Civic Rights in a Digital Age

Hivos provides hundreds of human rights and environmental defenders, journalists, artists, and accountability campaigners around the world with practical tools and support to continue organizing and speaking out. Hivos works with them by putting their agency and priorities at the center of global and local efforts to promote Civic Rights in a Digital Age. Here are some examples of our work in 2023.

Digital Defenders

Our Digital Defenders Partnership supports activists and human rights defenders working on issues such as environmental rights, LGBTIQ+ advocacy, gender equality, and election monitoring. DDP protects activists and human rights defenders in times of increasing repression and the weaponization of digital tools.

Selection of results in 2023

• We directly supported 133 human rights defenders and their organizations with our Incident Emergency Funding.
• Forty-two human rights organizations received Sustainable Protection Funding to build their digital security capacities over a more extended period.
• The Bessy Ferrera Emergency Fund, a support system for LGBTIQ+ activists funded by Hivos’ individual givers, came into action 41 times in 2023.
• DDP updated its online digital security resource, the Digital First Aid Kit, a free resource to help human rights defenders, bloggers, journalists and media activists learn more about how they can protect themselves and support others. We updated the kit with new sections on surveillance, defamation and doxing, and made it available in 13 languages. The Digital First Aid Kit received over 25,000 unique page visits in 2023.

Some examples of impact

• The project trained 156 journalists, forged numerous community engagements and partnerships, and established sustainable fact-checking practices that will have a lasting positive impact.
• The project aimed to stimulate informed public debate and democratic participation. Its key strategies included a special fact-checking unit (Tunifact), awareness campaigns, advocacy, and training for journalists. Tunifact conducted 1395 fact checks and 84 in-depth analyses.
• Three mini-grants enabled participants to combat disinformation, understand their rights, and produce creative projects that contribute to the community’s freedom of expression.
• A January 2024 report produced by the program, “Freedom of Expression in Tunisia: Legal Mapping,” maps and analyzes the laws and policies that regulate the press, telecommunication channels, and the current state of emergency to better support strategic litigation and advocacy.

Here are some key results from Voices and Actions for Accountability in Malawi

• The project’s Mzinda Wanga Online Platform created a safe space for local authorities to share reports and for citizens to easily request information on budgets for projects and public purchasing. The platform facilitated over 750 exchanges between citizens and public institutions.
• Using specially produced manuals on civic engagement and the use of IT in public purchasing, the project trained the Budget and Public Accounts committees (including 40 MPs) and over 200 councilors from the seven districts.
• More than 2,500 citizens directly demanded information from the seven local authorities.
• Local authorities are now able to proactively share reports physically and online, engage with citizens and respond to their demands, and publish spending reports.
• Twenty-two civil society organizations were trained and are now able to advocate for sustainable and inclusive public spending.
• Specialized training has helped seventeen media houses produce accessible reporting on budget and public purchasing. Including community radio stations among the trainees was very important because they are close to the general public and share local information relevant to their listeners.

Want to learn more? Check out all our current Civic Rights in a Digital Age programs and read our 2022 overview.