Strengthen the civil society ecosystem
Building a resilient civil society ecosystem requires balancing immediate emergency response with long-term sustainability, creating robust structures that can weather authoritarian storms while providing rapid assistance to organisations under attack, nurturing the conditions for movements to flourish and expand their impact.
As civic space conditions continued to worsen, we intensified our emergency support to civil society groups facing threats through multiple funding mechanisms. Through our Crisis Response Fund under the Flexible Support Mechanism, we supported nine active partners in countries including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Nigeria and the Republic of the Congo, driving urgent advocacy and public engagement efforts. We issued 13 additional grants to local groups addressing restrictive laws, digital surveillance, anti-rights narratives and violence against excluded groups.
Through the Digital Democracy Initiative Crisis Response Fund, we awarded 16 grants to partners in 12 countries: Burundi, the DRC, Indonesia, Mali, Nicaragua, Nigeria, the Philippines, Rwanda, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo and Uganda. Our National Prevention and Proactive Grants in Sierra Leone and Zambia enabled partners to take proactive action to address restrictive laws and prevent further deterioration of civic space.
These interventions delivered results. Notable examples include SpaceUG, Uganda’s first-ever digital civic engagement platform that provides a secure space for people and organisations to report violations, and a youth-led digital campaign in Tanzania on freedom of speech and internet shutdowns that reached over eight million people. In Benin, an LGBTQI+ organisation developed innovative guidance to strengthen financial security for grassroots organisations. We provided legal and protection support to a women’s rights organisation in Eswatini facing office shutdowns and staff harassment, emergency funding and relocation assistance for human rights defenders in Ethiopia experiencing digital surveillance and at risk of arrest and digital security support for an activist network in Myanmar targeted for online surveillance. Thanks to Digital Democracy Initiative support, Reach Out Tanzania trained 75 groups to mitigate internet shutdowns using tools such as VPNs and offline documentation apps, resulting in an 80 per cent increase in participant knowledge of digital resilience practices. In Uganda, Key Populations Uganda empowered over 20 LGBTQI+ activists with digital security, legal literacy and media advocacy skills, leading to a 70 per cent reduction in online harassment and the launch of five counter-narrative campaigns that reached over 100 people each.
Beyond direct support, we strengthened the broader protection ecosystem by partnering with the Community of Practice led by the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights and joined the Steering Committee of the Building Resilience Together Network, both focused on ensuring more robust and responsive protection mechanisms and ecosystems for human rights defenders.
We also supported partners to attend forums such as the 2024 African Philanthropy Network Assembly in Zimbabwe and the 2025 Africa Xchange conference on African philanthropy ecosystems in Kenya.
Participating in these forums has a significant impact on our work. It encourages us to adopt more inclusive, partnership-driven approaches, embrace flexibility in programme design, and prioritise solutions that are locally led and contextually relevant.
 Hannah Baluka, Africa Xchange participant
Grassroots digital support
The Digital Democracy Initiative enabled historically excluded communities, including rural populations, women, young people, Indigenous peoples and LGBTQI+ people, to strengthen their digital literacy and use context-specific digital solutions for governance challenges.
The inaugural Digital Action Lab cohort included eight organisations from Colombia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Nepal, Nigeria, Venezuela and Zambia. Participating groups launched civic education platforms, improved their digital security and used AI tools and digital storytelling to amplify advocacy campaigns. Civics Public Foundation prepared expert-led online courses in the Kyrgyz language to enhance civic knowledge. Development 360 established a digital governance hub in Zambia, enrolling 300 young people in a Leadership Academy that provides digital skills, leadership training and civic education. Freedom Studio Nepal developed a digital platform and learning resources to equip activists with tools for nonviolent resistance and strategic mobilisation.
We organised two hackathons in Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa, engaging 430 people from local and regional groups across six global regions in co-design workshops. These efforts generated ideas that were refined into 12 prototypes, with two prototypes, one financial and one non-financial, implemented in each region.
The Consortium to Promote Human Rights, Civic Freedoms and Media Development (CHARM) also held a human rights hackathon with the aim of creating innovative digital tools to break down barriers and enable wider access to essential human rights knowledge and legal resources.
Four election grants supported organisations in Ghana, Mozambique, Tunisia and Venezuela. In Ghana, BudgIT deployed digital tools for electoral mapping and voter education. In Mozambique, UNE trained 70 youth leaders in digital electoral integrity, leading to youth issues being included in party manifestos. Tunisia’s I Watch created a disinformation dashboard and fact-checked over 145 news items, reaching more than 209,000 people. In Venezuela, Fundación Efecto Cocuyo published 94 election-related articles and hosted live interviews that were viewed over 118,000 times.
The Local Leadership Labs challenged transactional funding practices by redistributing power to local civil society and creating spaces for authentic community leadership. We demonstrated practical respect for local organisations’ time and agency through intentional practices: scheduling meetings that work for partners’ contexts, providing stipends to acknowledge their contributions, assuming administrative burdens and fostering environments where disagreement and critical reflection could emerge safely.
Naomi Ayot, CAPAIDS Uganda
This approach yielded significant results that validate community-led models. In Nigeria, our partnership with the African Foundation for Environment and Development enabled grassroots advocacy that produced measurable policy change. When community members discovered irregularities in hospital fee collection systems, they used their newly developed capacity to engage government institutions directly. Their systematic documentation and strategic advocacy resulted in policy revisions and new requirements for health service providers.
The Nelson Mandela-Graça Machel Innovation Awards underwent a fundamental transformation, reflecting our approach to building more resilient and participatory networks. For the first time in its 20-year history, past recipients co-designed the awards process, attracting a record-breaking 800-plus applications from 76 countries. The selection process became a capacity-strengthening exercise, with alumni serving as mentors and community builders who continue to support emerging innovations long after the awards ceremony.
The five winners represent innovative approaches to pressing social challenges across different regions and sectors. ACT Ubumbano from South Africa challenges traditional aid dynamics by placing solidarity at the centre of philanthropic practice. Digital Woman Uganda developed a technology platform that provides anonymous, accessible support for survivors of gender-based violence in rural areas. In the DRC, Guerschom Gobouang uses slam poetry and artistic expression to mobilise youth civic engagement and reclaim public spaces. Pakistan’s DASTAK Foundation reimagines climate and gender justice through an initiative that centres emotion, care and lived experience in participatory research. Sustainable Development Solutions Network Youth Philippines created a programme that has trained over 2,500 young leaders across the country.
Our investment in ecosystem strengthening reflects a fundamental shift from top-down aid models towards approaches that redistribute power, resources and decision-making authority to those closest to the challenges we seek to address. The results validate our conviction that when local communities control their own development processes, outcomes are more relevant, sustainable and transformative.