News and updates from BCSDN and the region
In light of the limited social movement literature, this paper aims to hypothesise the reasons why individuals in the Global South disengage from activism, making activism unsustainable over a lifetime. The paper analyses the reasons put forward by scholars to explain initial activist participation, inferring from this that four lenses are vital to utilise in
Read more →A new analysis, published by Civic Initiatives, describes the space for the functioning of civil society in Serbia in the last 5 years in systemic…
Read more →The global state of freedom of expression and information is at its lowest point for ten years, according to Article19 Expression Agenda 17/18. The price for speaking out and protecting the right to freedom of expression around the world is high. With 78 journalists and 312 human rights defenders murdered in 2017, many more incarcerated,
Read more →Thirty-two European and international human rights and digital rights organizations sent an open letter to ministers ahead of the Justice and Home Affairs Council that was held on the 6-7 December 2018. The signatories expressed their concern about the European Commission’s proposed ‘Regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online’. In its current form,
Read more →Governments and investors everywhere should take notice today as a group of major brands call for protecting human rights defenders and civic freedoms, which are under attack across the world. The statement is the first of its kind, with supporters including Unilever, adidas, Primark, ABN AMRO, Anglo American, Leber Jeweler, Domini and the Investors Alliance
Read more →Civil society space is increasingly a key issue for humanitarian organisations. Independent research carried out for ICVA in the summer of 2018 sought to identify civil society needs in this area and help define the potential role of ICVA in helping and supporting its membership to navigate, protect and expand civil society space. Civil society
Read more →The existing Draft Law on Social Entrepreneurship is deficient and its adoption would lead to exclusion of the majority of the existing social enterprises from a future legal regulation, according to a statement by Civic Initiatives. The wording of the Law, which was addressed in a public hearing until 23 November, exclusively limits the notion
Read more →On 17 November 2018, Yiğit Aksakoğlu, a human rights defender who serves as the Turkey Country Director for the Bernard van Leer Foundation, was arrested on the allegation of “attempting to overthrow the government or to avoid, partially or entirely, its performance”. In the early morning of 16 November 2018, police carried out simultaneous raids
Read more →The Expert Council on NGO Law of the Conference of INGOs has just published a review on international standards relating to reporting and disclosure requirements for NGOs. The review is prepared against the background of the perceived trend of Member States imposing onerous reporting and disclosure requirements on NGOs. It is hoped that this publication
Read more →Capping a three-year process, the United Nations Statistics Division has released the final edited version of the United Nations Satellite Account on Nonprofit and Related Institutions and Volunteer Work —a groundbreaking statistical guidance manual for nations to use to generate solid data on the world’s third, or social economy, sector—the TSE Sector. This Handbook offers
Read more →On 24 October 2016, the CIVICUS Monitor went live. Two years on, there are ratings for 196 countries, over 1,500 individual updates on civic space have been published and 365,652 views by 73,944 people have been attracted! BCSDN has been part of the Monitor since its beginning, providing updates on civic space in the Western Balkan
Read more →TUSEV has launched the website of Monitoring and Enhancing the Enabling Environment for Civil Society Project. The project, which is funded by European Union and carried out by TUSEV under Civil Society Law Reform Program Area, aims to contribute to the enhancement of an enabling legal and fiscal environment for CSOs in Turkey and to
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