For the past decade, civil society organisations (CSOs) and academic institutions have been sounding the alarm about the global democratic backsliding and its impact on the ability of people and civil society to exercise their freedoms, join groups, organise, advocate and hold government accountable. According to the latest Democracy Report from the V-Dem Institute, democratic countries have now become the minority. The conditions for freedom of expression have worsened in 44 countries, for the right to associate in 22 and for the rule of law in 18 countries.
Recent developments in the political, regulatory, and narrative landscape threaten the fundamental principles and values that rights-promoting civil society stands for. The situation directly affects organisations working across all areas of human rights protection and promotion, including on civic space, democracy, transparency, accountability, migrants' protection, social justice, digital rights and climate action. In this blog, we reflect on the current context and share some learnings for pathways forward.
Ripple effect of the Trump administration
Funding cuts weaken CSOs’ ability to uphold people's rights
After taking office, President Trump implemented several actions that threaten the exercise of fundamental principles and values of rights-promoting civil society. These actions included the withdrawal from international mechanisms, undermining the work of civil society, cutting funding, and reframing priorities on national interest and security. The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had profoundly affected civil society and by extension, impacted global democracy efforts. Many organisations in the EU and it's Eastern Neighbourhood have faced significant funding cuts profoundly weaking their ability to cater for societal needs or advocate for causes important for their communities.
To add a level of complexity, the recent US developments are shifting other leaders’ focus toward state defence and security, fundamentally impacting donors’ funding priorities. Given the current landscape, we see that bilateral donors prioritise immediate health and welfare needs over funding for advocacy for the protection of rights, development, good governance or the rule of law.
These combined factors leave the critical global and national democracy and rights protection efforts even more financially depleted and undermine CSOs' ability to continue their work as human rights guardians and champions.
Restrictions and attacks on civil society intensify
Emboldened by the US administration actions, governments around the world have taken harsher steps to curtail civil society activities, especially groups receiving US funding, further deepening the erosion of trust in the sector and undermining people's rights and freedoms. To name a few examples of a bigger trend, the Georgian Prime Minister accused the US Embassy and USAID of “coordinated work against Georgian people and state” and expressed hopes that this will change under the new US administration. The Prime Minister in Slovakia claimed that foreign funding coming from USAID was used to distort the political system. In Serbia, police raided the offices of three of the most vocal and active CSOs, such as Civic Initiatives, Trag Foundation, and CRTA, accusing them of money laundering, while so called “transparency audits” of CSOs’ funding have been launched in several countries, including Slovakia and Germany. Hungary announced new, sweeping legislation to arbitrary blacklist any entity receiving foreign funding.
In parallel, other countries continued with legislative restrictions on groups working on issues of justice, inclusion and diversity. Bulgaria seeks to ban the display of LGBTQI+ content in public spaces accessible to children—which is practically everywhere. After Georgia, Hungary announced plans to ban the annual Pride march, using the guise of child protection to infringe on freedom of assembly and expression. Meanwhile, many governments or members of Parliaments are using the turbulent moment to accelerate a series of measures with the aim to prevent ‘foreign interference’ or ‘influence by civil society lobbyists’. Whilst, this is not a new phenomenon, recent developments in the US have provided renewed momentum and greater political backing for similar moves elsewhere. For example, Republika Srpska quickly adopted the Law on the Special Registry and Transparency of the Work of Non-Profit Organizations, a discriminative law labelling CSOs as foreign agents if they receive foreign funding – a legislative move that many view as a retaliation against critical organisations. While the Constitutional Court temporarily suspended its application, the risk to civil society remains.
The Slovak Government proposed amendments to a ‘foreign agent’ style law, which would have labelled CSOs as “lobbyists” and imposed disproportionate administrative obligations while excluding for-profit and business lobbyists. The amendments did not pass in that form. But the draft legislation has already been substantially modified three times without strong justification or rationale, indicating that the goal was never to improve transparency in decision-making, but rather to target and undermine CSOs critical of the government.
Such measures seem to be designed to evade scrutiny by the UN or EU systems, making them more difficult to contest in court. The Slovak government and supporters of the draft law claim it follows the recommendations of the EU, OECD and other international organisations, which have previously advised Slovakia to introduce regulations on lobbying. However, the bill has faced criticism for being unconstitutional, discriminatory, failing to meet the legitimacy requirement and breaking the European standards protecting freedoms of association and expression and the right to privacy.
Worryingly, within the EU, far-right lawmakers are promoting a damaging narrative against the work of civil society, by claiming that environmental and climate organisations are being funded by the European Commission to lobby the European Parliament and EU institutions. This creates a misleading argument against the legitimate advocacy work of these organisations.
No matter how these restrictions are framed in legislation or what terminology they use, they have one clear purpose – to restrict resources for causes that people care about, to make it more difficult for people to form informal or formal groupings, influence policies that matter to them and ultimately restrict their access to decision making and insights which are important to hold governments to account for their actions.
Moving forward
To strengthen democracy and protect people's rights, civil society, philanthropy, democracy-focused bilateral donors and multilateral bodies must be able to build on efforts taking place by groups already and reimagine how collective action can be strengthened. This requires a shared roadmap for future visioning and strategic efforts.
Build effective and long-term resilience, focusing on prevention
For civil society to be a source of power and global force it must remain bold, curious, and willing to test new solutions and approaches. Civil society needs to consider risks in several ways and prepare for longer-term resilience and short-term protections.
One example of this approach is to move towards a more preventive model for human rights restrictions. To achieve this, a group of organisations are working on an Early Warning and Alert System, to provide systematic evidence on civic space developments within the EU, report on early signs of deterioration, and urge EU institutions to act before the situation worsens.
The goal is to shift toward a preventive model, where EU institutions actively protect civic space rather than respond only after it has been damaged. A preventive approach also requires fostering democratic and civil society resilience as part of a broader framework towards a vibrant civic space.
Past experiences show us that effective preparedness by civil society and philanthropy requires a focused legal approach that includes:
- Working on legal arguments and engaging in advocacy with speed, sometimes before measures are introduced,
- Reviving the power of courts and lawyers, by continuously allowing for exchanges and learning around international and European standards and practices,
- Developing plans and executing well-resourced targeted strategic litigations.
A preventive model requires sustainable resources to ensure civil society groups are equipped with foresight capacities to anticipate, test different proactive strategies while advocating for better responses from national and multilateral institutions to act before is too late.
Explore different accountability levers
Civil society has been working to identify the actors in the international community that can speak up, can pull the accountability lever and can add actual mechanisms of pressure on governments so that they retract. For example, in the case of the counter-terrorism restrictions to civil society such lever was the Financial Action Task Force. Currently, some civil society groups are looking at the role of financial institutions to set clear indicators on civic space requirements and recognise that when civic freedoms are blocked, the success and sustainability of financial investments are at risk. As the landscape is ever changing, groups are also identifying other actors who are feeling the impact of the democratic decline and restrictions – for example in Slovakia and Bulgaria business leaders spoke up response to the legal restrictions on civil society. As the landscape is ever changing, is also important to identify other actors who are feeling the impact of the democratic decline and restrictions – for example in Slovakia and Bulgaria business leaders spoke up in the case of the assault on democracy.
For this to move forward, civil society need investment in resources for a continued strategic engagement to address the evolving situations, but also to develop long-term strategic collaborations with new partners and work together on possible actions. Such investment must have a bigger risk appetite to allow for testing new approaches, that helps with adaptation and tailoring to national specifics and supports a longer-term vision that gives space to build meaningful partnerships with new actors.
Work with global leaders and champions
The US withdrawal from key global mechanisms weakens multilateral cooperation and solidarity, with the retreat having tangible consequences for the budget of these organisations as well. But as the US retracts from global bodies and agreements, others are stepping up (e.g., Brazil and COP30). Environmental Human Rights Defenders and other civil society actors are already engaging to create better participation and protection of defenders in such bodies (e.g, the LEAD initiative) and connect with governments from the Global Majority Countries. Such efforts must be supported to ensure they can utilise the moment, build meaningful partnership and shape the multilateral agenda with renewed energy and global leadership.
Invest in solutions that lead to a well-resourced and sustainable civil society
Over the years, civil society groups have been investing in funding models to ensure they are financially sustainable and resilient. For example, diversified income includes contributions from individuals and domestic companies, a form of civic engagement through which people and other actors express what matters to them. In restrictive environment, having a broad constituency not only strengthens the financial sustainability of an organisation; it also provides an antidote to harmful narratives which frame CSOs as foreign agents and question their legitimacy.
Technological developments, such as online donations, virtual currencies, and crowdfunding platforms, provide new opportunities for resource mobilisation and civil society is already exploring them. For example, the Op-op platform in North Macedonia hosted 31 civil society campaigns from July to December 2024 and generated income from 150 individual donations. There are emerging initiatives of fiscal hosts (such as Open Collective) and patronage platforms (such as Herocircle.app), which make it easier for unregistered groups and activists to generate and access resources.
Lastly, organisations have been exploring different forms of economic activity to generate unrestricted, flexible funding and increase their visibility. The Moldovan public association Eco-Răzeni, which aims to increase the participation of youth in community development, engages in organic farming; they sell their products on markets and through online shops and offer catering services.
However, most CSOs need to further enhance their skills and also draw more resources to invest in income diversification especially if they are to invest in sustainable income sources. Current project-based funding schemes are tightly linked to specific actions; while resource mobilisation and building longer term strategic funding streams requires a financial investment and expertise. Donors can support partners to strengthen their financial sustainability by providing long term,. flexible, core grants; investing in building and testing fundraising infrastructure (crowdfunding platforms, capacity strengthening programmes); and supporting efforts to strengthen legal and policy frameworks which affect philanthropy, fundraising and economic activity.
Mobilise civil society: increase protections for protests
Protests have played a fundamental role in transforming societies and driving significant change throughout history.
As we face an unprecedented attack on democratic values and fundamental freedoms, it might seem that protest movements are not fighting back. Research has shown that nothing is farther from the truth. In the US in particular, data shows that in February 2025 alone, over 2,085 protests took place, including major protests in support of federal workers, LGBTQI+ rights, immigrant rights, Palestinian self-determination and Ukraine, among others.
Tens of thousands have taken to the streets in Serbia to oppose the government. What started as a student protest has become the largest nationwide movement since the fall of Slobodan Milošević in 2000. Although the reasons may differ, we are witnessing similar movements in Georgia, Slovakia, Turkey and Hungary.
To enhance the impact of these protests, there is a need to strengthen their power to connect offline and online, provide flexible funding to use new means for outreach and protest tactics, and establish protections that increase their chances to achieve impact they want to see. This is particularly crucial for groups working on environmental or justice issues, as it can stimulate stronger collective action and societal buy-in for their values and goals.
For example, a common tactic employed by environmental groups is to attract attention through acts of civil disobedience. However, such actions are heavily restricted, especially in Europe. The Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention, Michel Forst, has been developing guidelines for states to ensure that international standards clearly protect the rights of these groups to engage in such actions. Once the guidelines are adopted, it will be important to invest in work that ensures that they are widely recognised, implemented by governments and practiced by judges and lawyers protecting activists.
Leverage EU's role in building democratic resilience
The European Economic and Social Committee, the Council of Europe Commissioner on Human Rights and others have been vocal around the need for European countries to enhance their roles as "leaders in the defence and promotion of human rights, democracy and the rule of law."
To put this into practice, there are crucial processes this year where the EU leaders have a unique opportunity to raise to the occasion. The European Democracy Shield, the EU Strategy for Civil Society and the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), all set to be negotiated this year, will be crucial in providing a strategic framework to
- Recognise and elevate the important role of people and civil society action,
- Invest resources necessary to elevate successful tools and schemes (those on monitoring, early working and protection of activists and defenders),
- Fund experimentation, testing and innovation amongst civil society of new models to better protect and promote democracy and reinstate values and civil society role and strengthen conditions for civic action.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of these processes. Hundreds of civil society organisations are already calling on the EU to take decisive action to ensure that democracy in Europe truly reflects equality and dignity for all.
In the opposite direction, some right-wings MEPs have been leading a damaging campaign against CSOs that could lead to budget cuts. Upholding the commitment to support, empower and protect civil society means to centre MFF discussions on addressing "the funding needs for democracy resilience-building and human rights protection."
While the challenges we are facing are significant, so is the potential for collective resilience and solidarity. It is crucial that civil society, funders, and institutional allies act together to reclaim and strengthen democracy and civic space.
For that, we need to:
- Advance a preventive model for civic space protection;
- Continue investing in partnership building with diverse champions, actors and institutions;
- Provide long-term, risk-tolerant and bold investments to help civil society resilience and sustainability;
- Protect the right to protest and new forms of activism;
- Seize EU-level opportunities to strengthen democratic values.