By Mandeep Singh Tiwana, CIVICUS Secretary General and Devyani Kacker, human rightgs lawyer
At CIVICUS, we are increasingly being asked by funders how they should respond to this moment of civic regression.
Authoritarians are tearing up the rule book, threatening democracy and security. In less turbulent times, we could rely on democratic institutions and the rule of law to enable the collective wisdom of active citizens and civil society groups to prevail over those who oppose peace, justice, equality and environmental sustainability. But with only seven per cent of the world’s population able to exercise basic civic freedoms without fear of persecution, civil society’s transformational capacity is itself threatened.
This moment did not arrive overnight. Democratic freedoms have been declining for some time. A glance at the CIVICUS Monitor – a research collaboration that measures civic freedoms globally – reveals that over the past five years, civic space has been consistently deteriorating. Even democracies that once championed civic freedoms, like France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US, are now rated as having ‘obstructed’ civic freedoms by the CIVICUS Monitor. Their legitimacy and will to defend human rights at home and abroad are diminished. This decline is partly linked to the rise of populist and nationalist movements and the enhanced influence of ultra-wealthy elites.
Read in Wingsweb
Photo by palesa on Unsplash
