Author: Elizabeth Parsons

Global Perspectives 2023 – Moments of Truth 

22nd November 2023 by Miriam Niehaus

Prolonged humanitarian crises, the rise of generative artificial intelligence, the use of disinformation to polarise societies and manipulate elections, the suppression of civil society from state and non-state actors and decreasing funding… are just a few of the ever-growing challenges that social justice, humanitarian, and development organisations must contend with. As progressive and rights-based civil society organisations – from local to international level – are grappling with these crises of the past few years, the International Civil Society Centre once again had the honour of curating our yearly conference, Global Perspectives on these topics. “Global Perspectives – Moments of Truth” happened on 9 November and brought together hundreds of online participants across five different sessions to not just ponder these challenges but provide concrete examples and explore ideas on how we can collaboratively tackle them.  

Though each session was independently curated, three overarching themes emerged. 

The Future of Civic Space is Now
Anticipating the factors that will constrict our civic space a decade from now demands our attention today. Civic Space has been in decline and is likely to continue on this trajectory. Are we adequately addressing the issues that will likely shape our societies in the next decade, impacting our civic engagement? In the session titled “Learn From and Engage on Futures Scenarios for Civic Space” participants learned about the outcomes of the Centre’s “A History of Civic Space 2024-2034”, exercise, where representatives from 15 civil society organisations collaborated to develop possible future scenarios for civic space. Session participants engaged in the scenarios and identified actionable steps to either advance or prevent undesirable outcomes. For example, a likely scenario of artificial intelligence (AI) first enabling a lot of good work at scale and then backfiring on civil society as “obstacles to progress”, highlighted the urgency to get into the AI game now. Later in the day at the “Digital Dialogue – AI: Solution or Threat to Mis-/Disinformation?” drove the point home: two scholars Liz Orembo from Research ICT Africa and Admire Mare from the University of Johannesburg, called on civil society organisations to address AI now, as governance advocates, watchdogs, as well as helping to increase media literacy. This is especially needed as there are a number of key elections coming up next year where we will likely see sophisticated disinformation campaigns. Henry Parker from Logically, informed us that there is a lot of potential to use AI to identify disinformation campaigns and reprimand the actors responsible. During “A Sector Conversation”, Stéphane Duguin from CyberPeace Institute warned us that we need to create a comparable countermodel if we wish to increase our capacity to oppose disinformation campaigns. Read their approach to responsible use of artificial intelligence here and watch this space as we are launching our Sector Guidance on Mis-, Dis-, and Mal-information: Insights and Foresights in early 2024.    

Representation Matters
Two sessions, “The Truth is in the Telling” and “Exploring Personal Realities (of Marginalisation)”, delved into the importance of representation. Insights from individuals working with and identifying as members of marginalised communities underscored the need for more direct dialogue with those in power. Nana Afadzinu from WACSI emphasised in “A Sector Conversation” the need for introspection and acknowledgement of systemic inequity. Festus Odingo from the SDG Kenya Forum emphasised the significance of partnerships as a key force for change, emphasising how they may broaden the scope and effect of community-based initiatives. Representation of course also happens through communication pieces – donor reports, flyers, fundraising advertisements and much more. Undeniably, communication about Global North-financed Global South projects has been a big part of manifesting white saviourism and entrenching power imbalances. By now, several organisations have begun to examine this reality and make changes. The Ethical Story Telling Guideline, a toolkit that PATH and Metro Group DRC contributed to, was presented by the speakers. It can assist companies in determining how to, for instance, become more ethical by making concrete adjustments to the planning process. Communication audits, such as the ones conducted every two years by CARE International, can be useful in holding teams accountable and providing incentives for improvement. As part of its bottom-up strategy to alter various communication channels, CARE has made significant efforts to maximise informed consent and minimise unconscious bias. Yet, there are still incredibly difficult dilemmas when organisations must weigh communication subjects’ agency against their safety, for example when portraying female CSO workers in Afghanistan. The emphasis is on respect. A key takeaway from our sessions is to aim to do no harm but failing forward is inevitable as we push one another to improve and recognise ethical storytelling as a fundamental  component of power shifts within the industry. 

Weathering a Perfect Storm
Our speakers highlighted this year a shrinking civic space, humanitarian crises piling up and worsening, colonial structures still fostering inequity, and growing cybercrime and disinformation adding to the complexity. All of this is happening in the face of a challenging global economy with a sharp decline for our causes. Are we experiencing a perfect storm? Yet, for most in the sector, there is a firm resolve to plough on despite difficult circumstances. There is no alternative. It has been inspiring to see among others, leaders from ICVA, CIVICUS, WACSI and the CyberPeace Institute sharing resources, knowledge and honest invitations to collaborate more, helping each other to overcome our deficiencies and capitalise on our respective expertise and strengths.  

To continue surviving the storm, the International Civil Society Centre will keep bringing attention to the incredible innovations that are being developed in the field. As Mirela Shuteriqi from ICVA said in her closing statement, we must also transform ourselves. We must encourage a culture and bring about changes at the UN level, using this as a chance to collaborate and tackle social justice issues. We remain dedicated to facilitating dialogue, sharing innovations, and fostering collaboration within the sector. It is through collective determination, thoughtful introspection, and ethical storytelling that we can face the challenges that lay ahead, transform ourselves, and forge a path towards a more just and equitable future. The journey is ongoing, but together, as a united force, we embark on it with unwavering resolve. 

 

Special thanks to all our speakers – Jennifer Abomnger, Nana Afadzinu, Stéphane Duguin, Patrick Gathara, Arnold Gekonge, Eva Gondor, Heather Hutchings, Wolfgang Jamann, Lysa John, Hussam Joudah, Admire Mare, Shalini Moodley, Patricia Mugenzi, Levis Nderitu, Nana Nwachukwu, Festus Odingo, Elizabeth Orembo, Henry Parker, Neha Rayamajhi, Mirela Shuteriqi, Clare Spurrell, David Verga, and Rachel Wilkinson.

 

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Miriam Niehaus

Head of Programmes

International Civil Society Centre

Miriam leads the Centre’s programmes. She started at the Centre as Executive Assistant in 2014 and then, as Project Manager, developed and implemented the Centre’s projects on civic space between 2016 and 2019. Prior to joining the Centre Miriam worked for VSO International and GIZ in the Palestinian Territories. She holds a BA in Islamic Studies and Social Anthropology from the University of Freiburg and an MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Anticipate, listen patiently, and build a peer network – three lessons from Leading Together

10th July 2023 by Miriam Niehaus

For the first time in four years, the Centre convened its Leading Together conference in person again. Leading Together is our annual space for the global directors of the ICSO divisions of Human Resources, Policy/Advocacy, and Programmes. These groups have parallel peer group discussions as well as joint sessions over topics that concern them all. This year, the Scanning the Horizon community of futures-focused senior sector professionals also joined the group. We were thrilled to welcome participants on our home turf in Berlin and spend 48h learning, debating, and reflecting. The Centre team is busily following up on those 47+ items/ideas/insights generated during the event, and we would also like to share three insights that were key to us:

1. Exercising that anticipatory muscle is challenging, liberating – and necessary 

At Global Perspectives 2022, we heard and stressed how anticipatory capacity in (I)CSOs is a collective muscle we need to exercise constantly. We took this advice and focused peer and joint sessions on this topic: Discussions with Russell Reynolds on the role of leadership and using AI for the good of ICSOs as well as shaping the future through participatory strategy making were sessions where participants engaged with trends and how to “organise futures”. The Policy/Advocacy Directors discussed with David Griffiths, Associate Fellow at Chatham House the future of the Human Rights diplomacy.  

We also really challenged participants with some freshly generated scenarios created in a collective exercise (ParEvo) the Centre has just concluded. Participants had to discuss and reflect on how civil society (organisations) might deal with and shape civil society space after a series of mega-tsunamis hit the world and severed all IT infrastructure.  While some scenarios stretched the goodwill of participants to further consider, the exercise was highlighted by many as important to encourage imagining futures differently. A series of mega-tsunamis will throw the world into disarray (not unlike a global pandemic) and might need primarily our crisis-response capacity. However, spending time on creating long-term visions for different futures can put us as civil society sector professionals in a different kind of driving seat versus racing to manage with futures narratives others – usually more powerful actors – are creating. 

 

2. Taking time for nuance and learning advances us collectively 

What was particularly enriching at this year’s conference was the participants’ willingness to engage in the substance of discussions and openness to critical challenges, and generally a learning mentality. We tried not to gloss over differences with buzzword definitions like “power shift” or “decolonising” but acknowledged the complexity of the matters we deal with and that we may get some things right and others wrong along the journey. Similarly, a joint discussion between the Programme and the Policy/Advocacy directors in exchange with AWID over anti-rights groups and the threat they pose to civic space was exemplary for constructive engagement: Participants brought so much nuance to the discussion and – it might sound like a cliché – embraced the diversity of viewpoints and created patience for understanding our individual or organisational contexts.  These high-quality discussions were incredibly enriching and displayed a high degree of collective responsibility for advancing as a sector.  

 

3. Our organisations are shifting fundamentally – from strategy making to recruitment processes – and peer support may just help keep the head above water 

A few years back someone said “’powershift’ is the water we all swim in”. This was certainly true for Leading Together. In so many sessions participants explored topics that come from our journeys to become organisations that are at least more power-aware or even mirror a decolonised, equitable and just society that we want to see. It was hugely encouraging to see the spread of organisational initiatives and the degree to which ambitions for change are permeating the organisations: to learn from the experience of WaterAid’s participatory strategy making journey, engage with Superrr Lab in what it takes to break western-centred views of futures making. In similar vein, Mission Talent and the cohort of Human Resources directors discussed the challenges and possibilities our changing sector holds to build more diverse organisations; the Programme Directors explored with Comic Relief what ways there are to work differently with bilateral donors to enable more equitable partnerships; and the Policy/Advocacy Directors are already experienced how shifting mandates of ICSOs hold increased expectations for their departments. Senior leaders from the ICSOs are demonstrating resolve and yet acknowledge that these are unchartered waters where peer exchange, inspiration and support is just what you need. 

If you are also an ICSO senior leader and you want to learn more about our offer, do reach out. We already look forward to the next round of Leading Together in 2024 – online – and in-person in 2025!  

 

Miriam Niehaus

Head of Programmes

International Civil Society Centre

Miriam leads the Centre’s programmes. She started at the Centre as Executive Assistant in 2014 and then, as Project Manager, developed and implemented the Centre’s projects on civic space between 2016 and 2019. Prior to joining the Centre Miriam worked for VSO International and GIZ in the Palestinian Territories. She holds a BA in Islamic Studies and Social Anthropology from the University of Freiburg and an MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies.

From LogFrames to Logarithms – A Travel Log

5th June 2023 by Karl Steinacker and Michael Kubach

Karl Steinacker and Michael Kubach are digital experts based in Berlin, Germany. This article is a reflection on their recent teaching assignment, “Digital Transformation and Social Justice”, at the Alice-Salomon University in Berlin, Germany.

During the 1990s, the world of public administrations and civil society organisations (CSOs) was awash with Change Management Teams. In particular, humanitarian and development organisations were, tasked to professionalise their work, to overcome charity and to create impact. The backbone of the process was the introduction of the Logical Framework, or LogFrame. This tool was originally developed for the US military and then adapted by NASA for its space programmes. After it was adopted by USAID and GTZ, an entire nomenclature for the humanitarian and development sectors was built around it: Results Based Management.

Even one of the authors proudly joined a Change Management Team and worked, so the buzzwords at the time, on Modernisation and Innovation. On top of the list of taboo concepts stood the term Welfare. In fact, the task was to implement neo-liberal policies at the level of the people living in extreme poverty. And in this context, the idea of unconditional support to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs, such as food and shelter, was simply rejected. The measure of support was not what a society could possibly afford but a revised paradigm of social justice aiming to reward effort and measure effectiveness. Management manuals were updated with an array of re-defined terminology stretching from authority, to responsibility, and most importantly accountability, to ensure compliance by everybody with these new policies.

Our journey into this realm of non-profit business administration would last for many years. The first task was to develop indicators: performance and impact indicators, at times SMART and then KPIs, but most importantly: measurable. Thus, datafication started on Excel sheets. For organisations mandated to protect and assist individuals, group statistics were deemed not to be sufficiently precise anymore. Registration systems had to be changed too: individual registration was to replace all systems that had been developed and used to provide collective support, to families or other groups.

Think tanks and govtech consulting firms were always eager to help for a fee: The digitalisation and the datafication of the social sphere would replace blanket statistical categorisations and allow for a more precise documentation of the individual. This idea of fine tuning corresponds to the sense of justice of many people working in the aid sector: A detailed analysis is much fairer than stereotypical evaluations[1].

While the early days of social statistics were characterized by the attempt to define meaningful categories, the growth of personalized data means that individuals are no longer counted as part of one big class, but increasingly as social-statistical singularities. The use of metrics and algorithms allows previously overlooked, hidden or willfully ignored differences to be identified, and hence utilized.[2]

Twenty-five years on, we find ourselves in a university classroom. Students, soon to enter the job market in the social sector, are confronted with our professional experience as we discuss digital transformation and social justice[3]. But the learning curve is steep for both, students and lecturers. For the latter, having stepped back from limited areas of responsibility in a single set of organisations, the bigger picture emerges: Yes, individual registration is indeed an empowerment tool providing an identity to somebody who is otherwise invisible, excluded, unbanked, and unfit to participate in the society and (digital) economy. However, it also allows for humanitarian[4] and social surveillance – not as an abstract possibility but as an everyday reality.

Today, authorities all over the world are experimenting with predictive algorithms. That sounds technical and innocent but as we dive deeper into the issue, we realise that the real meaning is rather specific: fraud detection systems in social welfare payment systems[5]. In the meantime, the hitherto banned terminology had it’s come back: welfare or social safety nets are, since a couple of years, en vogue again. But in the centuries-old Western tradition, welfare recipients must be monitored and, if necessary, sanctioned, while those who work and contribute must be assured that there is no waste. So it comes at no surprise that even today’s algorithms focus on the prime suspect, the individual fraudster, the undeserving poor.

Fraud detection systems promise that the taxpayer will no longer fall victim to fraud and efficiency gains can be re-directed to serve more people. The true extent of welfare fraud is regularly exaggerated [6]while the costs of such systems is routinely underestimated. A comparison of the estimated losses and investments doesn’t take place. It is the principle to detect and punish the fraudsters that prevail. Other issues don’t rank high either, for example on how to distinguish between honest mistakes and deliberate fraud. And as case workers spent more time entering and analysing data and in front of a computer screen, the less they have time and inclination to talk to real people and to understand the context of their life at the margins of society.

Thus, it can be said that routinely hundreds of thousands of people are being scored. Example Denmark: Here, a system called Udbetaling Danmark was created in 2012 to streamline the payment of welfare benefits. Its fraud control algorithms can access the personal data of millions of citizens, not all of whom receive welfare payments. In contrast to the hundreds of thousands affected by this data mining, the number of cases referred to the Police for further investigation are minute[7]. 

In the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands every year, data of 30,000 welfare recipients is investigated in order to flag suspected welfare cheats. However, an analysis of its scoring system based on machine learning and algorithms showed systemic discrimination with regard to ethnicity, age, gender, and parenthood[8]. It revealed evidence of other fundamental flaws making the system both inaccurate and unfair. What might appear to a caseworker as a vulnerability is treated by the machine as grounds for suspicion. Despite the scale of data used to calculate risk scores, the output of the system is not better than random guesses. However, the consequences of being flagged by the “suspicion machine” can be drastic, with fraud controllers empowered to turn the lives of suspects inside out[9].

As reported by the World Bank, the recent Covid-19 pandemic provided a great push to implement digital social welfare systems in the global South. In fact, for the World Bank the so-called Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), enabling “Digitizing Government to Person Payments (G2Px)”, are as fundamental for social and economic development today as physical infrastructure was for previous generations[10]. Hence, the World Bank finances globally systems modelled after the Indian Aadhaar system, where more than a billion persons have been registered biometrically. Aadhaar has become, for all intents and purposes, a pre-condition to receive subsidised food and other assistance for 800 million Indian citizens.

Important international aid organisations are not behaving differently from states. The World Food Programme alone holds data of more than 40 million people on its Scope data base. Unfortunately, WFP like other UN organisations, is not subject to data protection laws and the jurisdiction of courts. This makes the communities they have worked with particularly vulnerable.

In most places, the social will become the metric, where logarithms determine the operational conduit for delivering, controlling and withholding assistance, especially welfare payments. In other places, the power of logarithms may go even further, as part of trust systems, creditworthiness, and social credit. These social credit systems for individuals are highly controversial as they require mass surveillance since they aim to track behaviour beyond financial solvency. The social credit score of a citizen might not only suffer from incomplete, or inaccurate data, but also from assessing political loyalties and conformist social behaviour.

Hence, the question becomes urgent: what is social justice in a metric society and which role will CSOs play in this emerging environment, what will be their raison d’être?

Indian CSOs chose a pragmatic approach and engaged to ensure that these systems work in favour of those in need. These CSOs have analysed and strategised, on the basis of their principles and values, they endeavour to improve the newly emerging systems. Thus, some are engaged in advocacy, political and even legal battles to ensure that data protection measures are enacted and implemented. Others assist vulnerable individuals to register and to claim their entitlements and turn low-resolution into high–resolution citizens[11]. Yet others engage in educational programmes to teach the users on the new digital environment and their rights therein.

Reflection and discourse might need to go even further and look at transparency and other societal issues, in particular with regard to logarithms. The city of Rotterdam was the only of several cities which agreed to a third party review of the algorithms deployed for fraud prevention purposes. Hence, there is a vast area to be chartered out: from the preservation of confidentiality, copyright and intellectual property rights to the demand for transparency where appropriate.

Lately it has been suggested that anti-racism or decolonisation dimensions will fundamentally change the long-term strategic thinking of important civil society organisations and that this would require developing concrete performance metrics and progress indicators[12]. This shows that the issue will not go away: Should those advocating and working on counter power[13] be using the same methodologies and tools than those currently holding power?

Our own personal story from LogFrame to Logarithms provides a number of lessons. The most important one is to understand the basic concepts underpinning the digital transformation of our societies: Power, social welfare in a market economy, individuals and their identity, and networks and platforms. Accepting that there is no escape room from the megatrend of digital transformation, neither for the individual, nor for the societies we are living in, means that engaging with these new technologies remains imperative. For the organisations that constitute civil society even more is at stake: It’s the race for relevance: Wherever human rights and social justice issues are at stake, whether an organisation focuses on advocacy or service delivery, what is needed are concepts and strategies to actively shape the ongoing transformation based on a clear idea of values and rights. Failing to do so will leave it to the govtech business industry to come up and implement their solutions uninhibitedly.

[1]  Steffen Mau, The Metric Society, 2019, p. 167.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Alice Salomon Hochschule, Berlin, Digital Transformation and Social Justice as part of the ICM programme.

[4] Mark Latonero, Stop Surveillance Humanitarianism, The New York Times, July 11, 2019.

[5] Suspicion Machines – Unprecedented experiment on welfare surveillance algorithm reveals discrimination, in: Lighthouse Reports, 6 March 2023.

[6] Consulting firms talk about welfare fraud up to nearly 5 per cent of benefits spending, while some national auditors’ offices estimate it at between 0.2 and 0.4 per cent. Ibid.

[7] AlgorithmWatch, Automating Society Report 2020, October 2020, pp. 46

[8] Suspicion Machines, see footnote 5 above

[9] Ibid.

[10] World Bank, Identification for Development (ID4D) and Digitalizing G2P Payments (G2Px) 2022 Annual Report (English), p. 2.

[11] Ranjit Singh, Steven Jackson, Seeing Like an Infrastructure: Low-resolution Citizens and the Aadhaar Identification Project, in: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Archive Vol. 5, No. CSCW2, Article 315, October 2021,

[12] International Civil Society Centre, Sector Guide #2:Strategic Decision-Making in a Whirly World, July 2021, p. 26,

[13] Democratic Data: Developing Digital Counterpower, a discussion with Salomé Viljoen,

Karl Steinacker

Digital Advisor

International Civil Society Centre

Karl Steinacker is currently the Digital Advisor of the International Civil Society Centre. He studied political science at the Free University of Berlin and international law at Cambridge University. He then spent three decades working for the United Nations (UNDP, UNRWA, DPKO, UNHCR) in the fields of development, peacekeeping and refugee protection. At the UN Refugee Agency, he held positions in Africa and at its Headquarters and was responsible for Registration, Statistics, and Data and Identity Management as well as for Camp Coordination/Camp Management.

Michael Kubach

Digital Expert

Fraunhofer IAO

Since 2013, Michael Kubach has been researching issues around digital identity and trust, where he takes a socioeconomic, user-oriented perspective at the Fraunhofer IAO - Team Identity Management. Michael works/has worked in several European and national cooperative research projects such as the EC-funded projects ESSIF-TRAIN and LIGHTest (on trust infrastructures) and FutureID (federated identity management). Moreover, he is consulting international corporations and NGOs on identity and trust infrastructures as well as blockchain/DLT topics. Michael holds a PhD in economics from Georg-August-University Göttingen. He studied politics and administrative science as well as management in Konstanz, Göttingen and Lille.

Discover and learn from the Solidarity Playbook on cybersecurity

26th April 2023 by Eva Gondor

Strengthening cybersecurity

With increased digitalisation (international) civil society organisations – (I)CSOs – have faced an increase in digital threats and cyberattacks carried out by malicious actors interested in financial gains and access to sensitive data or identifiable personal information.

In recognition of this growing challenge, we captured case studies on how (I)CSOs responded to cyberattacks and collected lessons on how to better protect organisations online.

Solidarity Playbook case studies on cybersecurity 

The latest edition of the Solidarity Playbook features four case studies of how (I)CSOs dealt with actual cyberattacks. We partnered with the CyberPeace Institute to showcase these case studies and provide insights into how (I)CSOs can prevent and mitigate similar incidents.

Regaining access to a social media account 

Resisting six weeks of sustained phishing attacks

Deflecting a sophisticated brute-force and phishing attack 

Retrieving access to a hacked IT server  

Cybersecurity needs to be a shared responsibility – it requires attention across the whole organisation and cannot be borne only on the shoulders of IT staff.

 

 Facing cybersecurity challenges: Lessons learned and opportunity areas

Visit the Solidarity Action Network Webpage to find out more about the aims of the Solidarity Playbook and all the case study content.

For more information or feedback, reach out to Eva Gondor, Senior Project Manager

Eva Gondor

Senior Project Manager

International Civil Society Centre

Eva leads on the Centre's civic space work - the Solidarity Action Network (SANE) aimed at strengthening resilience of and solidarity among civil society actors, and the International Civic Forum (ICF), our annual civic space platform to network and identify opportunities for collaboration. Prior to joining the Centre she worked at the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Foundation) in Stuttgart where she managed the foundation’s projects focusing on civil society and governance in Turkey, the Western Balkans, and North Africa.

What trends did we miss and why do we miss them?

30th March 2023 by Paola Pierri, Rachel Wilkinson, Will Garrood

Spotting emerging trends at an early stage is key for the international civil society sector to be able to adapt and respond to those trends before they could have a negative impact or in order to make the most of an emerging opportunity.  

Trends and early signals are not always easy to spot and futurists and strategists within ICSOs are always looking for new ways and methods to get better at anticipating future scenarios in order to make the sector more resilient. 

Last Autumn during our Scanning the Horizon annual community meeting, Will Garrood from WaterAid ran an inspiring session to map, together with other key players and (I)CSOs, what trends we missed from 2022 and reflect together on why we missed them. 

Scanning the Horizon is the only collaborative trend scouting and analysis platform in the civil society sector. Members include leading ICSOs, national CSO umbrella organisations, philanthropy and development consultancies. It is a cross-sector community of experts and practitioners that gets together to share insights, explore key trends and develop relevant strategies.  

Here we are sharing our main learnings looking back at the trends we missed, and – more importantly – trying to unpack why we missed them.  

What trends we missed 

We were thinking a war was probably likely, but no one anticipated there would have been one in Europe! (a Participant) 

In a group exercise we mapped a series of trends that by that time had become visible but that no one in the group had anticipated before. Below is a selection of the missed trends. 

Conflict in Europe: this was something that no one in the group had anticipated as an imminent risk and that has profoundly impacted the sector, including through a diversion of funding towards supporting the local population after Ukraine’s invasion. 

‘Weaponisation’ of Energy: one of the after-effects of the war in Ukraine was that the use of energy sources and access to them became an additional ‘weapon’ used by Russia to put pressure on countries to not intervene in the conflict.  

Cyber and Digital Security and cyber conflicts: (I)CSOs have generally a good awareness of the possible impact of digital advancements as well as digital threats to their work, for example in the ways in which digital tools and media could exacerbate misinformation/ disinformation and malinformation but the large rate of increased attacks and risk to cybersecurity and the huge leap in large-language AI models, such as ChatGPT took many by surprise. The Centre recently published a study sharing useful practical insights on how can (I)CSOs better protect the communities they serve and their own work against cyberattacks.  

Why did or do we miss trends? 

The second part of our exercise with the Scanning Community focused on why people and organisations had not seen these trends coming or underestimated them. This is an even more important question to ask because if we reflect and identify the reasons why people usually miss these trends, then we can at least attempt to not fall into these traps again. 

Below is what we learnt. 

  • Trend Overload: for those who are not full-time futurists (and even for those who operate in this role full-time) keeping up with all the trends, publications, signals are not an easy task. ‘Trend overload’ might become a problem as we are not sure which one to consider and which one to prioritise. Getting trends scouting to become a regular exercise may help with that and learning to prioritise our sources for trends mapping and foresight will also help.  
  • Between Black Elephants and Black Swans: Some events are of course simply unpredictable (so-called Black Swans) but others are known and understood and yet not addressed. These phenomena are described as Black Elephants and they describe events that people tend to ignore, like global warming or the risk of more pandemics going forward. Ways to mitigate the impact of these Black Elephants are various, including calling these ‘elephants in the room’ by their name, celebrating the mitigation stories that help us remember that black elephants can still be avoided or breaking the silos of different organisational departments that stop important knowledge about trends and risk to circulate more widely.  
Elephant and Swan in continuous line art drawing style.
  • Disconnect between communities and language: When many people in (I)CSOs, corporates and governments don’t share language and discussion spaces, this is likely to mean things are missed. It may also be about who in (I)CSOs is thinking about these issues. There may be areas where government-facing teams are talking about issues a lot, but it isn’t percolating into the wider organisation. We talked about Ukraine in the discussion, but China/Taiwan may be another useful example. 
  • Unconscious bias: when we observe the trends that are emerging we cannot avoid bringing with us our unconscious bias, the things that we assume to be true based on what happen in the past and that help us orienting ourselves in the future. Unconscious Bias (e.g. confirmation bias or affinity bias) are associations we all hold and that we might not be aware of but few techniques are available that can help are people to break their Bias habits. Opening up the future scanning exercise to a more diverse group and bring into our future thinking new and different perspectives might be another way to address this issue. To deal with unconscious bias we would need to make sure we get the right information first, but then we have to make sure we don’t discount it!  

The unpredictability of global trends and the challenges of mapping and noticing the new trends emerging makes it very difficult for civil society organisations, in particular those with an international remit, to better use the future in order to deal with the present. Coupled with the busyness of everyday workload it seems increasingly difficult to take the time to pause and think through where organisations are potentially vulnerable or how to be more prepared and proactive to make the most of future trends and opportunities. However, it is incredibly important for civil society organisations to be planning for the long-term and taking the time to ensure we are fit for purpose and able to meet the challenges and embrace new innovations in our work. This will help (I)CSOs to respond rapidly when these events do happen as they will not be starting from scratch. 

At the Centre we are collaborating with our members and other partners to develop a stronger future literacy in the sector and work together in mapping as well as anticipating the emerging trends. The Scanning the Horizon Community brings together peers from across multiple sectors to share learning and expertise and collectively learn and trial new future methodologies. If you are working on foresight in your organisation and would like to know more about the Community feel free to contact us we would like to hear from you.  

Paola Pierri

University of the Arts Bern

Paola is Professor of Social Design at the University of the Arts Bern where she specialises in Design and Anthropology of Technologies. She advises the Centre as an Associate on its Futures and Innovation pillar (which Paola has also co-led until August 2023). She brings to the Centre her expertise on design research and future oriented methodologies, including her research on the impact of emerging technologies on the civic space and on our democracies. Paola was previously Director of Research at Democratic Society and a Research Fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute, researching on issue of Digital Inequalities.

Rachel Wilkinson

Programme Manager – Futures and Innovation

International Civil Society Centre

Rachel leads the Futures and Innovation programme at the Centre. She is responsible for managing the portfolio of projects and events as well as leading and developing the Scanning the Horizon strategic peer learning platform. Rachel has more than 15 years of experience working in the third sector, on a national and international level, working for various ICSOs in international development and human rights in both London and Berlin.

Will Garrood

Strategy and Transformation Director

WaterAid

Will is the Strategy and Transformation Director for WaterAid. Previously, Will held strategic and policy roles at the BBC and Ofcom and trained at LEK, a strategy consultancy. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford and King's College London.

Official reference to our work in the UN Secretary General’s recent SDG progress report

13th February 2023 by Chandani Lopez Peralta

The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General’s report, “Work on the review of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)” recognises the usefulness of citizen-generated data (CGD) and the UN’s interest in exploring new avenues to make better use of such data in SDG processes and beyond. The report also underlines the key role of civil society actors and community-based organisations in advancing CGD to make SDG processes and public policies more inclusive and equitable. The close collaboration between the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) and the International Civil Society Centre (in its role as the global LNOB secretariat) has been explicitly mentioned in the report, emphasising our mutual role in fostering collaboration between civil society and national statistics offices at the national level. 

The report recognises CGD, such as community-driven data and citizen science, as useful data sources, both for filling gaps to inform policy and decision-making and as complementary information by citizens, civil society and community-based organisations in order to better reflect the realities of less visible and marginalised groups more broadly. 

The report also highlights that national statistical offices are increasingly exploring mechanisms and tools to engage and connect with citizens and communities throughout the data value chain to make data more relevant and better utilised. 

The Secretary General’s report refers to the expert group meeting on the topic “Harnessing data by citizens for public policy and Sustainable Development Goal monitoring: a conceptual framework”, which was held in Bangkok on 10th and 11th November 2022 to discuss concrete ways to involve civil society in all steps of the SDG process. At the meeting, it was concluded that there would be a new UN-anchored collaborative co-led by UNSD and a network of partners, bringing together diverse stakeholders, including national statistical offices, CSOs, academia and regional and international organisations. The goal is to share knowledge and experiences in leveraging citizens’ contribution to data and to inform further normative work required in this area. 

For additional information, download the full report. 

Chandani Lopez Peralta

Project Manager

International Civil Society Centre

Chandani joined the Centre as a Project Manager in May 2022. She supports the Leave No One Behind Partnership that promotes the collection and use of community-driven data to give voice and agency to marginalised communities. Prior to joining the Centre, Chandani headed communications and outreach at TolaData. In addition, Chandani has coordinated many projects for local and international NGOs, working closely with refugees, individuals with disabilities and other marginalised groups in Nepal, Germany and the US. Chandani holds a master’s degree in International Development and Social Change from Clark University, USA and a B.Sc. in Mass Communications with an emphasis on PR and Advertising from Minnesota State University Moorhead

New – 2023 events and programme flyer, find out what’s on and what we are doing

2nd January 2023 by Adriana Sahagún Martínez

You can download the flyer below to find out about what we plan to do this year and how you can get involved.

Adriana Sahagún Martínez

Communications Manager

International Civil Society Centre

Adriana is responsible for developing and implementing the Centre’s communication strategy. Prior to joining the Centre, Adriana worked at ShareTheMeal, an initiative of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), where she developed and implemented multiple global marketing campaigns. Before that, she worked for six years in the private sector, where she held various positions in Corporate Social Responsibility and Integrated Marketing Communications.

Accelerating Inclusive Power Shift: An aggregated benchmarking study

20th December 2022 by Myriam Ciza Gambini

Following four years of Power Shifts Labs, the Centre wants to build on all of its collective work through analysis and deeper engagement around progress made. In February 2022, it commissioned a benchmarking study where its members were invited to discuss what shifts are currently underway within their organisations, as well as their challenges and next frontier ambitions. 

The study’s results were discussed and shared with study participants in the hope that it would feed into their future exchange and learning while allowing them to benchmark their progress over time and with each other. The Centre is presenting an aggregated version of the Power Shift benchmarking study as it believes that it will be both relevant and interesting to a much wider community outside of its member base.

Download Report

Learn more about the project

Myriam Ciza Gambini

Project Manager

International Civil Society Centre

Myriam coordinates the “Accelerating Inclusive Power Shift” project, which aims to foster equitable partnerships and more inclusive governance models in the development and humanitarian sectors. Prior to joining the Centre, she worked on EU development policy in Brussels for CONCORD and Humanity & Inclusion and with CBM in Italy.

Five takeaways from Global Perspectives 2022 

14th December 2022 by Miriam Niehaus

Global Perspectives 2022 brought together over 360 people from around the world on 30 November to participate in a range of panel sessions looking at transforming civil society futures. While we missed being able to meet in person, we found it even more rewarding that our free online format made it possible for so many of us to connect. These are some of the key takeaways that we still carry with us two weeks after the event and will take to heart in our work moving forward: 

1.Anticipation-mode is a necessity for all, not a luxury of the few 

Several sessions highlighted how CSOs are usually caught in – or even depend on – a perpetual sequence of crises. As current and future trends take hold, it is absolutely vital that organised civil society is both ready for different scenarios but equally holds a strong vision for the future. But being futures-ready (and -relevant) does neither come by itself nor should it be confined to an elite academic exercise by the few or a single department with an ICSO. Instead, we need to embed futures thinking widely and recognise that we’re all capable of the necessary signal scanning and building futures narratives. As our panellist, Barbara Weber from Amnesty International advised: Let’s build that anticipatory muscle by treating it like brushing our teeth – do it every day if you want to stay healthy.

2. Digital inclusion simply cannot happen if we don’t have internet infrastructure

Access to a data-driven world and data-driven development is key in a digitally transformed world and therefore, specialised CSOs are relied upon heavily to ensure inclusivity is taken into account when building digital tools for development. Many actors are lobbying heavily to make sure this is mainstreamed better across (international) CSOs so that organisations are pulling into the same direction, especially when it comes to the digital inclusion of Persons with Disability. But while there is a lot of focus on building capacity for digital inclusion, the most important ingredient is still called internet infrastructure!

3. Let’s reward experimentation! 

Part of the puzzle of futures-readiness is innovation. It was claimed that there is little to no room for failure in our sector and that this is keeping us from learning – as it is only through failure that we learn the most and from each other. We need to create organisational cultures where experimentation is rewarded so we can challenge ourselves, find new ways of working and explore different scenarios to imagine and build the world we want. The third edition of our Innovation Report again shows us how civil society organisations reinvent themselves and experiment if the context requires it. They can be a great inspiration for all of us!

4. Transformation requires bravery and humility

As many organisations are seeking to become more locally led, it is imperative that they adopt a southern identity, and being a global organisation is no longer synonym for being a northern organisation. This is no small transformation for many organisations and thus requires taking bold steps and risks. Professionalised civil society organisations should be in the business of working themselves out of a job, so a certain risk is built-in anyways.

Equally, in the panel on south-south cooperation, Cecilia Milesi reminded the audience that the decolonising journey has been travelled by civil society in (formerly) colonised countries since independence and not since the Grand Bargain, realising southern chapters fair well independently during Covid, or Black Lives Matter. While all of this rightfully motivated many northern organisations to change, humility is still called for.

5. We’re the best in collaborating and we can make this count – if we stay connected 

All sessions highlighted in one way or another civil society’s (perhaps not so) secret weapon: collaboration. Think Power Shift: Taking a route less travelled and partnering with local actors both as experts and interlocutors makes the difference and can produce different kinds of conversations and outcomes. Think Digital: only through collaborating with tech firms will we be able to both influence the tools generated for digital development and complement our capacities. Think Civic Space: by coming together as small organisations but in larger numbers, we are able to challenge powerful institutions, just like the example of the CSO alliance influencing the powerful Financial Action Task Force has shown.

But all of this can only work if we stay connected with the people in our communities, the (non-)citizens that make up civil society. It is to them that we are accountable. Only with them can we work towards the futures we want!

Miriam Niehaus

Head of Programmes

International Civil Society Centre

Miriam leads the Centre’s programmes. She started at the Centre as Executive Assistant in 2014 and then, as Project Manager, developed and implemented the Centre’s projects on civic space between 2016 and 2019. Prior to joining the Centre Miriam worked for VSO International and GIZ in the Palestinian Territories. She holds a BA in Islamic Studies and Social Anthropology from the University of Freiburg and an MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Whose future is it anyway? Civil society and strategic foresight

12th December 2022 by Ben Holt

This blog is based on a keynote speech delivered at the International Civic Forum 2022 (ICF 2022), the Centre’s annual civic space platform to network, build trust and identify opportunities for collaboration on emerging issues. The ICF 2022 focused on “Anticipating Futures for Civil Society Operating Space”. It kicked off a three-year initiative to strengthen anticipatory capacities and future readiness of civil society professionals working to defend civic and civil society operating space.

Every one of us wants to change the future.

That could mean making a difference to the life of one person, altering the entire course of history through revolution, or stopping the rise of the oceans as our climate crises deepens.

We’re all here because we want to make an impact on complex, messy issues, and that takes time. So, every day we make decisions, we implement plans, we deliver services. We move forward.

Understanding possible futures

All of these actions are intended to influence the future. We’re working to create something new or to prevent something worsening, to change somebody’s life or to remove injustices that affect us all.

But how well do we understand the future? How often do we explore the possibilities? When do we visit plausible future worlds to understand the challenges and the opportunities?

Or is ‘the future’ obscured, a grainy, opaque continuation of today with a bit more technology, a change in government, new fashions and a flying car or two?

Something that happens to us, rather than something we actively shape.

Connecting to the future

Part of everyone already lives in the future; a little corner of your brain and a collection of emptions is always there.

You might never have noticed but they are. Listen to them now.

I want you to put yourself on this grid. Move yourself up or down, depending on whether you are optimistic or pessimistic about the future. Move left or right depending on whether you think you can make a difference or can’t make a difference.

When I do this exercise with humanitarians, activists and civil society organisations, I always see lot of green and blue…

We tend to have a relatively pessimistic – or maybe realistic – view of the future but feel we can make a difference, which can give us hope. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t.

But not everyone feels like that… because people don’t all have equal access to the future.

Entire groups of people are down there in the bottom left; disempowered, scared, angry, ignored and excluded by the system that is shaping the future they will have to live in.

Participants at the International Civic Forum

Participants at the International Civic Forum share their feelings about the future.

Who shapes the future?

So many people are not asked or involved in reimagining the future, even by the people who say they’re here to support them. They are just expected to exist in it once it arrives. They are stripped of power now, and they are denied power over the future.

What can civil society do? We can give people a path to other side of that grid, where they feel they can make a difference, where they have the power to imagine a world that has a place and protection for them. (That means involving people, amplifying their voices, championing their perspectives).

And the institutions we run have to constantly navigate and shape that future. They have to become better at anticipating shocks and considering the implications of emerging trends. It has to be part of our daily operations, the mechanics of how our organisations function.

How do we do that? Thankfully, all humans have an amazing ability to time travel….

Storytelling and strategic foresight

Storytelling is deeply human. It is part of who we are as a species. We tell stories as individuals, as families, as organisations, as sectors and societies.

And that is what gives us this amazing ability to time travel; we can project ourselves into possible futures and tell others about it.

We all do it, all the time. It is how we make plans to meet at the weekend, how we set ourselves goals, how we organise our communities to take on a new challenge, it is how we mobilise people in politics and it’s how we ferment revolutions.

We tell stories about different visions for the future and ask for help to make it happen.

All the people who make real change in the world are futurists, whether they call themselves that or not; they have had the courage to question things and imagine something which is not yet visible.

 

Strategy and possible futures

Organisations already tell stories about the future all the time. We create visions and strategies, growth trends and budget projections.

We tell the story via formal documents and spreadsheets (to make it seem rational and reliable), but it is still a story about how we want the world to be, and how we will work to make it happen. And they are full of assumptions about what the future will be like.

But how many organisations consider what the world might be like when that strategy is supposed to thrive….? How many create different versions? And how many keep an eye on the weak signals and emerging trends that will shape the world tomorrow?

A nice strategy or vision is not enough. Our organisations need to be constantly engaged with possible futures, constantly anticipating risks and moving fast on opportunities, and we need to shift to anticipatory governance models to enable that.

Anticipating the future

This is critical because, left to their own devices, humans are actually not great at anticipating the future.

There are lots of psychological reasons – from optimism bias to data blindness, shifting baseline syndrome to an overreliance on past experience – so we need a more systematic way to explore the future, to add evidence to our imaginations, to create, examine and explore different possibilities.

Strategic foresight is a useful set of ideas, tools and methods that can help with this.

Emerging trends and change

Where do we start?

The world constantly changes. It can seem overwhelming. We are already living in a pretty dysfunctional dystopia. How do you start to make sense of today, let alone things that haven’t even happened yet?

There are some forces which shape human history and society, and always will. So, mapping some of those big drivers of change is a helpful starting point.

For example, politics shapes our lives and the history of our country and communities. It will continue to be a powerful force even as the personalities change, the institutions erode, and new movements emerge.

 

Gathering evidence

Civil society can act as a sensing network to spot things early and understand their impact in different places.

We must gather evidence, add detail, identify emerging trends and layer on different types of information. Add anthropological research and consultation to the mix, asking people about their changing world and hopes or fear for the future.

All of these elements help us to start spotting patterns and see the connections between seemingly random issues – they let us start to make sense of that overwhelming change.

And from this we begin to structure different possible futures and detailed scenarios. These artefacts become really useful tools for discussion; they open space for people to connect, talk and challenge assumptions about the future and imagine different possibilities.

Using strategic foresight

What do we do with it? Strategic foresight can be used in several ways.

We have already mentioned strategic planning: by expanding the range of alternative futures we plan for we are better prepared for the challenges we face.

Foresight also helps us deal with uncertainty and complexity by improving our understanding of emerging risks, issues and their potential implications.

In a sector well known for being risk-averse, this can only be a good thing.

I think that considering the future is a critical element for good innovation. Plausible, powerful scenarios are useful places to innovate in because there are new opportunities and challenges there.

It is also critical to consider the world any innovation will grow into – is your latest product or service ready for the future? Can you build anything into it as it grows which will make it stronger tomorrow?

And it is not all about speculation and innovation. You can use strategic foresight to stress-test decisions that have to be made now.

When you are choosing between option a and option b, you can walk them into the future and see if they will cope with a changing world or if they need to be rethought or refined now.

Critically, strategic foresight allows you to bring people together, to explore and negotiate a better world. It can create a shared vision that generates new energy, enthusiasm and hope.

All of this means we become better at anticipation: “identifying and preparing sooner for new opportunities and challenges that could emerge in the future” (UN) and we can bring people with us to face them, we can redirect finances, and we can mobilise resources.

I look to the future because that’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my life. – George Burns

Anticipation, surprise and action

Why is it important?

Strategic foresight is not about predicting the future. It is about avoiding surprise and shocks, about having more time to respond, and about actively working towards a future we believe to be better than today.

Because if we – as Civil Society organisations – don’t do that, we’re carrying the inequities of the past into the future and accepting that the injustices and inequalities that we’ve inherited from the past will inevitably be part of the future. We can do better than that. We can imagine a more hopeful future, and we have the power to deliver it, or at least fight for it.

Shaping the future

A lot of futures and foresight work is currently carried out by governments, corporations and the military. If they are deciding what humanity’s future should look like, it will reflect the biases and privilege of the people with power in those institutions.

Remember, Civil societies great strength is its reach and its diversity.

As my friend and futurist at the UN Aarathi Krishnan says: “Being more anticipatory necessitates being more participatory”.

We can surface new information and new stories. We can challenge the fact that not everyone gets an equal say in the future.

Done well, futures and foresight work can bring very diverse groups together and open up new options for action.

It can be a radical approach as it challenges short-term interests and hierarchy. It can create a new space for debate and a new horizon – beyond the election cycle or the next shareholders meeting.

Start by changing today

Good futures should challenge the world to consider different perspectives, different impacts, different needs and hopes so we can create new futures with new power structures, new representation and inclusion, and new ways to deliver powerful change.

We can imagine and champion these different futures.

It will take time to make them real. And that is why we need to start today.

Ben Holt

Global Lead for Strategic Foresight

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

He works for the IFRC’s Solferino Academy, helping the Red Cross Red Crescent network to explore possible futures and learn the skills needed to make them useful to decision-making and delivery. He regularly collaborates with the Cambridge University Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER).