Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

As I write this, I am heading into my third week as Secretary-General of CIVICUS – and each day has been an opportunity to understand a new dimension of this global alliance. Day one, for instance, was marked by a strong sense of celebration! Many of you – members, partners and allies of the CIVICUS Alliance – have shared messages of support and encouragement to do more to secure and strengthen the work of civil society worldwide. I very much look forward to collaborating with all of you in the coming year! 2019 opened up very quickly with stark reminders of the context we face as civil society organisations. An armed attack on civilians in Nairobi generated shock and outrage in Kenya and across the world, while in  Zimbabwe  civil society groups and citizens met  violent force , including another example of the worrying trend of silencing voices by shutting down the internet. In the United States, the continued government shut down is taking a toll on families and e...

Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah ,  is the Secretary General of CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organisation, and Mandeep Tiwana,  Chief Programmes Officer  at the global civil society alliance, CIVICUS. This was first published in   Sur International Journal on Human Rights, published by Conectas Introduction: a multitude of contributing factors While the early 2010s were characterised by large scale people’s uprisings – whether against dictators or against neo-liberal economic policies – it seems that the second half of the decade will be defined by the rise of the strong man and a general degradation of constitutional democracy. This shift represents a major blow for human rights activists and civil society organisations pursuing social justice, already challenged by routine manipulation of the global security discourse to crush dissent at the national level. Yet, if we situate this shift within a context of cause and effect, where uprisings lead to...