Our goal under the Defending Civic Freedoms and Space work area is to build solidarity among activists, organisations and movements across the region to defend civic freedoms, protect and expand civic space.
It is delivered through three priority intervention areas, namely: Monitoring and Protection of Civic Space, Promoting Enabling Environment for Civil Society, and, Advancing Human Rights & Gender Equality.
Monitoring & Protection of Civic Space
Our aim is to work with others to protect and defend civic space through systematic monitoring of the environment for civic space, including threats to it.
Civil Society Organisations play a vital role in the development process, conscientising citizens to participate in and shape local and national policy formulation, and oversee the implementation of development policies, and to claim their legitimate rights as citizens. The freedom to speak out, to criticize government policies, and demand government accountability accelerates political and economic progress.
Unfortunately, civil society actors are facing pushback from government locally and at national level. Attacks on civil society organisations, activists and human rights defenders continues to worsen, as government continues to create new excuses to control the enjoyment of civic freedoms such as free speech, association, and assembly, often under security pretexts.
Our approach focuses on defending civic space and civic freedoms and rights – freedom of association, expression, assembly, information, and participation through systematic monitoring of the environment for civic space including threats to it, and create public awareness of the importance of civic space.
We will continue to work with partners to resist attempts to restrict civic space. Our focus is on developing and deploying a response mechanism and providing assistance to human rights defenders.
Enabling Environment for Civil Society
In Uganda, space within which CSOs operate has come under serious pressure, thus seriously undermining the health of the civil society sector. Over the recent past, civil society has observed an opposite trend that shows growing efforts by the government to restrict CSO work.
Our aim is to work with others to protect, promote and expand the enabling environment for civil society. Our approach underscores the need to take coordinated actions to protect, promote and eventually expand the environment for civil society.
We will continuously work to enhance the health and resiliency of CSOs to withstand and push back on actions that constrain the environment within which we operate, promote dialogue and influence policies and decisions that further constrain the environment and space, and work with partners to resist efforts aimed at shrinking civic space.
We will continue to build bridges; establish sustainable relationships with the state, media, and other non-state actors. We will continue to invest in the collection of evidence to show the value of civic space and challenge negative narratives to develop targeted messages on the value of civic space and promote public recognition and value of CSOs. We will continue to reach out to more audiences and use our convening power to build support for civic space in the region.
Human Rights & Gender Equality
Our aim is to work to promote human rights and gender equality and support mechanisms that respond to and address human rights abuses and violations.
Under this intervention area, our work focuses on promoting human rights and gender equality, ensuring that mechanisms are in place to respond to human rights abuses and violations and that accountability mechanism are strengthened such that perpetrators of human rights violations are held accountable.
We also work to ensure that the voices of groups excluded from national and local democratic processes and those affected by decisions and laws, particularly victims and those who face discrimination are more clearly heard.
Progressively, we will ensure that we expand our constituency of human rights defenders across the region and develop synergies and linkages with national human rights organisations and mechanisms.