The CSR-Hub is a five-year programme supported by Ford Foundation to promote open civic space in Africa.
The West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) and Spaces for Change have announced the birth of a continental Civil Society Resource Hub (CSR-Hub).
The CSR-Hub is a five-year programme supported by Ford Foundation to promote open civic space in Africa.
A joint statement signed by WACSI and Spaces for Change noted that Civic space in West Africa has been under threat, the result of democratic retrogression in the region.
According to the statement, the 2020 CIVICUS Monitor report shows that the civic space environment continues to worsen across the region, with the exception of Cape Verde where the civil society sector has developed significantly since political reforms in the early 1990s.
According to Nana Afadzinu, Executive Director of the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), “When civic space is restricted and constrained, social justice disappears, social accountability is absent, social protection fails, and people suffer.”
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WACSI and Spaces for Change (S4C) say the CSR-Hub will, apart from promoting open civic space and regulatory compliance, strengthen CSOs’ organisational governance and financial resilience, and support CSOs to reinforce their digital security and data protection, including enhance their knowledge capacity and build solidarity to address civic space challenges.
Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri, Executive Director of S4C reiterates the critical importance of this initiative. “At a time when governments in West Africa are increasingly drifting towards authoritarianism and tightening the operating environment for civil society, the establishment of the West Africa Civil Society Resource Hub (CSR-Hub) could not have come at a better time. With CSR-Hub, civil society actors and organisations will not only become more resilient, but also get the support that they need to better respond to the governance, regulatory, digital and operational challenges that they face,” she says.
The CSR-Hub will provide long term resource and support to enhance the capacity of CSOs working to expand civic space and reposition civil society actors in these countries to effectively respond to the emerging and longstanding challenges to civic freedom, enabling environment, democratic consolidation and transformational social change.
Highlighting the collaborative ethos of this programme, Nana Afadzinu states that “WACSI is delighted to partner S4C, and the Ford Foundation, and together with other partners, strengthen and enhance civic space and civil society within West Africa, beginning with Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal through the Civil Society Resource Hub (CSR-Hub). In solidarity we’ll work for, fight for, and protect civic space for the West Africa we want –peaceful, just, inclusive, and prosperous!”
