An activist in Colombia, the deadliest country in the world for human rights defenders in 2022, accounting for 186 killings – or 46% – of the global total registered last year. Credit: Sebastian Barros

By Bibbi Abruzzini and Clarisse Sih, Forus
BRUSSELS, Apr 27 2023 (IPS)

In today’s world, human rights defenders face immense challenges, with threats, attacks, and repression being rampant in many countries. According to the latest report by Front Line Defenders, killings of rights defenders increased in 2022, with a total of 401 deaths across 26 different countries. Despite the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders 25 years ago, the threats faced by defenders persist globally.

One striking example of the dire situation is in Bolivia, where violations of freedoms of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and the right to defend rights have been recorded by the Observatory of Rights Defenders of UNITAS, with the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights of Bolivia (APDHB) being a longstanding victim of attacks and delegitimization. A total of 725 violations of the freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly, democratic institutions and the right to defend rights have been recorded by the Observatory of Rights Defenders.

Gladys Sandova, a human rights and environmental defender in the Tariquía Flora and Fauna National Reserve in Bolivia, reveals how the state often aligns with oil businesses instead of protecting communities. “Tariquía is the lung of Tarija,” Gladys explains, yet this vital source of water for southern Bolivia and home to over 3,000 people, is at risk due to the state-owned Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) seeking to revive oil exploration in the reserve.

“Oil companies are here, we are going to lose our natural richness, they are going to affect the lives of families, and contaminate our water and our air,” says Gladys, reflecting the urgent need to defend human rights and the environment.

Her story is similar to that of several other human rights defenders across the globe : they are victims of hostilities, interference, threats, and harassment. The campaign, ReImagina La Defensa de Derechos, by UNITAS collects the testimonies of human rights defenders and indigenous leaders across Bolivia raising awareness about the challenges they face.

Stories from human rights defenders from across the globe are also featured in the #AlternativeNarratives campaign, which seeks to amplify the voices of civil society organizations and grassroots movements that work towards social justice, human rights, and sustainable development. The campaign encourages the use of storytelling, multimedia tools, and creative expression to highlight alternative perspectives, challenge stereotypes, and advocate for positive chang while fostering a more inclusive and equitable narrative space that reflects the diversity of human experiences and promotes solidarity, empathy, and mutual understanding.

Human rights defenders, including women defenders, continue to mobilize against repressive regimes and occupying forces in countries like Afghanistan, the DRC, El Salvador, Iran, Myanmar, Sudan, and Ukraine. Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, highlights the underreporting of human rights violations against defenders, particularly women, and outlines “disturbing trends” in relation to civic space worldwide.

Repongac, representing over 1,200 NGOs in Central Africa, states that “human rights in Central Africa are no longer guaranteed,” with civil society actors, journalists, and defenders facing repression, prosecution, and arrests. Recent campaigns organized by Repongac in Central Africa and Repaoc in West Africa, supported by Forus and the French Development Agency, brought together diverse stakeholders, including human rights defenders, political parties, parliamentarians, journalists, and security personnel, to initiate a dialogue and protect civic space amnd fundametnal freedoms in the region.

To support activists and defenders globally, the Danish Institute for Human Rights has launched a monitoring tool that assesses whether an enabling environment for human rights defenders exists across five critical areas. Developed in collaboration with 24 institutions and organizations, including the United Nations and civil society networks, the tool not only tracks the number of killings of human rights defenders but also analyzes the presence of appropriate legislation and practices to protect defenders.

As Carol Rask, a representative of the Danish Institute for Human Rights, explains, defending human rights is a crime in some countries and a deadly activity in others. It is a call to action for change, urging individuals, organizations, and governments to prioritize and protect the crucial work of human rights defenders worldwide.

Griselda Sillerico, human rights defender in Bolivia for over 30 years, quotes Ana María Romero and says “human rights are seeds that we continue to plant and that over the years we harvest.” Griselda Sillerico’s quote echoes the enduring spirit of human rights advocacy, where the work of human rights defenders like her is a constant effort to sow the seeds of justice, equality, and dignity for all. Despite the challenges and setbacks, human rights defenders across the world continue to plant these seeds, often at great personal risk, with the hope of reaping a future where human rights are universally respected and protected.

IPS UN Bureau

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An activist during COP27 in Egypt. Credit: Oliver Kornblihtt / Mídia NINJA

By Bibbi Abruzzini
BRUSSELS, Jan 25 2023 (IPS)

In 2022, Saudi Arabia “quietly” sentenced Salma al-Shehab to 34 years in prison over her Twitter activity, marking the longest Saudi sentence ever for a peaceful activist. Fast forward and award-winning Ugandan author Kakwenza Rukirabashaija was charged with two counts of “offensive communication” after making unflattering remarks about the president and his son on Twitter. The message is clear: your well-crafted 280 characters can land you in jail.

But what if, not only your online expressions could put you behind bars, but that the internet, today’s window to the rest of the world shuts down? No internet connection at all, 100% offline. It is not a plot from a sci-fi movie gone wrong, this is happening today. Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition documented in 2021 for instance, at least 182 internet shutdowns in 34 countries as a tactic to suppress dissent and quell unrest.

In a survey collecting the views of 7,500+ civil society organizations that together serve 190 million people, 95 percent said the internet is critical to their ability to do their work, but 78 percent said that a lack of internet access, tools, or skills limits their ability to serve their communities effectively.

The data, based on the largest survey of civil society regarding the barriers they face in a digitalizing world, was published today in a report by Connect Humanity: “State of Digital Inequity: Civil Society Perspectives on Barriers to Progress in our Digitizing World”.

The survey finds that while civil society sees the internet as critical, a lack of access to technology limits their impact.

Digitalisation: what civil society networks have to say

To understand some of today’s challenges and solutions when it comes to rights-based digitalisation, we reached out to civil society networks across Africa grappling with this issue.

Technology advances have brought increased surveillance and new risks for civic space – for example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, access to internet and text messages services were limited during election periods. All of a sudden you couldn’t write a message on WhatsApp, whatever its nature.

“African countries that went to the polls in recent years have developed an affinity to restrict internet access before, during and after elections especially in countries where there are disputes,” explains Leah Mitaba of the Zambia Council for Social Development.

Zambia held elections in 2021 amidst unprecedented political and legal volatility. The elections presented immense risks not only for voters and political activists, but also for civil society organisations working on anti-corruption and environmental rights. But sadly, other examples abound: in 2021 only, governments shut down the internet in Chad, Zambia, Niger and Uganda ahead of and on the days of national elections.

“We have seen in the last five years, a close link between internet cuts and Chad’s important moments of political dispute,” says Abdoulaye Diarra, Amnesty International’s Central Africa researcher. Chad has experienced over 2.5 years in total of internet cuts or disruptions since 2016 amid increased repression of civil society and human rights activists, including a “bloodshed” in October that killed at least 50 protesters and injured dozens of others.

There are extreme cases of “digital darkness” in the region as well. Since the conflict began in Tigray, Ethiopia, in November 2020, authorities have used internet shutdowns as a weapon of information control and censorship. November 4, 2022 marks two years of deliberate internet blackouts affecting the lives of approximately six million people in Tigray and indirectly millions more.

“The shutdown is having an immense impact on my life, and I doubt if words can really express it. It felt like my worst nightmare,” says Mulu, a PhD student in Tigray.

The effects of Internet Shutdowns

In the words of Felicia Anthonio, #KeepItOn campaign manager and fighter of internet shutdowns with Access Now, “for too long, internet shutdowns have been too easy a decision for governments to make, and too easy an action for them to implement”. It’s almost as if you had a switch you could strategically turn on and off at your will.

Restrictions on the space of African civil society organisations have become more severe in the dual context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the insecurity affecting countries in the region, explains Comlan Julien Agbessi, Regional Coordinator of the Network of West African NGO Platforms (REPAOC). NGOs and associations are being accused of having “hidden agendas” or benefiting from important funds from “occult networks”.

“Some entities or umbrella organisations are considered by the government as counter-powers or related to the opposition because of their legitimate role in alerting, questioning, raising awareness and denouncing abuses and human rights violations”.

Defenders continue to be subjected to intimidation, judicial harassment and arrests for their online activities in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Togo and Burkina Faso. Fortunately, citizens and activists are also rising to the occasion. There are a lot more cases of citizens actually going to court to challenge government decisions around internet issues. There is the example of Togo, where Togolese citizens and civil society organisations went to court to challenge the government shutdown of the internet and they won the case.

“Disconnected citizens are actually citizens that are kept away from opportunities,” in the words of Gbenga Sesan of the Paradigm Initiative, a pan-African organisation which offers digital opportunities to young people.

“Both a blessing and a curse”

In 2021 Nigerians started using Virtual Private Networks to bypass the government ban on Twitter. The government had ordered internet providers to block the micro-blogging site, alleging it was being used to undermine “Nigeria’s corporate existence” through the spreading of fake news that could potentially have “violent consequences”. Once again, voicing your opinions online, could put you behind bars.

Fake news and the continued sustained critique of civil society online, is also warping perceptions and boosting polarisation in an already fragile context.

“There are a lot of myths on the work of nonprofits in Nigeria, that need to be dispelled, and the digital space is key to this, and very important for this kind of work,” according to Oyebisi Oluseyi, Coordinator at the Nigeria Network of NGOs.

In the words of the civil society platform of Cape Verde, PLATONG, digitalisation has been “both a blessing and a curse”. The COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, galvanized many African civil society organisations to embrace virtual platforms to carry out many of their activities.

With the emergence of the pandemic digital tools have turned into “a resilience tool” that allowed confined actors or those with limited movement to continue to function, explains civil society leader Comlan Julien Agbessi. “If they did not exist, they would have had to be invented, otherwise all human activity outside the biological and physiological functions of individuals would have come to a halt.”

But the high cost of internet access remains a challenge. And the situation is worse for rural based communities whose access is either non-existent or very limited because of poor connectivity and unsustainable costs. Those served by civil society often lack internet access, limiting the potential impact of organizations. Just 12 percent of respondents to the Connect Humanity survey strongly agreed that the communities they serve have internet connectivity. A lack of digital skills is also a major barrier and organizations struggle to pay for core technologies. 43 percent of organizations said internet access was too expensive, with 64 percent struggling to pay for computers. 67 percent said the cost of internet access is too high for their communities.

Internet access is a basic right: if we have common problems, we also have common solutions.

Communities are building their own internet infrastructure to connect, and protect, the unconnected. Decentralised networks – where internet or communication services are localised rather than monopolised by governments or corporate giants – are rising and giving users more control and protection in countries where censorship and internet shutdowns pose an increasing risk of “digital authoritarianism”.

“When we close digital divides, we expand educational opportunities, improve public health, boost economies and create new opportunities for work. We have the knowledge and tools to get this done — now we need governments, investors, and philanthropic funders to do what the corporate sector has been unable to do — work with communities and commit the finances to make digital equity a reality for all,” said Chris Worman, Head of Strategy at Connect Humanity.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, internet access was a lifeline for many — and must today be understood as an essential public good for individuals and for organizations who provide services. This was reflected in the survey run by Connect Humanity and TechSoup, with additional distribution from CIVICUS, FORUS, NTEN, and WINGS, which showed that 91 percent of respondents believe internet access is a basic right.

We heard the promises that the digital space was going to expand, rather than restrict, our rights, while witnessing with our own eyes how this promise has been distorted and twisted. The gap or should we say – the crater – that characterizes those who have access to the digital space and those who don’t, will narrow down over the years, so they say, but this doesn’t mean that our collective rights are going to be upheld. What is access without protection? What is democratic about the digital space if most of the world’s population doesn’t have a say in how it’s being constructed and how it’s going to evolve? Are we building an ally or our worst enemy? And lastly, do we feel part of the digital process, or are we just passive consumers, or even worst, as activists we have a target on our back?

IPS UN Bureau

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Civil society organisations at the Finance in Common Summit. Credit: Noel Emmanuel Zako

By Bibbi Abruzzini
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast , Oct 21 2022 (IPS)

A coalition of civil society organisations is demanding public development banks (PDBs) to take radical and innovative steps to tackle human rights violations and environmental destruction. No project funded by PDBs should come at the expenses of vulnerable groups, the environment and collective liberties, but should instead embody the voices of communities, democratic values and environmental justice.

The demands, part of a collective statement signed by more than 50 civil society organisations, come as over 450 PDBs gather in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, from October 19th, for a third international summit, dubbed Finance in Common.

The COVID-19 pandemic and climate emergency, coupled with human rights violations and increasing risks for activists worldwide, is bringing the need to change current practices into even sharper focus. While public development banks may drag their feet on addressing intersecting and structural inequalities, civil society organisations are taking actions aimed at creating dignified livelihoods by embedding development with concrete affirmative measures towards climate, social, gender, and racial justice.

PDBs cannot be reluctant to act. They need to hit the target when it comes to supporting the transformation of economies and financial systems towards sustainability and addressing the most pressing needs of citizens worldwide – from food systems to increasing support for a just transition towards truly sustainable energy sources. PDBs must recognise that public services are the foundation of fair and just societies, rather than encouraging their privatisation and keep austerity narratives alive.

9 out of 10 people live in countries where civic freedoms are severely restricted, and with an environmental activist killed every two days on average over the past decade, development banks have an obligation to recognize and incorporate human rights in their plans and actions, following a “do not harm” duty.

Civil society organisations at the Finance in Common Summit. Credit: Noel Emmanuel Zako

Communities cannot be left out of the door. They need to be given the space to play the rightful role of driving forces in the answers to today’s global challenges, without them PDBs will move backwards rather than forward – and this means more environmental degradation, less democratic participation, and to put it bluntly an even greater crisis than the one we are facing today. And nobody needs that.

The recommendations in the collective civil society statement emerge from a three-year process of engagement and exchange, involving civil society networks in an effort to shape PDBs policies and projects. You can find some of their words and messages below.

As the call for accountability grows, the Finance in Common summits are an opportunity for PDBs to show moral leadership and help remedy the lack of long-term collaborations with civil society, communities and indigenous groups, threatening to curtail development narratives and practices.

Here’s the messages from civil society organisations from around the globe directed at public development banks.

Oluseyi Oyebisi, Executive Director of Nigeria Network of NGOs (NNNGO) the Nigerian national network of 3,700 NGOs said: “The Sahara and Sahel countries especially have been facing the most serious security crisis in their history linked with climate change, social justice and inequalities in the region. Marked by strong economic (lack of opportunities especially for young people), social (limitation of equitable access to basic social services) and climatic vulnerabilities, the region has some of the lowest human development indicators in the world – even before the covid pandemic. Access to affected populations is limited in some localities due to three main factors: the security situation, the poor state of infrastructures and difficult geographic conditions. PDBs must prioritise civil society organisations and Communities initiatives supporting state programs of decentralization, security sector reforms and reconciliation. This will help reduce the vulnerability of populations and prevent violent extremism.”

Mavalow Christelle Kalhoule, Forus Chair and President of Spong, the NGO network of Burkina Faso said: “Development projects shape our world; from the ways we navigate our cities to how rural landscapes are being transformed. Ultimately, they impact the ways we interact with one another, with plants and animals, with other countries and with the food on our plates. The decisions taken by public development banks are therefore existential. Such responsibility comes with an even greater one to include communities directly concerned by development projects, those whose air, water and everyday lives are affected for generations to come. For this to happen, public development banks must reinforce their long-term efforts to create dialogue with civil society organisations, social movements and indigenous communities in order to fortify the democratic principles of their work. We encourage them to listen, to ask and to cooperate in innovative ways so that development stays true to its original definition of progress and positive change; a collective, participative and fair process and a word which has a meaning not for a few, but for all.”

Tity Agbahey, Africa Regional Coordinator, Coalition for human rights in development said: “Many in civil society have expressed concerns about Finance in Common as a space run by elites, that fails to be truly inclusive. It is a space where the mainstream top-down approach to development, instead of being challenged, is further reinforced. Once again, the leaders of the public development banks gathered at this Summit will be taking decisions on key issues without listening to those most affected by their projects and the real development experts: local communities, human rights defenders, Indigenous Peoples, feminist groups, civil society. They will speak about “sustainability”, while ignoring the protests against austerity policies and rising debt. They will speak about “human rights”, while ignoring those denouncing human rights violations in the context of their projects. They will speak about “green and just transition”, while continuing to support projects that contribute to climate change.”

Comlan Julien AGBESSI, Regional Coordinator of the Network of National NGO Platforms of West Africa (REPAOC), a regional coalition of 15 national civil society platforms said: “Regardless of how they are perceived by the public authorities in the various countries, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) contribute to covering the aspects and spaces not reached or insufficiently reached by national development programmes. Despite the undeniable impact of their actions on the living conditions of populations, NGOs remain the poor cousins of donor funding, apart from the support of certain philanthropic or charitable organisations. In such a context of scarce funding opportunities, aggravated by the health crisis due to COVID-19 and the subsequent economic crisis, Pooled Finance, which is in fact a paradigm shift, appears to be a lifeline for CSOs. This is why REPAOC welcomes the commitments made by both the Public Development Banks and the Multilateral Development Banks to directly support CSO projects and programmes in the same way as they usually do with governments and the private sector. Through the partnership agreements that we hope and pray for between CSOs and banks, the latter can be assured that the actions that will be envisaged for the benefit of rural and urban communities will certainly reach them with the guarantees of accountability that their new CSO partners offer”.

Frank Vanaerschot, Director of Counter Balance, said: “As one of this year’s organisers of the Finance in Common Summit, the EIB will brag about the billions it invests in development. The truth is the bank will be pushing the EU’s own commercial interests and promoting the use of public money for development in the Global South to guarantee profits for private investors. Reducing inequalities will be second-place at best. The EIB is also co-hosting the summit despite systemic human rights violations in projects it finances from Nepal to Kenya. Instead, the EIB and other public banks should work to empower local communities by investing in the public services needed for human rights to be respected, such as publicly owned and governed healthcare and education – not on putting corporate profits above all else.”

Stephanie Amoako, Senior Policy Associate at Accountability Counsel said: “PDBs must be accountable to the communities impacted by their projects. All PDBs need to have an effective accountability mechanism to address concerns with projects and should commit to preventing and fully remediating any harm to communities”.

Jyotsna Mohan Singh, Regional Coordinator, Asia Development Alliance said: “PDBs should have a normative core; they should start with the rights framework. This means grounding all safeguards into all the various rights frameworks that already exist. There are rights instruments for indigenous people, the elderly, women, youth, and people living with disability. They are part and parcel of a whole host of both global conventions and regional conventions. Their approach should be grounded in those rights, then it will be on a very firm footing.

Asian governments need to support, implement, and apply strict environmental laws and regulations for all PDBs projects. The first step is to disseminate public information and conduct open and effective environmental impact assessments for all these projects, as well as strategic environmental assessments for infrastructure and cross-border projects.”

IPS UN Bureau

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Credit: Bibbi Abruzzini

By Bibbi Abruzzini
PARIS, Jun 10 2021 (IPS)

In the last 20 years, disasters affected over 4 billion people. At global level we witness on average one sweeping disaster a day, the majority of which are floods and storms. From the Covid-19 pandemic to climate change, calamities are taking new shapes and sizes, infiltrating every dimension of society. From the emotional to the political, how do we deal with disasters? How can we create a whole-of-society approach to disaster risk reduction?

Right through this vortex of intersecting crises, a new toolkit and interactive website by Forus, the Global Network of Civil Society Organizations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR), Save the Children Switzerland and Inventing Futures, with the support of Fondation de France, looks at how civil society organisations coordinate disaster risk reduction and post-emergency interventions. Meant for civil society networks, activists, government officials and community-based organizations, the toolkit provides best-practices from around the globe.

“Today, we are all actors and victims of crises. How can we better understand and learn to cope with them? These practical tools allow us to discover the stakes, the exemplary actions and their effects, through simple definitions and concrete testimonies experienced by civil society,” says Karine Meaux, Emergency manager at Fondation de France.

“Building resilient communities in the face of natural and man-made hazards has never been more important. While disasters don’t discriminate, policies do. Together we can act and put pressure on decision-makers to promote a holistic approach to disaster prevention and reduction and truly people-centred policies,” says Sarah Strack, Director of Forus.

Civil society at the forefront of disaster management

From resilient communities in Nepal, to conflicts in Mali and peace processes in Colombia, the toolkit presents six approaches to disaster risk reduction gleaned from case studies compiled across the civil society ecosystem. The toolkit looks at various topics from capacity building, to local knowledge, resource mobilisation, partnerships with governments and long-term sustainable development and livelihood resilience, ensuring that communities ‘bounce forward’ after a disaster.

Credit: Bibbi Abruzzini

Specifically, the toolkit aims to clarify the crucial role frontline civil society organisations play in reducing the impacts of disasters in the midst of an expanding and intensifying global risk landscape. Bridging governments, communities and experts is the only way we can tackle the multiple ways disasters affect local and social processes such as education, migration, food security and peace. If civil society is not free to operate – or even exist – our collective capacity to deal with disasters and create long-term resilience is hampered.

“You have countries [in the region] in which civil society is not even allowed to exist. This reality changed a lot after the Arab Spring, with countries living in a terrible crisis, with military conflicts, where the role of civil society now is not only to struggle for their existence, but also to provide the population with basic needs and humanitarian interventions,” says Ziad Abdel Samad, Director of the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND).

Everyday disasters and inequalities

Robert Ninyesiga, from UNNGOF, the national civil society organisation platform in Uganda, argues that in most cases, “more effort has been put towards disaster response while neglecting the disaster prevention aspect”.

This therefore calls for continuous intentional awareness and capacity building as regards to disaster prevention and this can only be effectively achieved if sustainable partnerships between central governments, local governments, civil society organisations, media and citizens are strengthened.

Shock events, high-impact disasters, such as conflicts, earthquakes or tsunamis are just the tip of the iceberg. Underneath this layer there are an increasingly high number of “everyday disasters” affecting people around the globe. Localised, small scale, and slow onset disasters are often “invisible” – far from the spotlight. Those at low incomes are the most vulnerable and find themselves at the periphery of infrastructures, response systems and media attention.

For instance, in addition to being often exposed to intensive disasters such as floods and storms, residents in urban slums across Bangladesh are suffering much more than other communities since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Credit: Bibbi Abruzzini

“Most slum dwellers are daily wage earners, but they are not able to earn money. They are not able to maintain social distance, because in one room 4-5 members are living. Many people are using a shared bathroom. It’s very difficult to maintain hygiene. There is not enough space to sit or sleep at home while maintaining sufficient distance. Due to lack of money, many slum dwellers have only one or two meals a day. Violence and sexual harassment are increasing in the community due to cramped conditions. Children are not attending school,” explains the Participatory Development Action Programme (PDAP) which works in the slums of Dhaka .

These pressures add to regular “everyday” challenges of air pollution and garbage management, flooding, water-logged land, and poor quality water.

Local knowledge and Resilient Future

Civil society organisations often fill a tremendous gap and find themselves at the forefront of prevention and emergency efforts. The localisation of responses and partnerships are absolutely crucial to understand the needs of communities in pre and post-disaster scenarios.

In Honduras, civil society has created community-led interventions, to prioritise local plans of action across the country.

“Honduras, and Central America more in general, have been hit in the last 10 years by an intensification of disasters, most of them linked to climate change. Our role in helping communities to adapt to climate change and to deal with disasters, is in terms of capacity building, humanitarian assistance and advocacy by creating links between local, national, regional and global levels,” says Jose Ramon Avila from ASONOG, the national platform of civil society organisations in Honduras.

The intense and cascading nature of risks, such as seen in the cases of Covid-19 and climate change, represent a serious threat to the achievement of a sustainable and resilient future. Growing experience over the last three decades has revealed that disasters and development are closely linked. Ignoring the impact of disasters makes it more difficult to pursue sustainable development.

“Sustainable development can only be achieved when local risk is fully understood. Critical to understanding and assessing the complex threats and risks, challenges and opportunities faced by communities most at risk, is the need to partner with those people. This practical toolkit provides valuable insights and examples from GNDR members and others on how this can be achieved,” says Bijay Kumar, Executive Director, Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR)

It has also been found that much of the negative impact on sustainable livelihoods comes not from large, ‘intensive’ disasters, but from many smaller, ‘everyday’ disasters. It has become crucial to address intensive and everyday disasters and to integrate our responses with overall work to pursue sustainable development.

We need to ask ourselves this question: can we build new bridges of solidarity between civil society, communities and governments? Can we prevent and anticipate disasters? Our future is not disaster-free; to build resilient communities it is crucial to nurture strong roots for our society to flourish.

The author Bibbi Abruzzini is Communications officer at Forus.
Find the toolkit and microsite on Disaster Risk Reduction here. Available in English, French and Spanish.

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Credit: Forus International

By Bibbi Abruzzini
PARIS, Dec 10 2020 (IPS)

On Human Rights Day, civil society calls for the protection of civic space as a fundamental freedom, as more than 80% of the world’s population live in countries where civic space is closed, repressed or obstructed.

Protecting civil society and fundamental freedoms means protecting the rights to associate and assemble, to express views and opinions. Civic space is the bedrock of any open and democratic society. When civic space is open, citizens and civil society organizations are able to organize, participate and communicate, claiming their rights and influencing the political and social structures around them. But this is not the case for most citizens around the world, new data unveils.

A recent study on Enabling Environment, with data from over 40 National NGO platforms, by Forus, Cooperation Canada, and AidWatch Canada, finds that 40% of NGO platforms continue to face high levels of impunity in the use of excessive force against human rights, gender and environmental defenders, in particular in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia.

For 50% of NGO platforms, national laws and regulations are a key barrier to civil society activities in their country. In times of Covid, hurdles have multiplied, with 68% of NGO platforms noting that the health crisis was used to justify restrictions on their activities within the boundaries of legal and regulatory frameworks, and for 23%, the health crisis led to increased arbitrary restrictions.

“We’ve been really alarmed and we’ve spoken loudly through our megaphones, wherever we have been able to speak up, to say that governments should stop using the state of emergency to crack down on civil society,” says Sarah Brandt from Globalt Fokus, the Danish national platform of NGOs.

Some groups are more subject to harassment or interference by the government than others. In Cambodia, media outlets are particularly targeted. In Spain, the Occupy movement and those fighting against la “ley mordazas” or “gag law” introducing limitations on protests and imposing administrative sanctions against demonstrators both online and offline. In Colombia, Chile and Argentina, organisations representing indigenous, social leaders and trade unions are routinely scrutinized and attacked. In the UK, organisations that work with migrants, refugees, and the Muslim community face continuous pressures. In Denmark, the organisations being targeted include anti-establishment groups such as ANTIFA and Extinction Rebellion.

With increased surveillance, persecution and violence, only half of NGO platforms turn to national governments as institutional channels to promote accountability for attacks on civil society, while over two thirds use Human Rights Councils and the judiciary system. This shows the crucial role played by human rights institutions, which continue to be guardians of fundamental rights and never cease upholding democratic values.

Credit: Forus International

Carlos Andrés Orellana Cruz, joined ASONOG, the Honduran national platform of civil society organisations, to support local communities defending their territory from mining projects in one of the world’s most infertile lands when it comes to human and civil rights.

“The only way to protect ourselves is by protecting others. No struggle is or should be isolated, social change cannot happen in small groups of people seeking quotas of power, but in an active and mobilized citizen participation, with effective exchange of knowledge and commitment to principles of social justice and democracy,” Carlos explains.

In countries like Honduras, this is becoming increasingly difficult, as 2019 marked the deadliest year worldwide for frontline activists. In 2020, according to CIVICUS, attacks continued to target activists as well as journalists, and the Honduran government introduced a new criminal code enabling the criminalization of these actors. This dire context is coupled with the little support civil society receives from institutional channels. 42% of NGO platforms report examples of efforts by governments or other major development actor to actively discredit their work.

Lockdown has forced many protests off the streets, yet changes in the digital environment, including the implementation of new technologies, software and access to information, have positively contributed to an enabling environment for civil society, according to a third of NGO platforms interviewed in the study. In contrast, 40% have experienced mixed to negative impacts and 15% merely negative impacts, as online spaces exacerbate the risk of widening the digital gap, privacy breaches and crackdowns.

For activists like Yasmine Ouirhrane, former Young European of the Year and Founder & Podcast Host at We Belong, digital realms have opened new spaces for much needed cross-cultural dialogues. With her online platform and podcast she amplifies the voice of the “new daughters of Europe”, focusing on conversations with young women representing the diversity of the region, breaking stereotypes, navigating multiple identities, and challenging the conventional wisdom of what it means to “belong”.

“As Youth, we have been great advocates for our own rights. We have been outspoken: raising our concerns, tweeting our moods, demonstrating during Fridays for OUR future, even gaining seats at the decision-making table,” says Yasmine. “Yet, not all of us can speak up, not all of us are heard, not all of us are seen. Stories remain untold. The road for inclusion is still long and it’s time that we reflect on the invisible youth, the ones that have no means or hope to engage”.

The Forus Enabling Environment study calls for the inclusion of civil society in policy dialogues especially in rural and regional settings, in local languages and using diverse and locally appropriate technologies.

Only 7,5% of NGO platforms indicated that their governments effectively support civil society organisations with more limited capacities and resources.

This needs to change. Promoting a healthy civil society means protecting fundamental human rights, essential to the creation and maintenance of civic space, but more importantly of a healthy and just society.

The new report by Forus , Cooperation Canada and AidWatch Canada was produced with the financial support from Bread for the World and the French Development Agency.

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Excerpt:

Jose Luis Coral, a farmer practicing family agriculture in Colombia. Credit: Bibbi Abruzzini, Both Nomads, a multimedia studio based in Brussels

By Bibbi Abruzzini
BRUSSELS, Nov 9 2020 (IPS)

I am speaking with Gladys and Raúl about civic space in Paraguay, when Raúl suddenly tells me about the fires. Thick smoke has reached the capital Asunción where he is based. In October, Paraguay became Dante’s Inferno.

Wildfires broke out across the country, with drought and record high temperatures drying its rivers and lands. Most of the fires concentrated in the vulnerable Chaco region in the west of the country. Though the Amazon gets most of the attention, other irreplaceable forests in Latin America are also under great threat.

According to Earthside, the dry forests of the Gran Chaco are disappearing faster than any other forests on Earth. By 2016, Paraguay had lost an area of forest larger than Switzerland. This trend accelerated again in 2019. That year, every two minutes, a patch of forest the size of a football pitch was bulldozed.

Raúl sends me a video on WhatsApp of a man burning land to clear it for cattle ranching. Studies have shown that no commodities in the world are more responsible for deforestation than Paraguayan beef and leather. And what is the main destination for leather? Some of Europe’s largest tanneries in Italy.

During undercover visits, Paraguayan tanneries bragged of supplying leather to several famous car manufacturers, including BMW models and the Range Rover Evoque.

“Everything in Paraguay has to do with the climate crisis. At the moment, the middle-class doesn’t seem to suffer as much from it, but the reality is that whether you live in the big residential area or in the countryside, just like covid, the climate crisis doesn’t discriminate, it’s going to affect us all”

“We are seeing it now in Paraguay with the fires and the extreme droughts. Some of these phenomena were cyclical and normal but now they are increasingly anomalous and profound,” says Gladys. She works at POJOAJU, the platform for NGOs in Paraguay, along with Raul.

“GDP growth doesn’t equal with sustainable development. POJOAJU the name of our organization means manos juntas (hands together). We want a horizontal cooperation, a responsible cooperation, with sustainable development at its core. We don’t need to reactivate the economy, we need to deconstruct it.”

Land-grabbing and “development done wrong”, are increasing inequalities, having disastrous effects on biodiversity, and impacting negatively on Paraguay’s indigenous peoples, the Ayoreo Totobiegosode, whose numbers include the last ‘uncontacted’ peoples in Latin America outside the Amazon.

“Indigenous people are basically being wiped out; their lands usurped. We are going backwards in terms of the environment, our mountains are burning, we are aggressing nature,” Raúl explains.

But this triggers even bigger questions: who is benefiting from the current economic and development model? If it’s difficult to influence businesses operating in Paraguay, there are some critical institutions that need to hear our voices: public development banks.

From Europe to the Americas, from Asia and Africa, these financial institutions play a crucial role. Nearly 450 public development banks controlling approximately $2 trillion in public money will convene at the Finance in Common Summit, held in Paris from November 10-12.

Activists, civil society and environmental campaigners are calling for a radical transformation, and a much less “Westernised” approach to financing for development. Public development banks must not repeat the errors of the past, they can be part of the solution.

Development at All Costs

But let’ start from the very beginning. Here’s the definition from the Cambridge Dictionary. Development: defined as the process in which someone or something grows or changes and becomes more advanced. Yet, how many of us seriously question the terms and practices linked to “development”?

Growing up in Brussels, it was a buzzword that I would often hear, moving smoothly from mouths to ears, finding a righteous place in the meeting rooms of the European bubble. “Development projects”, “development finance”, “development agency”.

Always associated with the idea of progress, of things moving inevitably forward. It echoes evolution, and the natural progression of humans towards higher goals, higher dimensions. It’s linked to expansion, to exploration, to wanting more. The term itself promises something good, something superior. Development at all costs.

Talking to communities around the world we see a dichotomy between the Development Dream, its definition, and its impact. Imagine if your house had to be destroyed for a new road to be built. Wouldn’t you and your community want to have a say before it’s too late?

This issue is linked to power, democracy and transparency and it’s a matter that touches every single one of us as citizens – whether we want to admit it or not. We don’t have to look too far. Think of the thousands of people in Italy fiercely opposing a high-speed train project to the French city of Lyon, as they see it as a waste of public funds. You probably have a development project that is affecting – maybe positively, maybe negatively – your community as you read these words.

Questions need to be asked: Where does public money go? Who decides what development looks like and why? And finally, what are the alternatives to our current development models?

“The most important thing is to get close to the reality of the people, of communities. It’s not about technological innovation or about progress, it’s about knowledge,” says Pina Huaman, from ANC, the national platform of NGOs in Peru.

“I remember being in Lima at the International Monetary Fund meeting and the presenter from Mexico was telling all participants about the Peruvian miracle of economic growth. And the first reflex we had as civil society working in the field was to ask, “what miracle are you talking about?”

In the words of Teresa, from Fundación Otras Voces in Argentina, “we need to shift from ego to eco, from power over people, to power with the people”. We cannot talk about financing for development if it’s not responsive to the needs and demands of climate, gender equality, human rights, indigenous communities and biodiversity.

Being part of the development history of a country, whether in Paraguay, Peru or Italy, comes with great responsibility. We need dialogue with communities, not impositions. Few injustices have so far-stretched repercussions as development gone wrong.

The Other Side of Development

CODE-NGO, a network of NGOs in the Philippines, has a message for public development banks meeting in Paris in a couple of days: to put “social development” first.

“Financing economic development projects is not enough; it is only one side of the coin. Financing infrastructure projects may result in economic growth, but at what cost to the only planet we live on, or to people who can be adversely affected by such projects? We can look at practices that both drive economic growth and help our planet and people live at the same time.

We can build roads that do not damage ecosystems, and we can harness sources of energy such as wind and solar power instead of burning fossil fuels that are near depletion,” says Deanie Lyn Ocampo, Deputy Executive Director at CODE-NGO.

In the Philippines, asking for different models of development is risky, many human rights defenders, journalists, civil society organisations and even local residents are stigmatized and attacked for speaking up. At least 272 environmental defenders were killed between 2001 and 2019, according to the Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment, a network of Philippine environmental organizations.

At global level, a recent Forus study conducted in 18 different countries, shows the disturbing reality of civil society facing increasingly serious restrictions on its freedom to engage, express itself and be heard.

To highlight often objectionable development approaches and insist on positive alternatives, civil society organisations published a joint statement calling on public development banks to incorporate human rights, disinvestment from fossil fuels and community-led development in the agenda and outcomes of the Finance in Common summit. Let’s start meaningfully engaging with those most affected by development activities.

If you could ask something of public development banks, what would that be? How can we promote new approaches to economic development that prioritise human rights and planetary well-being over financial interests and economic growth? How can public-private partnerships trigger the multiplying effects needed in communities? How can we create a more robust, just, ethical and equitable social-ecological economies?

We might not have all the answers, but we should at least ask these important questions.

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