit it immediately
after publishing to get the format as close to what I want as possible.Love, light, hugs and blessings
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix
Lux … aka Morinehtar … would-be drĂ˝icgan or maga
... )
My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this
site) is here, and my glossary/index is here.
I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue
(see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me
for a few minutes at some time between 8 and 11 PM on Sunday, wherever you are,
to meditate-clear for peace), and here
for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend
learning how to flame, ground
and shield, do alternate
nostril breathing, work
with colour, and see also here and be
flexible.
The real dividing line is not between
Christianity and Islam, Sunni and Shia, East and West. It is between people who
believe in coexistence, and those who don’t.
- If your “gut” (your instinct/intuition) is telling you something is wrong, but logic and the available evidence is saying otherwise, the proper conclusion to draw is that you need better, more personally credible evidence. Your “gut” could be wrong, right, or missing the nuances / “shades of grey” . So could the available evidence.
- All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ...
First published: Tysdagr, 27th October, 2015
Last edited (excluding fixing typo's
and other minor matters): Tuesday, 27th October, 2015
