A man prays at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, in August 2022.
Oswaldo Rivas/AFP via Getty Images
As one of the last large, influential organizations outside the government, the church is being targeted in Daniel Ortega’s ongoing crackdown.
Nicholas Marcus Thompson, right, executive director of the Black Class Action Secretariat, and Bernadeth Betchi, a CHRC employee and representative plaintiff, participate in a news conference on the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions’ special review of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, June 10, 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Publicizing an international review of the Commission is helping civil society advocate for reforms to combat racism, but the outcome of the review is set to maintain the status quo.
The rise of populist leaders and movements is sometimes the partial result of people’s economic insecurities and worries about the future.
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Economic insecurity is one factor that drives populism, a former politician from Hungary writes.
People watch COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber on a screen as he speaks during a plenary session at the COP28 UN Climate Summit, Dec. 13, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
(AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
Beyond the international negotiations, COP serves as a critical venue for global civil societies to exchange knowledge, organize and build a better world.
A protest against the outcome of the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria.
Olukayode Jaiyeola/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Good governance is the missing link in Nigeria’s democratic experience since 1999.
Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, at a UN meeting in July 2023.
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
The push for national trials reflects a disappointment with the slow pace and high costs of international justice.
A scout from Kenya’s forest protection unit walks past mangrove tree stumps in Malindi.
Simon Maina/AFP via Getty Images
The Kenyan state has historically viewed forests in terms of production and economic development – not biodiversity and conservation.
A farmer walks on a marshy shore of a river polluted by oil spills in Nigeria’s Niger delta, region.
Pius Utomi Ekpei/ AFP
Energy firms are likely to lie about their corporate social responsibility to the environment. Their deception can be turned around for good if they are held accountable.
Georgians protest a foreign agent bill that mirrored a Russian law used to crack down on dissent.
Vano Shlamov/AFP via Getty Images
Foreign agent laws claimed as a tool to fight back against foreign interference can also be used to silence critics and repress law-abiding NGOs, independent media and individuals.
Denial of observer status robs the three NGOs of a voice.
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Discrimination against anyone based on their sexual orientation or gender identity is not an African value.
The earthquake destroyed many houses and buildings in northwestern Syria.
Bahar Organization
A scholar who visited Syria after the earthquake observes that as the war has dragged on, a humanitarian organization she’s researched for 10 years has branched out.
Anti-apartheid activist Neil Aggett (29) died in apartheid police detention in 1982.
Charcoal on paper by Dr Amitabh Mitra/Wiki Commons
Neil Agget’s passionate trade unionism proved fateful. It made him a target of a brutally repressive apartheid police state.
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The spy watchdog needs to make its findings on complaints against the country’s intelligence agencies public as a matter of principle.
Activists gather in front of Tel Aviv’s Embassy of Egypt to demonstrate in support of activist Alaa Abdel Fattah.
Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Many people accept the Egyptian government’s restrictions on freedoms, for a variety of conflicting reasons.
Polish volunteers give Ukrainian refugees food in May 2022.
NurPhoto/Getty Images
A scholar of humanitarianism sums up what she saw on the ground during a five-week research trip to Poznań, Lublin, Warsaw, Krakow and several smaller cities along the Poland-Ukraine border.
The Independence Arch in Accra represents Ghana’s democracy.
George Appiah/Wikimedia Commons
Ghana’s civil society has contributed to taming the power of a strong state.
Burkina Faso’s former President, Blaise Compaore, convicted for the murder of Thomas Sankara.
SIA KAMBOU/AFP via Getty Images
The guilty verdict on Blaise Compaoré should be celebrated as a landmark victory for democracy and peoples’ movements in Africa.
Ajay Gupta, left, and Atul Gupta, the masterminds behind state capture in South Africa.
Muntu Vilakazi/City Press
The scale of the Guptas’ rapaciousness meant that, within just a few years, the institutions they leeched were in a state of collapse.
President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a State of Disaster in March 2020.
GCIS/Flickr
The willingness of the executive to pre-empt criticism by amending COVID regulations has arguably strengthened its position.
Food insecurity is a daily reality for millions of South Africans. Community organisations can help.
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These organisations are ideally placed to contribute their fine-grained local knowledge. They intimately understand the specific needs of the most vulnerable in their communities.