While elections were held and institutions nodded, civil society bore the weight of democracy, often with too little support to navigate the shrinking spaces in which it operates.
By Vincy Mighulo Masaka and Seun Akinyemi
The year 2025 was another election year, at least on paper. Like 2024, it was a year packed with elections that, in theory, promoted civic participation. However, across regions, democratic processes unfolded alongside a shrinking civic space, increased digital surveillance, and the criminalisation of dissent. The outcome? An election year with undemocratic realities. CIVICUS’ State of Civil Society 2025 report describes what this nominal democracy depicted globally: shrinking civic space, increasing restrictions on freedoms of association, assembly, and expression, and the normalisation of online surveillance, harassment, and disinformation. The report painted a clear picture: these challenges are not isolated, they are structural, persistent, and increasingly sophisticated.
These alarming trends have been witnessed in Kenya, Tanzania, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, among others. According to CIVICUS’ People Power Under Attack 2025 report,civil society actors in different regions, especially in countries with elections, were under digital siege, protests met with criminalisation, and civil society voices were silenced or threatened. In Tanzania, for example, activists, journalists, and local organisations were forced to operate under constant pressure, improvising strategies in real time to navigate risks that were often invisible, with the risk of unravelling months, even years, of progress made towards inclusive democracy.
This juxtaposition: structural trends versus human impact, reveals a stark mismatch: civil society often responds at the speed of threat, while support mechanisms lag. The current funding ecosystem has revealed a significant gap, where capacity-building assumes stability that no longer exists, and digital tools arrive after the risks have escalated. Across Indonesia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Morocco, and most recently Bulgaria, activists have continued organising amid surveillance, legal intimidation, and shrinking civic space, often improvising protection, funding, and digital security on their own. In Bulgaria, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook were central to protest mobilisation, allowing young people and civic groups to organise at scale and reach new, previously disengaged audiences. This courage and innovation are remarkable, but they also highlight a painful truth: civil society is struggling to sustain democracy with resources that are not designed for crisis.
Worldwide, civil society continues to innovate. Hybrid strategies, multi-sector coalitions, and encrypted digital communication channels have allowed activists to continue their work despite unprecedented pressures. Yet these efforts are reactive rather than systemic. Without anticipatory, flexible, and locally grounded support mechanisms, civil society carries the weight of democratic systems that function more in appearance than in the realities of the current ecosystem.
The story of 2025 is thus contradictory. Democracy, in its bureaucratic form, persisted. In its autonomous form, it tested civil society at every turn. How, then, can civil society thrive when the space it occupies is shrinking, with restricted resources, constant threats? How can support systems evolve to anticipate challenges rather than respond late? What is sustainable democracy in the current ecosystem? One that looks functional in reports, or one that empowers people to shape their own destiny?
In 2026, the lessons of 2025 remain clear: Resilience alone is insufficient to sustain democratic participation. The sustainability of the current ecosystem requires support mechanisms that are flexible, responsive, and designed to operate at the pace of real-world threats. Countries fail to adhere to the basic tenets of democracy, and courage cannot be the only driving force for civil society. The in-betweens of 2025: the grey area between what democracy promises and what civil society faces, are a reminder that rethinking the resourcing ecosystem in favour of a shrinking civic space is no longer optional. It is the backbone of any democracy that hopes to endure.
In a nominal democratic world, we need to imagine support that is anticipatory, flexible, and designed for the current realities.
Vincy Mighulo Masaka is a Project Officer - Host Liaison for DDI at CIVICUS. Her work focuses on civic technology and digital democracy, supporting civil society to rethink how democracy is funded, defended, and practiced in the digital age, with a focus on resilience and grassroots innovation.
Seun Akinyemi is a Project Officer - Host Liaison for DDI at CIVICUS. His project management expertise covers a broad spectrum of critical issues, from digital democracy, electoral processes and media freedom to anti-corruption initiatives, local governance, healthcare, gender equality and financing.
