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Executive Summary
This report contributes to the International Civil Society Centre’s multiyear 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. The mapping encompassed in-depth interviews with 26 key stakeholders, 2 quantitative surveys with those working in the sector, and a review of the existing research, initiatives and resources relating to the future of civic space and CSOs’ preparedness.
Interviewees pointed to forces shaping civic space and civil society operating conditions that are consistent with those in existing literature. They include the backsliding of liberal democracy; digital authoritarianism, ‘switching off’ online and offline civic space; disinformation being used to discredit CSOs; climate crisis creating new threats and exacerbating other crises; fiscal crises justifying regressive policies in the name of growth, sparking protests that are met with violent responses, and squeezing CSOs’ funding; securitization and the legacy of counter-terror regulations deployed to control CSOs; corporations supporting states to enforce crackdowns on civil society and replacing CSOs at the public policy decision-making table; and anti-rights groups claiming civic space to advocate for regressive agendas. The demand for decolonisation and redistribution of power across the sector, and emerging forms of fluid and politically engaged movements, are among the forces shaping the sector from within.
In response to these multiple and often intersecting forces squeezing civic space, CSOs deploy their relatively robust, well-rehearsed crisis response mechanisms. Most CSOs are able to respond to sudden crises with an agility to shift focus and tactics, to make short-term plans and re-set goals, to coordinate and collaborate with close partners. Funders have also been flexible to enable reallocated budget and reduced compliance at times of crisis.
The areas interviewees identified as weaknesses in their crisis responses reveal a gap in understanding and acting on the longer-term trends that are squeezing, shrinking and stifling civic space. In focusing on responding to short-term crisis and failing to act on trends that are longer-term, intersecting and systemic, the sector is failing not only to prepare for the next crisis but to proactively shape the future.
Futures preparedness is more than trying to predict and mitigate imminent risks. It is the practice of articulating alternative futures and taking them from imagination to action. This ‘anticipatory capacity’ is complementary to crisis response mechanisms. The sector needs both anticipatory and reactive strategies to engage with and shape emerging and ongoing trends that change society over time, and to respond quickly to the sudden crises as they erupt, often unpredictable in their timing or scale.