CIVIL SOCIETY: THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES
Despite today’s many challenges, civil society continues to strive on all fronts, combining advocacy, protests, online campaigns, strategic litigation, international diplomacy and every other tactic imaginable. In a world overwhelmed by disinformation, civil society’s truth telling serves as a crucial counterforce to the false narratives that sow division and mobilise hatred towards excluded groups. As recognition grows about the interconnectedness and transnational nature of today’s challenges, civil society is increasingly emphasising solidarity actions that transcend national boundaries and connect diverse struggles across different contexts.
Even in difficult circumstances, civil society achieved notable successes in 2024. On women’s and girl’s rights, these include victories on child marriage in Colombia and Sierra Leone, and on FGM in The Gambia. On LGBTQI+ rights, civil society’s campaigning led to breakthroughs on equal marriage in Greece and Thailand.
People defended democracy by taking to the streets in South Korea to resist martial law, ousting Bangladesh’s authoritarian government, ensuring the election result was respected in Guatemala, and pushing for the election to be held as scheduled in Senegal.
Climate and environmental legal victories in Ecuador, India and Switzerland forced governments to recognise the human rights impacts of climate change and do more to reduce emissions and curb pollution. Similar tactics are now exerting moral pressure on governments that supply arms to Israel.
Civil society’s struggles are getting harder due to a collapsing funding environment, with the USAID freeze part of a broader retreat from global solidarity. Several governments, including those of Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK, as well as the EU, are cutting back the international aid that helps sustain civil society and redirecting their international support towards narrow national interests, reflecting growing preoccupations with defence, trade advantages and migration control. Many governments have introduced hostile laws that make it harder for CSOs to receive funding or vilify them for doing so. Many CSOs now face an existential threat, and this must prompt an urgent search for new models of resourcing to support civil society’s vital work.
In these volatile and unpredictable times, civil society must keep carrying the torch of hope that a more peaceful, just, equitable and sustainable world remains possible, even when many of those in power are moving in the wrong direction. Resilience, resistance and radical optimism are needed more than ever before. Though victory may seem distant and elusive, civic action remains important because it nurtures hope, imagines new possibilities and unites those who dream of change. If civil society perseveres, even in the most difficult of circumstances, then moments of change will come, providing stepping stones toward possibilities of greater transformation.