Shrinking Space for Civil Society in EECA

Magdalena Dabkowska Janine Wildschut

Shrinking Space for Civil Society in EECA

Importance of Civil society for us

Background of this topic: 1. More and more restrictive legislation 2. Risk for the HIV response and the situation for key

populations. 3. Resilience

Assessment objectives • To analyse the situation per country (Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan,

Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Uzbekistan, Armenia) when it comes to NGO laws and regulations?

• To describe the different positions and strategies that NGO’s/ CSO’s are taking that are described in studies.

• To develop 4-5 country cases on how does this effect the NGO’s and communities working in the field of drug policy and harm reduction? (Russia, Poland, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan).

• To describe donors positions and considerations when it comes to supporting cso’s in societies that are closing.

• To provide recommendations on how to support communities and ngo’s in shrinking space situations and how to create conditions that donors need to support.

Methodology • Desk research: Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia,

Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Uzbekistan, Armenia, : analyses of legal framework and regulations

• Literature scan on coping strategies identified

• Semi-structured interviews: Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Poland., Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

• Survey to harm reduction NGO’s/ drug policy NGO’s and community networks in Russia, Poland, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to develop 4 country cases.

• Interviews with donors

• Discussion in autumn school

Data collection

• From June 2017 till Sept 2017

Data:

• Desk research and literature scan

• 17 Expert semi-structured interviews: Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia

and Poland, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan

• Response survey: 6 Poland, 0 Russia, 5 Tajikistan, 12 Kyrgyzstan

• 4 interviews with donors: Dutch mofa, OSF, EU and UNODC

FINDINGS

The state of civil society and the legal framework * Desk research * Expert interviews * Survey

Source: Freedom House, Nations in Transit 2017

Very challenging environment for civil society

Legal regulations targeted at CSOs and impairing international aid (examples) • Foreign Agents Law in Russia

• Law on Public Associations in Tajikistan introducing an obligation to notify the Ministry of Justice

about grants and other aid received from abroad;

• Regulation in Uzbekistan requiring NGOs to obtain the Ministerial approval for receiving foreign aid as well as to notify the government about the travels to foreign countries.

CSOs’ response to the challenges • CSOs and activists are willing to take the risk and openly criticize authorities

or

• CSOs reach for the public funding i.e. presidential grants, therefore they decide to ally with the authorities (and either fully obey or silently continue unpopular activities).

Challenging, but stable situation

• Challenging environment for the civil society activities;

• Stabilization and no feeling of serious new threats coming;

• No clearly expressed need for CSOs to rethink their strategies.

3. Rapid shift from the comfort zone to the challenging environment

(Freedom House: Consolidated or Semi-Consolidated Democracy)

• EU members; • Quick decrease of political rights and civic freedoms; • Regulations on funding from abroad similar to the Russian

„foreign agents law” either already introduced or expected in the near future;

• Open attacks on George Soros and grant giving institutions affiliated to him (?).

CSO response: • Temporary strategy of silence - resigning from advocacy in the

public sphere not to attract the attention of the authorities; • Concentrating on securing the status quo rather than

advocating for further positive changes; • Visible need to prepare for the bad to come and to reshape

strategies, especially to rethink the ways of fundraising.

„There is a pattern that we now come to recognize as the pattern for multiple countries. Which is: require NGOs to have their mission reviewed by and to register with the ministry (…), scrutinize and criticize foreign funding and suggest that those NGOs that are receiving foreign funding are unaccountable to national interest.”

Donors’ response today

• Global Fund, Open Society Foundations, UNODC, USAID, European Union, Dutch government etc.

• (Partial) withdrawal from the region due to the country regulations or donors’ internal strategies;

• Offering more and more creative support:

• No intention to retreat completely - in contrary, looking for the ways to enable funding within the existing (internal and/or external) frameworks

;

Donors withdrawal from the region - severe consequences for civil society

• Competition among NGOs;

• Tailoring activities towards the donors’ expectations rather than in response to the real needs;

• Resignation from a number of activities;

• Inevitable over reliance on domestic sources of funding; • Threat of closure. • • —> in result CSOs are developing new strategies and

innovative tools to cope with the situation.

COPING STRATEGIES

GOOD PRACTICES AND SUGGESTIONS

Type of categories of strategies:

• Fight

• Hide

• Unite

Unite • Offer the authorities support in reaching their policy goals: health goals

• Professional expertise as protection

• Building key population platforms or thematic

coalitions

• Apply for presidential grants and advocate and

support for a social granting system

• Be fully transparent and work in line with buro-

cratic requirements and include state representatives in all you do

• Train governmental officials on the importance

of NGO’s in the HIV response.

“We expand our position on the ground so that they can not do without us”

“but for the government it’s very clear that without NGOs not any solution can be implemented. Who can reach the key populations? Only the peer organizations. Not the medical specialist. Because we speak about voluntary participation. “

“Service oriented NGO’s can also make sure that community networks are in a monitoring and advocacy role, involved always in all their work”

”

HIDE

• Work in topics that are defined as “Public benefit”

• Avoiding controversial topics and activities

interfering with questions of public life.

• Diversification of scopes of work

• Keep some activities in secret

• Very reluctant in communications and

campaigns.

• Work under regional cover

• Informal network, non registered organization

• “We do this kind of things secretly, but we cannot do it on the level of advertising.“

• “I don’t foresee any improvements so

we have to work in accordance with the situation and try to teach young people to be independent and to look for information on the internet. We can give them good sources of information where they can get reliable and truthful information, that is what we can do for now.“

• "If we don’t advertise ourselves and don’t do

media campaigns about safe sex, then we can be safe. Otherwise we take attention and that will not be good. But otherwise it is okay "

Fight

• Search for alternative funding f.e. crowdfunding, international donors, private fundraising, community financing

• Regional advocacy and capacity building

• Start satellite organization abroad

• Informal network/ organization: non registered

• Strategic litigation: legal education and support for

PUD and

• go to court and fight the authorities

• Building wide partnerships to stand stronger

• “Basically, we are still in dialogue with the government, but this dialogue is happening in the court or mass media”

• “On the national we have all the support we need. We have strong alliances with mass media, with human rights activist, we have support from like minded people, from the progressive liberal community, from pro bono lawyers. So in Russia we have quite strong alliances, we are able to deal with our partners and we have a lot of support “

• “Trainings on the regional levels would be really useful. There are not many educational activities going on at the moment. If there are some educational activities. We are always thirsty for any knowledge. We would like to send our outreach workers to international conferences. We are really isolated at the moment “

• Thank You!!

Smaller groups discussion

How far do government funding and implementing government policies infringe the important watchdog role of Civil Society Institutions?

Sub questions

• What is the role of CSOs? and how can this role be safeguarded?

• What kind of experience do participants have with CSI on local, national or international level?

• Which kind of opportunities and challenges do participants see?

• What kind of principles are relevant for meaningful Civil Society Involvement