New Report Paints a Bleak Picture of Civil Society Worldwide
CIVICUS is a 501(c)(3), headquartered Johannesburg, South Africa. According to Guidestar, it is a “global alliance of civil society organisations and activists dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society throughout the world.” CIVICUS’ 2024 State of Civil Society Report is an impressive advocacy report. It pretty much points the finger at a lot of different countries — including the United States, Russian, Israel, Turkey, Argentina, Finland, the Netherlands, and the Sudan — for what it views as the very bad environment for Civil Society. You would think there is a worldwide conspiracy against Civil Society.
The report is alarming but not so far-fetched. Civil Society largely comprises outsiders who invariably threaten incumbents. Even nonprofits that provide free meals to people threaten incumbents. Widely varied governments express just as widely held suspicions of Civil Society via similar forms of legal or extra-legal restrictions all over the world. Here are a few excerpts from the Report:
Belligerents are brazenly flouting long-established tenets of international human rights and humanitarian law because they expect to get away with it. Global governance institutions are flailing as states make hypocritical decisions that undermine the rules-based international order. Civil society has solutions for global governance reform but isn’t getting a seat at the table. Powerful states including Russia and the USA are demonstrating selective respect for the rules, shielding allies but castigating enemies. This is clear among the many states that rushed to Ukraine’s defence but continue to back Israel. At the basest level, some states are displaying racism as they show concern for white people’s human rights but not for those of people of colour. International rules are supposed to make sure atrocities such as those being systematically perpetrated in Gaza don’t happen, and if they do, they’re quickly halted and those responsible face justice. But the key United Nations (UN) body, the Security Council, is immobilised by powerful states using their veto. Among those who hold the cards, principled and empathetic leadership is in short supply, as are humility and a willingness to listen.
. . .
The climate crisis is a global emergency with immediate and long-term consequences. The need to act has never been clearer. 2023 was the hottest year on record. Seemingly every week brought news of another extreme weather event, affecting the most vulnerable people the worst. The calls for urgent change are coming loudest from civil society, but in 2023 activists faced growing pushback. Many states are collapsing the space for climate activism, including in global north countries with vibrant climate movements where the right to speak out used to be respected.
. . .
The repression of civic space should be recognised as the new frontier of climate denial. Outright denial is now relatively rare, but states and fossil fuel corporations, by suppressing civil society’s ability to keep up the pressure, threaten to delay action on the scale required until it’s too late.
. . .
Attacks on democracy are making it harder for people to advance the solutions today’s crises require. As 2023 began, 72 per cent of people lived in authoritarian regimes, and the situation didn’t improve as the year went on. A record number of countries are sliding towards authoritarianism, while the number of countries democratising is the lowest in decades.
. . .
Civil society’s hard-won, decades-long trend of progress in women’s and LGBTQI+ rights has slowed down, hitting the
buffers of a backlash that’s grown more intense. A wellfunded, transnational movement with US roots that has fought against gender rights for decades is winning increasing influence. In many countries, as the anti-rights backlash is being instrumentalised for political gain, attacks on activists who defend rights are growing.
It can’t just be dismissed as alarmist propaganda.
darryll k. jones