Strengthen and safeguard civil society in a digital world
Around the globe and against the backdrop of a rapidly digitising world, we witness setbacks for peoples’ ability to fully exercise their freedoms of association, assembly, and expression, and civil society actors face increasingly direct restrictions on their digital rights by repressive regimes. The digital advances have provided new tactics and tools for surveillance, disinformation, and harassment, posing significant challenges sustainable development and to the protection and promotion of human rights.
Simultaneously, digital technologies also present new opportunities for increased participation, access to information, and for coordinating collective civic action. In order to seize these opportunities, and to do it safely and effectively, civil society actors need to seize the tools and skills that can mitigate risks and multiply momentum.
Alongside Access Now, CIVICUS, and Digital Defenders Partnership, Global Focus has partnered in the Digital Democracy Initiative (DDI) - an ambitious programme aunched and funded by The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the European Union aiming to strengthen and safeguard inclusive democracy under pressure in the digital age.
Together with CIVICUS, Global Focus drives the effort to enable and amplify the use of digital technology among local civil society actors in restrictive contexts in the Majority World. Access Now and Digital Defenders Partnership lead the work to defend and protect civic space and inclusive democracy by promoting stronger rights-focused policies and standards on digital technologies and improved security provision for civil society.
It is a clear ambition across the DDI to support Majority World civil society organisations as well as informally organised civil society actors and social movements who often face barriers to funding and other resources.
OUR ROLE
Global Focus has two projects under the DDI:
1. THE ADVISORY BOARD
Global Focus convenes and facilitates the DDI´s Advisory Board and acts as its secretariat. The Advisory Board is envisioned as a cross-culturally collaborative, future focused, inclusive, independent, and innovative consultative body integral to the governance structure of the DDI.
Considering that civil society actors, human rights defenders, social movements, and journalists are often the main targets of digital crackdowns, surveillance, and censorship, they need to be part of the discussions at a strategic, operational, and political level, as they hold unique knowledge of the contexts – both online and offline – in which they work.
The the Advisory Board´s core function is to inform decisions about both the strategic direction and the operational or technical project design based on the expertise, advice and insights from civil society actors based in or originating in the Majority World, based on an understanding of the complexity of the challenges at stake both at the local context as well as from a global perspective.
By providing contextual and thematic knowledge to stakeholders at all levels of the initiative, the Advisory Board will have an important role in ensuring that the initiative is relevant to local actors across regions, provide contextualised knowledge, advise on challenges, opportunities, and solutions , thereby ensuring that the voices, perspectives, and expertise of local civil society actors in the Majority World play a central role in the Digital Democracy Initiative.
The Advisory Board consists of:
- Babette Ngene – Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Brian Malika – One More Percent
- Cristian Leon – InternetBolivia.org Foundation
- Esther Mwema – Digital Grassroots
- Fatma Ibrahim – The Sex Talk Arabic
- Gaston Wright – Civic House
- Leah Kimathi – Council for Responsible Social Media
- Nadim Nashif – 7amleh
- Nana Nwachukwu – Individual
- Obioma Okonkwo – Media Rights Agenda
- Richard Ngamita – Equiano Institute
Civil society´s implementing partners in THE DIGITAL DEMOCRACY:
The digital democracy initiative was launched and funded by:
The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the EU has committed 40 and 11 million Euros respectively to the Digital Democracy Initiative from 2023 to 2026, while continuing the effort to bring on board additional donors.
