You can download the flyer below to find out about what we plan to do this year and how you can get involved.
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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.
This report contributes to the Centre’s multi-year initiative Anticipating Futures for Civil Society Operating Space to strengthen the anticipatory capacities and future readiness of civil society professionals who are working to defend civic and civil society operating space. It is intended to provide a basis for further activities, especially in identifying gaps that require collective sector commitment.
The report is the outcome of an exercise to map the current landscape: the issues impacting civic space, the strengths and weaknesses of civil society organisations’ (CSOs) responses and their reflections.
Civil society organisations are innovators. They test new approaches to both traditional and emerging problems. Rapid digitalisation is one of today’s most prominent and influential global drivers of change, but decisions on how future digital development and data use proceeds still sit almost exclusively with the governments and businesses already powerful and privileged enough to influence and receive its benefits today, further growing the equity gap to the half of humanity who remain unconnected.
While civil society organisations have achieved some success in shifting power around these challenges, there is a significant opportunity for organisations to learn and benefit from the lessons others have encountered.
The report will share effective and inclusive innovation approaches, solutions and new ways of working which are helping to shift power in the digital ecosystem, and achieve more people-centred or nature-positive outcomes enabled by digital technology, by showcasing eight case studies from international and national CSOs around the world. Get inspired by real-life examples of new approaches.
Listen to our Futures and Innovation Podcast – an audio series streaming on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Soundcloud – and hear the stories of their inclusive innovation approaches to advance people-centred digitalisation, to either address system power imbalances or capitalise on emerging people power and technological capabilities.
Visit our Innovation Webpage to find out more about the aims of the report and all the case study content.
The Centre is looking for an experienced consultant or a team of consultants with expertise in Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) to conduct an independent evaluation of the Leave No One Behind (LNOB) Partnership and its Making Voices Heard and Count project. The consultant will be expected to review and evaluate the activities the LNOB Partnership has conducted on global, national and local levels since its inception in 2017.
The Centre is commissioning a consultant to:
Find the full tender and how to apply here
The Centre invites qualified individuals, pairs or small teams to submit a proposal for the requested services. The application needs to be submitted by 18 July 2022.
If you meet the selection criteria, please send an email with your CV and a short proposal including a proposed timeline and detailed budget, including daily rate in Euros (EUR) to Chandani Lopez. The proposal must be in English and preferably in PDF format. The subject of the application should read ‘Evaluation Consultant LNOB Partnership.’ Only shortlisted candidates who meet the criteria will be invited for interviews.
The Centre is looking for a strategic research consultant to conduct a mapping and support event content preparations during the initial phase of its new initiative “Anticipating Futures for Civil Society Operating Space”. The initiative’s overall aim is to strengthen anticipatory capacities and future readiness of civic space-focused professionals in international and national civil society organisations.
The Centre is commissioning a consultant to:
Find the full tender and how to apply here
The Centre invites qualified individuals, pairs or small teams to submit a proposal for the requested services. The application needs to be submitted by 15 July 2022.
If you meet the selection criteria, please submit your application to Eva Gondorová and Miriam Niehaus including:
2. Your CV.
3. Two references that can be contacted should you be shortlisted.
The Centre is looking for a research consultant to support its Solidarity Action Network (SANE) by capturing three to five case studies looking at how international civil society organisations (ICSOs) and CSOs have dealt with cyberattacks and digital risks. This will be an extension of the Solidarity Playbook – a collection of case studies and best practices on strategies, resilience, and solidarity mechanisms – with a topical focus on cybersecurity.
SANE focuses on strengthening resilience of and solidarity among civil society actors when faced with civic space restrictions or changing operating conditions. It connects organisations across all sub-sectors and brings them into discussions on civic space challenges and opportunities.
The Solidarity Playbook is an integral part of SANE with a focus on collecting case studies and best practices to help other ICSOs respond to undue scrutiny and challenges, and to enable learning on how to act in solidarity with civil society actors, particularly local partners.
The Centre is commissioning a consultant to:
Find the full tender and how to apply here
The Centre invites qualified individuals to submit a proposal for the requested services. The application needs to be submitted by 25 July 2022.
If you meet the selection criteria, please submit your application to Eva Gondorová including:
The global pandemic has further exacerbated the long-standing structural inequalities and governance weaknesses around the world. As a result, an increasing number of communities are falling further behind the ambitious plan of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to “leave no one behind.” From 30 May to 3 June 2022, this year’s World Justice Forum brought together hundreds of leaders and experts from a broad spectrum of disciplines and geographies in the Hague to talk about these challenges and find effective measures to build fairer and healthier communities
Michelle Bachelet, High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN echoed:
Justice means equality. Justice means fairness. Justice means accountability, fighting impunity and offering redress. It also means leaving no one behind and leaving no one behind means involving marginalised groups in decision making.
Within the framework of the Solidarity Action Network (SANE), a guidance “Navigating cybersecurity: Guidance for (I)CSO professionals” has been developed to help civil society actors better respond to cybersecurity challenges and digital threats.
The guidance shares lessons learned and best practices from a series of SANE curated conversations on the topics of data protection and security, prevention and mitigation of cyberattacks, and sustainable cybersecurity support for local civil society. It provides steps to better protect organisations online and highlights further relevant resources and initiatives. This guidance addresses (I)CSO professionals across different departments as cybersecurity needs to be everyone’s responsibility.
Within the framework of the Solidarity Action Network (SANE), we commissioned a scoping study to analyse operating conditions of international and local civil society organisations in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). In recent years, attacks on civil society organisations (CSOs) working on humanitarian, development and, especially, human rights programming in the oPt have come under more sustained and targeted attack, mirroring deteriorating CSO operating conditions and shrinking civic space and freedoms globally. Building on previous work in the field, this study aimed to capture up-to-date evidence of how the current environment impacts CSOs ability to deliver their mandates. The data generated may be used to inform policy and advocacy efforts and to identify possible solidarity mechanisms to support CSOs.
The study provides key findings on barriers and restrictions faced by civil society actors in the oPt based on the collected quantitative and qualitative data and presents recommendations for governments, donors and civil society actors.