Challenges and victories of civil society in 2024: an insight from CIVICUS

An Insight on CIVICUS

CIVICUS consists of a global alliance of civil society organisations and activists devoted to reinforcing citizen action and civil society around the world. A worldwide community of informed, inspired, engaged citizens since 1983, it is a membership alliance with more than 15,000 members in more than 175 countries. 

CIVICUS’ definition of civil society is as broad as its membership. The alliance pursues its comprehensive goal of strengthening civil society and citizen action for expanded civic and democratic space through five core objectives: creating prompt knowledge and analysis, organising targeted advocacy; committing to more powerful emergency and sustained support ecosystems, reinforcing public discourse on civic space and strengthening civil society narrations, and creating resistance with the most targeted groups and their movements.

CIVICUS’ Global Annual Publications: State of Civil Society Report and CIVICUS Monitor’s People Power Under Attack Report

Every year, CIVICUS publishes their two global publications: the State of Civil Society Report and CIVICUS Monitor’s People Power Under Attack Report. 

The State of Civil Society Report is the annual publication at the core of CIVICUS, providing each year a complete vision of the key trends in citizen movements and civil society organisations (CSOs). 

In addition, since 2017 CIVICUS has its own CIVICUS monitor, a participatory research platform and tool which observes the state of freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression in 198 countries and territories.The data gathered by the CIVICUS Monitor throughout the year from country-focused civil society organisations, regionally-based research teams, international human rights indices and the CIVICUS Monitor’s in-house experts, is used to present one of the annual CIVICUS reports, People Power Under Attack. The information from these four different sources is combined to determine each country and territory’s rating in one of the five following categories: open, narrowed, obstructed, repressed or closed.

For the year 2023, in addition to its People Power Under Attack Report 2023, CIVICUS has also published an historical report on civic space between 2019 and 2023, Rights Reversed: A downward shift in civic space, identifying seven key trends in civic space.

State of Civil Society Report 2024

In its State of Civil Society Report 2024, the 13th in its annual series, CIVICUS highlights several conflicts and crises, the desperate need for global governance, climate repression, the state of democracy, and resistance against regression in gender themes. Throughout the report, the efforts of civil society are underlined and emphasised, particularly regarding the several crises and conflicts plaguing our world.

Conflict and crisis: a world in disarray

The state of the world through conflict
Gaza lists as the top conflict in the report: more than 30 000 killings at the present moment, with Israel pursuing a collective punishment of Gazans for the attacks committed by Hamas and other groups on 7 October. The report clearly identifies this action as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. Civil society’s efforts to offer humanitarian help are being undermined by the Israeli government, who continues to block aid at the border. This hostile view on humanitarian aid produces negative consequences not only for the civilians, but also for the humanitarian aid workers themselves: the report underlines at least 167 deaths of aid workers, the highest number of any conflict this century. Even if civil society is crucial, its work is currently undermined by the suspension and/or revision of the support to CSOs, a practice followed by European states with the argument that the financial help might be used for terrorism. The rest of the world has protested and continues to be engaged in solidarity actions for the Palestinians, but unfortunately authorities are repressive and politicians identify these protests as anti semitic or pro-terrorism. In reality, restrictions to protests aren’t the only strategy to divert people from criticising the actions of the Israeli government, as the list is long: harassment and intimidation of pro-Palestine groups, reducing the media appearances of critics of Israel, menacing universities of cutting financial support, and censorship and shadow banning of  Palestinian and pro-Palestine posts. States like the US. France and the UK have been trying to limit BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) efforts, with the adoption of anti-BDS laws and bills. Nevertheless, civil society continues to push international organisations and states to appeal for a ceasefire. One successful occasion was the lawsuit filed by three CSO in the Netherlands, which resulted in a court order for the Dutch government to cease the export of parts for F-35 fighter planes to Israel.

Russia's war on Ukraine, since February 2024 in its third year, counts with more than 10,000 killings. Civil society efforts are present in both countries. In Ukraine, civil society is conducting many activities to help civilians: evacuation and rehabilitation of people, restoration of buildings, but also reporting and collecting documentation on Russia’s crimes, as the Tribunal for Putin (T4P), which is developing an evidence base that could useful for international bodies like the International Criminal Court (ICC). Additionally, civil society is utilising online tools to monitor public spending, as it is committed to ensuring a corruption-free reconstruction of Ukraine. Nevertheless, people’s proneness to volunteering has dropped considerably since the beginning of the war, when it reached around 80%. In Russia, however, impeding the efforts of civil society is one of Putin’s goals. This is achieved through many means, for example the criminalisation of protests: the report underlines 19,855 people detained at anti-war protests, 897 criminal cases against anti-war activists and 51 new coercive laws. The event that is currently shocking the world is the questionable death of Alexei Navalny in an Arctic penal colony, which was followed by several vigils across the country. In addition to criminalising protests, Russia has also been attacking independent media outlets and human rights organisations such as Meduza and the Moscow Helsinki Group, respectively; and identifying people and organisations as “foreign agents”, in order to associate them with espionage. The fact that Russia is being supported by China, India and Turkey makes it difficult to isolate Russia financially in what the report defines as a “war economy”. Even with the support to continue the war, the morale among Russian troops is allegedly poor and their families have protested to call for the end of the war.

Given the importance and global media coverage in Gaza and Ukraine, many other conflicts are being forgotten. This is the case of the civil war in Sudan, which since its beginning in April 2023 has initiated an immense humanitarian crisis that has spread across the neighbouring countries. We are in the presence of a battle for sovereignty between two competing rivals that has extended to different parts of Sudan; a country whose civil society is very heterogeneous, with some people being involved in political processes supporting the transitional administration created after the 2021 coup, others being part of CSOs defending human rights, and others part of resistance committees, which are essentially neighbourhood groups who played a very important part in the 2019 revolution. Even with the initiative of these resistance committees to create a plan for transition, there is not support nationally or internationally to a “democratic civilian rule”, as the report underlines. Attacking civilians is a common strategy by the militias: the UN has documented over 12,000 killings and 7.76 million displacements since April 2023. Sudan is now the world’s country with the highest number of displaced people, and to make the situation worse, the government has ended the mandate of the UN Integrated Assistance Mission in Sudan.

Military rule is a constant in the Sahel. The report underlines that Russian mercenaries are allegedly present in 18 African countries, as many states in the region have been distancing themselves from their former connections with ex-colonial states, particularly France. There is, however, a clear distancing from the West, which also includes UN Bodies, as a consequence of the inefficacy in resolving the security crises. Russia figures as an alternative for Africans, which is proved by a high public encouragement for military coups and fluctuation towards Russia. In 2023, Niger became controlled by the military: social movements protested the French withdrawal and people commemorated the coup by wielding Russian flags. In Myanmar, a country affected by a military coup three years ago, there is a persistent conflict. In numbers, by the end of 2023 the country registered over 2.6 million displaced people, 18.6 million people in need of humanitarian help, and the arrest or detainment of at least 142 aid workers in the last year. In addition, from February 2024 military service is now compulsory for young people. After the end of the long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in September 2023, a series of issues need to be resolved: Armenia now has a new population group, over 100,000 people, that do not intend to return to Azerbaijan. In addition, international intervention does not figure as a valid option, as Azerbaijan, the host country of the COP29, uses its oil wealth to strengthen its relations with European states, and project a favourable image on the global scene. The report underlines the need for civil society, who played a key role during the exodus, to be allowed to be part of the solution. In Ethiopia, even with the peace deal of November 2022, violence has not stopped: rape and sexual violence are a constant; and there is a booming food crisis. The UN Commission’s mandate has highlighted that the transitional justice process does not correspond to the international standards, even if the Ethiopian government wants to portray the image that the conflict is concluded. Additionally, the announced agreement in January 2024 with Somaliland and the possibility of Ethiopia recognising Somaliland might intensify regional tensions. In Haiti, gangs control around half of the country and violence has proliferated as one of the main tactics for installing fear, particularly systematic sexual violence. This type of violence is not only used by gangs: the 2004-2017 UN peacekeeping operation was accused of sexual abuse and a cholera crisis; additionally, international civil society groups have also been condemned for adopting an authoritarian approach. The humanitarian situation is critical, as there is limited access to food, water, and other basic necessities, and the weakness of the criminal justice system is reflected in the lack of reported prosecutions. Haiti civil society suggests a broad-based transitional government, but its role is being set aside by international organisations, international civil society, as well as by the government and other countries.

The geography of displacement
This section of the report also highlights the current global matter of displacement, which is accompanied by a denial of states to recognize the trend. Migration is specifically cited. Europe is associated with double standards, with European states, for the most part, generally welcoming displaced people by Russia's war on Ukraine, but showing racism to all the other migrants, especially Black and Brown people originary from the global south. The most concerning trend in the region is “offshoring migration”, a practice followed by the UK with its Rwanda plan, but also by other states in other equally preoccupying ways: Italy’s deal with Albania in November 2023 to relocate migrants in exchange for funding and helping Albania to become a member state of the EU; Germany’s social benefit reductions for asylum seekers; and Greece’s continuous attempts to restrict the work of civil society to aid migrants and refugees. All these anti-migrant discourses are used by governments as tactics to gain public support before elections. There resides the challenge for civil society. The report underlines the recent agreement by EU states to implement a Migration Pact, which would result in the creation of detention centres at borders and allowing faster deportations; and the rising number of people that have been making the Atlantic journey from West Africa. In the Americas, the report highlights USA’s exacerbation of the politicisation of migration, with Republican governors of southern states trying to relocate new migrants to other cities managed by Democrats. Migrants more and more follow other dangerous routes, such as the Darién Gap, an area that connects Panama and Colombia, and even routes by sea, such as a new trafficking route in the Caribbean Sea via the Bahamas. In the Global South, the area in the world most affected by migration and displacement (both inside and across borders displacement), there are some disturbing signs, more specifically the increasing blame attributed to migrants for social and economic challenges and the disrespect of humanitarian practices by some governments. For example, in October 2023 Pakistan instructed around 1.7 million undocumented refugees to leave. This is very preoccupying, as around four million Afghan refugees live in the country. The report cites Turkey and Lebanon for their xenophobia towards Syrian refugees, as well as the new deal between the EU and the Tunisian government to give the country funding of around US$1.1 billion in order to limit migration and return Tunisian migrants currently living in EU countries.

CIVICUS’ call for including civil society in conflict solutions
Highlighting the fact that several categories of people, especially the more vulnerable ones, were and still are affected by the numerous conflicts worldwide, whether as calculated targets or as side-effect victims, the report once more emphasises how civil society is not heard when it comes to conflict resolution, as elites are privileged in this debate. According to CIVICUS, civil society could be part of a new and inclusive way to deal with conflict resolution, as the old strategies evidently aren’t working.

Global governance: reform desperately needed

In its section “Global governance: reform desperately needed”, CIVICUS underlines the international inaction in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the ICJ and the UNRWA in spotlight; the selection of members through non-competitive elections in international bodies; the rejection of scrutiny in the global governance system; the little progress on the SDGs; the exclusion of civil society at the UNGA; BRICS and the changing international order; civil society’s work to shape the rules; and the UN reform.

Regarding the impunity in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Security Council passed its first resolution on the assault on Gaza 6 weeks after the killings, on 15 November. In the meantime, more than 10,00 people had been killed by Israeli forces. On 22 December, after the UN Secretary-General António Guterres invoked the rarely used mechanism of the article 99 of the UN Charter, a second resolution was approved calling for safe, immediate and unimpeded humanitarian access to address the scale of the crisis, and demanded the UN to play a key role in organising humanitarian assistance. None of the proposals received unanimous approval. The November vote marked the first time the Security Council passed a resolution addressing Israel-Palestine relations since 2016. Ever since, the United States has used its veto to impede action. Israel's swift response in November was to declare that it would dismiss the resolution.

The same situation can be identified with Russia’s war on Ukraine, as Russia systematically uses its veto power to prevent any decision on the war. This impasse pushes a Security Council reform debate, and civil society wants to be part of it. Some of civil society’s proposals include the creation of protocols to moderate and reduce veto use, as well as enhanced accountability and wider access proof and documentation. But political will remains lacking, as the resolution supporting a humanitarian ceasefire was not approved by unanimity and, in addition to USA’s objection, several global north countries abstained.

Double standards have also been verified in South Africa’s case brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention. The decision of the ICJ required Israel to play an active role in preventing genocide and bringing justice to the victims, as well as allowing humanitarian access, but global north countries have shown hypocrisy towards the situation. Another case of double standards was Israel’s allegations that some of the UNRWA staff had participated in attacks on Israel people perpetrated by Hamas and other groups on 7 October. As a result, 18 countries have withdrawn their funding to UNRWA, particularly some of its biggest funders like Germany and USA, which put in danger the survival of around two-million plus Gazans who relied on the agency’s work.

Another key concern is the lack of UN funding for human rights, one of the three pillars of the UN, which represents only 4.3 percent of UN’s regular budget. In fact, in January 2024, several UN offices in Geneva faced a liquidity crisis and declared a temporary shutdown, unable to cover heating costs. Other relevant challenges throughout the year included the selection of members through non-competitive elections, namely the Security Council’s non-permanent members and the Human Rights Council; the rising boldness of some repressive states like Ethiopia, Sudan, and Venezuela of declining the collaborating with multilateral bodies which try to hold them responsible; regarding SGDs, little progress has been made in 2023, a year which marked the midway point: UN sustains that only 15 percent of the 169 targets are on track and that in 2030 the number of people living in extreme poverty and in extreme hunger will be very similar to the data in 2025, 575 million and 600 million people respectively. Civil society doesn’t have the necessary space to pressure international organisations to meet the  SDGs, being excluded from the supervision of performance. Even with Guterres SDG stimulus plan, which would consist of a US$500 billion budget to help reach the targets, the leaders of some of the major economies do not seem inclined to give SDGs a high priority. Additionally, civil society is excluded from many UN realities, something which assumes relevance in the ECOSOC annual session, the body which has the role of deciding which CSOs received accreditation. Last year, only 214 applications from a total of 560 were approved.

Regarding the BRICS and the G20, two events have shown that human rights are not the priority. In August 2023, the BRICS summit agreed on the admission of six new members to the Brazil, India, Russia, China and South Africa titular line-up. In January 2024, five countries with severely restricted civic space - Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia - formally joined the BRICS. In which concerns G20, the 2023 summit was hosted by India, in an attempt to position the country as a global power and reflecting the state centrism of international relations.

Civil society has been working to incentivize the establishment of new global rules, mainly in the form of international treaties, something it has already done in the past. CIVICUS highlights civil society’s efforts concerning environmental treaties (the Oceans Treaty and the Plastics Treaty), the Pandemic treaty, the creation of a global tax framework and the development of a binding international treaty on business and human rights, as well as civil society’s concerns regarding the UN Treaty on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes, known as the Cybercrime Convention.

Concerning the UN reform, civil society is currently working in the preparatory process for the September 2024 Summit of the Future, focusing more specifically on Guterres’ New Agenda for Peace. Some of civil society’s proposals include the development of a UN parliamentary assembly to complement the GA, giving a voice also to citizens; but also using digital technologies to expand participation, establishing an annual civil society day to reflect on civil society’s engagement in the UN, and the nomination of a UN civil society envoy.

Climate change: repression as denial

Climate change is one of the main themes in the report, and the COP28 climate summit was particularly emphasised, although the reasons are not particularly positive. In short, the report underlines the fact that the venue chosen for the summit was the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a pretrostate, and that COP29 will be hosted by Azerbaijan. On a more positive note, as a result of civil society’s advocacy, the summit’s final declaration accepted, for the first time,  the necessity to move away from fossil fuels. Unfortunately, the fact that decisions at COPS are based on consensus meant that the final declaration only included the commitment to “transition away from” them, as only 130 out of UNFCC 198 parties supported the idea of discontinuing the practice of fossil fuels. Moreover, at least 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists were present in the COP28 climate summit, and the leader of the summit  was Sultan al-Jaber, head of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), a decision highly criticised by many members of civil society. Additionally, civil society is concerned that the fund proposed by states to help global south countries for all the damages caused by climate change might be hosted by the World Bank, given its high costs for overseeing funds and its bad human rights and environmental record. Civil society and global south countries’ calls for more funding for adaptation seems to have been left unheard at COP28, and hypocrisy of global north states remains a current narrative, as they seem to expect that global south countries will quickly adapt to problems not created by them, and that they will embrace renewable energy immediately. COP28 also failed in recognizing the role of environmental and land rights defenders, which were omitted in the final text. It is equally a matter of concern that civil society events occurred in isolated spaces, far from the summit’s meetings, and were accompanied by protest restrictions, particularly during lunch breaks (normally a period of interaction between delegates and civil society), given the high heat levels.

Outside the COP bubble, civil society continues to take action for the environment. Actions include protests, national and transnational advocacy. In response, states respond to climate activists with backlash, namely through threats, harassment, criminalisation and suppression of protests, physical aggression, among others, even in countries with generally open civic space. Some of these countries are global countries, increasingly accused of criminalisation of climate activists, such as Germany and The Netherlands. This was one of the key reasons for Germany’s civic space downgrade from open to narrowared country in 2023, as highlighted by the CIVICUS Monitor.

Latin America is considered the most lethal region for killings of environmental defenders, registering 88 percent of killings in 2022, according to the latest information available. On a more positive note, civil society had a victory in 2023 in Ecuador, where citizens voted in two referendums to stop two extractive projects: metal mining in the Andean Chocó and oil exploitation in Yasuni National Park, considered a key Indigenous territory. The last one represented the first example in the world of people voting to keep fossil fuels in the ground. In Africa, the most concerning example is the proposal of construction of a 1,500 km-long East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) interconnecting Uganda and Tanzania, which resulted in violent repression of climate and environmental activists. In Asia, authoritarian regimes like Vietnam view environmental activists as menaces to their industrialisation and extraction interests. In September 2024, the climate activist Hòang Th. Minh H.ng was sentenced to three years in jail for bogus tax evasion charges, a common tactic to distance critics.

Regarding legal actions against states, there were some positive results and initiatives: for example, in November 2023, the Belgian authorities received a cut target on binding emissions by the Brussels Court of Appeal. Another example is the case of six young Portuguese activities brought to the European Court of Human Rights against 32 European governments.

Democracy: contested territory

Democracy remains a contested territory in several countries, with military rule becoming a norm in Central and West Africa, where Gabon and Niger joined the group of military dictatorships. In 2023, some authoritarian regimes reinforced their power, such as Iran, Bahrain, Nicaragua and Venezuela. In Iran, civil society kept resisting with small acts of insubordination, some of them regarding hair, dress and behaviour rules; in Bahrain, civil society took the occasion of the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s global assembly in March 2023, which the country hosted, to demand the release of political prisoners and denounce systemic human rights violations; in Nicaragua and Venezuela, the government pushed repression even harder in moments of high discontent.In Nicaragua, this happened in 2018, when as a result of the government’s decision of changing the social security system, a mass of protest invaded the streets. The government heavily repressed protesters, killed hundreds, and over 150,00 Nicaraguans fled to exile, mostly to Costa Rica. In Venezuela, following the government’s decision of taking the powers of an opposition-majority National Assembly, there were numerous protests, severely repressed by authorities: dozens of deaths, hundreds injured, almost 2,000 detained are some of the numbers. Additionally, the government also initiated a “war” on civil society, drafting a NGO law enhancing the control, restriction and eventually closing CSOs contrary to the government.

When in exile, civil society activists, political dissidents, and journalists remain active, even if several authoritarian states are guilty of transnational repression. Between 2014 and 2022, the top five perpetrators of transnational repression were China, Turkey, Tajikistan, Egypt and Russia, succeeded by Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Belarus and Rwanda. These states represented 80 percent of registered cases of transnational repression. Abroad, activists resist by documenting human rights violations to bodies such as the Human Rights Council, participate in international forums, form strong networks, and embrace digital security measures. In 2023, several authoritarian regimes reinforced their power through repressive elections. Some examples include Cambodia and Zimbabwe, in which elections were conducted without no competition and through the use of several tricks, respectively. Nevertheless, in many countries civil society continued to alert the international community about fake elections and asked for a delegitimization of authoritarian regimes. Even though repressive elections in authoritarian states were relevant, 2023 elections in hybrid regimes, a reality identifiable in every continent, were also part of the picture. These regimes, which integrate both democratic and authoritarian elements, often conduct elections which aren’t completely fair. For example, in El Salvador, the highly popular president Nayib Bukele won the elections in 2024, even though he shouldn’t have participated in the first place, as presidents in Salvador have a one-term limit. Bukele was able to run as he violated the constitution through judicial manipulation. The rise of the far right all around the world has been responsible for enhancing polarisation. Particularly in Europe, the far right has promoted the denial of several human rights problems, such as gender diversity, migration, climate change, institutional racism, among others. Nevertheless, the far right has also seen some obstacles, mainly in Poland and in Spain. In Poland, the right-wing nationalists Law and Justice party (PiS) was unable to form a government after losing its majority. In Spain, Vox has lost more than half of its seats in the last elections, and it didn’t form a government with the conservative Popular Party. Another important theme underlined by CIVICUS are the challenges related to AI. Since several countries are holding elections in 2024, particularly those countries highly populated, AI has the potential to greatly influence the outcomes. The power of AI has been seen in the USA, even if election season has not yet started. Before the New Hampshire primaries in January, an AI-generated robocall mimicking President Joe Biden advised electors not to vote and instead save their vote for the general election. Civil society is doing what is possible to counter this tendency, mainly through strategies like fact checking, creating media literacy education campaigns, encouraging local journalism, among others, as well as demanding more efficient international AI regulation.

Gender struggles: Resistance against regression

The section “Gender struggles: resistance against regression” underlines the current state of global gender equality and gender policies. Most specifically, CIVICUS highlights the predominance of gender-based violence as one of the main topics of the 2023 agenda: femicides continue to happen, with Latin American countries reporting record numbers last year. Most concerningly, in 2023 there was no country close to eradicating intimate relationship violence.

Women’s movements and women’s rights organisations have once again brought the theme of gender-based violence to International Women’s Days events in Asia, Latin America and Europe. The events acquired particular relevance in Mexico, Italy, Turkey and Pakistan. The 25th of November has also been very relevant, with women mobilising in several Latin American countries, but also in several French, Italian and Spanish cities, urging states to boost their efforts and resources to stop violence and assist survivors. The #Metoo movement had a prominent role again in 2023, particularly in Spain, following the case of the non-consensual public kissing by the president of the Spanish Football Federation during the Women’s World Cup. Opinions on the occurrence were mixed, with some “men’s rights” influencers criticising the condemnation and highlighting it was exaggerated. Advocates and “men’s rights' ' influencers are on the rise according to CIVICUS, a trend particularly growing in Latin America, Africa and Asia, in addition to Europe and North America. Afghanistan and Iran witnessed the most acute anti-women persecution in 2023. Unfortunately, the international community has remained passive regarding these two cases. Iranian and Afghan women nevertheless have proposed the expansion of the 1973 UN Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid to include gender apartheid as a crime under international law, which would include all the severe types of everyday gender prejudice and exclusion. Regarding abortion, CIVICUS underlines that, despite the advancements in over 60 countries, four countries have been following the opposite direction throughout the years: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Poland, and the USA.. By the end of 2023, 14 states had total abortion bans and seven had limited access. LGBTQI+ rights have been seeing some progress in the years, a progression that normally goes hand in hand with those in women’s rights. Regarding some data, today 65 countries and territories still criminalise private, consensual, same-sex sexual activity, particularly between men. Same-sex marriage is legal in 37 countries, with Greece and Estonia being the last ones to be added to the list. On the other hand, regarding anti-trans policies, the USA took the frontline in 2023, 506 anti-LGBTQI+ bills were presented, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The report further underlines the LGBTQI+ situation in the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and Europe.