SO 4: Strengthen public discourse on civic space and reinforce civil society narratives

Through embracing innovative approaches, absorbing best practices from across sectors and building our collective capacity, we engage and promote the value of civic action among a wider global population. We will strengthen civil society and emerging movements’ ability to influence through empathy and action involving stories and strategically counter disinformation. We will continue strengthening public discourse on civil society and civic space through.

• Building pro civic space and civil society narratives: By collaborating with diverse civil society groups, grassroots activists and media allies, we will foster greater solidarity for civic action, positioning civil society as pivotal to democracy and development. We promote narratives that demonstrate the transformative power of citizen movements and counter disinformation. CIVICUS Lens and CIVICUS Monitor analyses and our advocacy efforts such as Stand as My Witness campaign and UN and global agenda setting work will form the bedrock of our global narrative work. The Nelson Mandela-Graça Machel Innovation Awards highlight civil society achievements, offering inspiration.
• Context-specific narrative work: Communicators for CIVIC Action networks in Asia, Africa, and Latin America deepen our understanding of local civic space conditions. These initiatives will help build issue-focused, locally relevant, and impactful narrative campaigns. Regional dialogues on environmental HRDs will lead to narratives on climate justice and civic space, culminating in joint actions bridging movements. The elections work developed within the framework of DDI will support democratic participation in contexts where civic space faces heightened pressure.
• Strengthening our communications capacity: We will strengthen our accessibility toolkits and revise our brand to achieve consistent, impactful, high-quality and accessible communications that benefit and engage our wide range of audiences. We will prioritize engaging audiences who struggle to access content due to limitations in resources and abilities. Vuka! narrative influence maps will help visualise power relationships affecting civic space, making complex dynamics more accessible to diverse audiences.
• Media and public engagement: We are building and renewing media partnerships and cultivating public engagement opportunities to amplify civil society voices. Beyond our existing allies and traditional media, we will engage youth, citizen journalists, and other influencers. We will leverage our flagship knowledge publications, campaigns, and ICSW to further our media outreach.
• Network storytelling: As part of the CIVICUS history documentation exercise, we are inviting all our networks – Affinity Group of National Associations (AGNA), Innovation for Change, Vuka! and the Youth Action Team (YAT) – to share their own stories. We will document their evolution and showcase successful solidarity actions that have strengthened civic space and civil society action globally over two decades. We will highlight achievements through member testimonials, publications and commemorative events.

How we will measure progress

Learning question:

How is our public discourse and media reach supporting groups affected by the combined impact of civic space restrictions and structural forms of discrimination to create change in local contexts?

Indicators:

• Number of organic conversations in media using CIVICUS content -Target: 20% Increase
• Number of media outlets mentioning CIVICUS – Target: 20% Increase from 2025 actual
• Number of media mentions of CIVICUS – Target: 20% increase
• Number of Stand as My Witness stories showcased – Target: 25
• Percentage of CIVICUS content featuring voices from target groups – Target: 50% of the content
• Audience diversity metrics for CIVICUS communications – Target: 120 countries and 50 languages