Civic engagement and civic space - Summary of an e-Discussion on SDG 16 Trends and Emerging Issues in the Context of COVID-19
Ulrich Graute • 5 August 2021
In this e-discussion organized by the SDG16 Hub, Southern Voice and UNDP, participants have discussed in June 2021 the opportunities and risks that the pandemic has generated for civic engagement and civic space, which encompasses the role of civil society organizations in the current context, and how this role affects the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The main topics addressed were effective engagement between civil society and government, how COVID-19 related measures affect civic engagement, the impacts of new online spaces on participation and inclusion, and the role of the UN in promoting and protecting civic engagement and civic space, including through Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs). The findings and experiences shared here were feed into the Global Roundtable at the 2021 High-level Political Forum.
Source reference: The final summary of the e-discussion as documented in this blog post was originally published by the SDG16 Hub:
https://www.sdg16hub.org/system/files/2021-06/Final%20Summary_FS.pdf
SDG16 Hub
Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Civic engagement and civic space, and on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected progress towards establishing more ‘just societies’, as envisioned by SDG 16, and what is needed for an equitable recovery from this crisis.
The global health, economic and social crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically highlighted the vulnerability of certain populations which have been disproportionately affected. Existing structural problems and inequalities have been exacerbated. The World Bank estimates that, in a worst-case scenario, an additional 115 million people will fall into extreme poverty due to the pandemic.
In this challenging environment, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) play an essential role. CSOs that connect to and work with marginalized communities with a focus on advocacy and accountability are key to ensuring that human rights, transparency and citizen's participation are safeguarded. Furthermore, in an environment where governments face unprecedented economic negative shocks and need to decide what trade-offs to make, civil society organizations that focus their work on research and analysis are essential to promote decisions that are evidence-based. Without organizations that represent a wide range of people, we cannot build just, peaceful and inclusive societies that ¨leave no one behind¨.
Yet, even before the pandemic, civic space had been shrinking worldwide. According to the 2020 CIVICUS Monitor, only 3.4% of the world’s population lives in countries with open civic space. Governments’ efforts to curb infections have affected people’s civil and political rights, such as the freedom to assembly. While restrictions may be justified when their temporary nature and proportionality are ensured, there is also evidence that, in many contexts, the current situation has been used as a pretext to limit civil society action in a targeted and unjustified manner.
Framing Question #1:
Effective engagement between civil society and government
- Research seems to show a possible positive connection between social capital derived from civic engagement and lower levels of mortality from COVID-19.1
- Educational tools in West Africa were used to create CSOs to promote peaceful dialogue and to reduce community tensions in the context of Boko Haram/ISIS West Africa insurgency, with support from both traditional leaders and local government representatives.
- CIVICUS’s Solidarity in the Time of COVID-19 brings examples where CSOs took on crucial roles in service provision, food and sanitary equipment distribution, addressing disinformation by public outreach programmes on effective prevention measures.
- The Rebuilding for Good paper developed by the Affinity Group of National Associations, Charities Aid Foundation and CIVICUS identifies good examples in relation to COVID-19 response, and outline suggestions for the government to support civil society.
- The Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities (SGPwD)’s research on the experiences of persons with disabilities with COVID-19 shows that, while new and exacerbated barriers for persons with disabilities arose in several areas, the role of organizations of persons with disabilities became increasingly important.
- Strengthening Accountability and Integrity Systems (SPAIS) selected 8 CSOs in Kenya to implement pilot interventions on transparency and accountability in the health sector, aiming at strengthening the capacities of key stakeholders towards transparent and accountable governance.
- In Tunisia’s ‘post-transition’ context, civil society plays a significant role in strengthening democratic, inclusive and participatory governance, and in bridging the gaps in the service chain between public institutions and citizens.
- UNDP Oslo Governance Centre and UN DESA’s framework to analyse the Quality of Stakeholder Engagement can be a useful tool to analyse the process of stakeholder engagement in the beginning of the VNR process
- SDG16+ Civil Society Toolkit, to be launched at the HLPF 2021, can be a useful resource for civil society partners to unpack SDG16+ in their own contexts, and support practitioners on utilizing and maximizing SDG16+ work to enhance their work.
- More focus should be placed on NHRI and the important role they can play, particularly on working on civic space issues and supporting civil society.
- Human Rights Defenders should be better supported, given the increasing risks they face globally.
1 (Elgar et al 2020).
Framing Question # 2:
How COVID-19 related measures have affected civic engagement
- 2021 State of Civil Society Report highlights that decentralised movements for racial justice and gender equality are challenging exclusion and demanding a radical reckoning with systemic racism and patriarchy.
- Women-led movements are challenging gender stereotypes, exposing patterns of exclusion, and forging breakthroughs to lay the groundwork for fairer societies.
- Young people are at the forefront of protest and have taken ownership of climate change to make it a decisive issue of our time, through, for example, the Fridays for Future movement.
- Present day movements are deriving strength by taking the shape of networks rather than pyramids, with multiple locally active leaders. Unsurprisingly, powerful people’s mobilisations are inviting sharp backlash.
- The mobility measures imposed by the governments led to prohibition of public demonstrations at a time of greater tension and citizen discontent with the mismanagement of the pandemic crisis.
- The “Spiral of Silence”, strategy used by governments to hinder civic space by inducing fear to silence communication channels, was exemplified by Belarus.
- Counter-terrorism laws need reformulating, since their vagueness might hinder CSOs safety, lead to human rights violations, and serve as a tool for governments to reduce dissent and criticisms.
- Two policy briefs developed by CIVICUS reveal a plethora of measures to limit the space for civil society to operate and discharge their vital contributions.
Framing Question #3:
How new online spaces have affected participation
- The development of innovative digital mechanisms has provided new channels to exercise freedoms of association, assembly, and expression, and helped democratize exchanges.
- Because the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed how we've worked (digitally) over the past year, there is a need to ensure that we're learning from and building upon some of the things that this virtual engagement has led to – namely, bringing many more voices to conversations.
- Engagement must happen by ensuring accessible online participation, such as supporting of cross-cutting solutions, promoting effective access to information, prioritizing accessible platforms, facilitating accreditation and registration of participants, and ensuring safety of participation channels.
- Some of the risks involve cybersecurity, digital divide and censorship.
- The Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities’ COVID-19 research has found that online spaces are creating more exclusion and additional barriers for persons with disabilities, including lack of access to COVID-19 information and barriers in receiving social protection measures and employment.
- Some online platforms have worked diligently to add accessibility features during the pandemic, such as Zoom, but this does not create inclusion for people who do not have the ability or means to access the internet.
- In the absence of the "traditional" ways to promote capacity building, coordination, and advocacy (i.e., through workshops, conferences, etc.), there is a need to re-think how to work at the national and local level in a post-pandemic world. The Mainstreaming SDG 16 resource provides detailed guidance which can be used in the absence of direct in-country support to maximize learning among partners.
Other emerging questions
On the role of the United Nations
- The cutback in international cooperation has negatively affected CSOs.
- In spite of existing examples of UN funding CSOs projects, such as by the UNDEF and the UN Peacebuilding Fund’s Gender and Youth Promotion Initiative, it was suggested that the funding of CSOs by the UN could stretch UN capacities, create dependency, and risk be seen as biased.
- Alternatively, it was suggested that the UN focuses on well-funded country offices and agencies; on capacity development and funding of thematic activities; on protection of civil society actors; and on promotion of an enabling, safe and free civic space in national decision-making processes.
- Need for joint strategizing, solidarity, and equal partnership between the UN and civil society, given that siloed approaches might lead to competition and hostility among groups and/or issues.
On civil society representation through Voluntary National Reviews (VNR)
- Civil society engagement in VNR design, delivery and follow-up is fundamental to accountability and to the whole-of-society approach, reflects inclusive and effective governance and decision-making, and helps to ensure that SDG 16-related provisions in a VNR are taken forward.
- Leveraging and empowering civil society and their proximity to local communities and grassroots groups further bolsters government responsiveness to various segments of society, ensuring that a greater diversity of voices is heard, in keeping with a “leave-no-one-behind” approach.
- Civil society engagement can take the form of ‘Spotlight Reports’ and related follow-up. Spotlight Reports help to ensure an independent and robust assessment of progress. They can challenge, complement, or question member state reports, promote government accountability, provide a global platform for local civil society voices and set the stage for follow-up action, often with or alongside government partners.
- The sharing of experiences and lessons learned from COVID-19 should be encouraged to enable analysis of potential setbacks CSOs have experienced due to the pandemic.
- Given the non-official status of Spotlight Reporting, exploring ways to better utilize and share feedback from CSO reporting could help strengthen civic engagement and space in the overall efforts to achieve sustainable development. This can be done by:
- Fostering integrated reporting on the SDGs;
- Institutionalizing approaches to strengthen more inclusive reporting;
- Establishing a UN platform or a database for civil society reporting on the SDGs to help collect and disseminate Spotlight Reports, as well as facilitate joint guidance, enable analyses, and document lessons learned;
- Similar considerations could be made for regular submissions to Human Rights Treaty Bodies as well as the Universal Periodic Review.
- Example of integrated VNR reporting:
- Finland's 2020 VNR, where for each goal the government assessment is followed by a civil society assessment.
- Malawi also took a very comprehensive approach and engaged with a wide and diverse spectrum of populations.
- Norway’s 2021 VNR process, based on the Finish model of 2020, is another good example of effective engagement between civil society and government during the pandemic.
- Data partnerships between national statistical systems, youth organizations, civil society, local and regional governments (LRGs), international organizations and others provide another channel for civil society engagement.
- Disaggregated data (based on gender, disability, rural communities, indigenous populations etc.) should be recognized and incorporated into VNRs.
- Local and regional governments with strong, democratic and accountable institutions are prerequisites for achieving SDG 16. Particularly now as communities globally continue to struggle with COVID-19
Resources
Ashish Kothari et al., Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary
ASIES: Gobernabilidad y Covid 19: Su Impacto en el Área Política, Educativa, Jurídica y Económica CIVICUS: 2021 State of Civil Society Report, Chapter 5
CIVICUS: Solidarity in the Time of COVID-19
EDGE Webinar: Weaving Systemic Alternatives from the Global South; Questions & Answers
Elgar et al (2020): The trouble with trust: Time-series analysis of social capital, income inequality, and COVID-19 deaths in 84 countries
Front Line Defenders: Global Analysis 2020
GANHRI: Marrakech Declaration: “Expanding the civic space and promoting and protecting human rights
defenders, with a specific focus on women”
GIZ, TAP Network: SDG 16 in VNRs and Spotlight Reports
Global Alliance, White & Case: Analysis of the 2020 Voluntary National Reviews and SDG 16 Global Alliance blog: Civic Space: Why it Matters
Global Tapestry of Alternatives: Webinar series
The Guardian: At least 331 human rights defenders were murdered in 2020, report finds IISD: Will the SDGs Still be Relevant after the Pandemic? A Disability Rights Perspective International Center for Not-For-Profit Law: COVID-19 Civic Freedom Tracker International Civil Society Centre: Solidarity Playbook
International Disability Alliance : Accessibility Guides
International Disability Alliance: COVID 19 and the disability movement
International Disability Alliance: Overview on Accessibility of Video Conferencing Apps and Services International Disability Alliance: Resources and Tools for Action
International Disability Alliance:
The experiences of persons with disabilities with COVID-19
International Disability Alliance: Voices of People with Disabilities During the COVID19 Outbreak Latinobarometro 2018
OHCHR, GANHRI, UNDP: COVID-19 and National Human Rights Institutions,
OHCHR, GANHRI, UNDP:
Tripartite Partnership to support NHRIs with OHCHR and GANHRI
Partners4Review: Voluntary National Reviews submitted to the 2019 High-level Political Forum for Sustainable
Development – a Comparative Analysis
Partners4Review: 2020 Voluntary National Reviews – a snapshot of trends in SDG reporting Secretary General: Role of the United Nations in protecting and promoting civic space
TAP Network and the Global Alliance for Reporting Progress on Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies:
Mainstreaming SDG 16: Using the Voluntary National Review to Advance More Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies.
UN Sustainable Development: Finland’s VNR 2020
UN Sustainable Development: Voluntary common reporting guidelines for voluntary national reviews at the high-
level political forum for sustainable development (HLPF)
UNDP/DESA: What is a good practice? Analytical Framework to analyse and strengthen the quality of stakeholder
United Nations: Guidance Note: Protection and Promotion of Civic Space. United Nations: Secretary General’s Call to Action for Human Rights United Nations: World Youth Report (WYR)
UNDP: NHRIs and COVID-19
UNDP’s Development Dialogues: Building A Better, Fairer Future For The Furthest Behind
Policies and Governance for Resilient and Sustainable Cities and Regions
None of the following supports the idea that urban sprawl is required or even helpful to build sustainable cities. However, it is argued that it may be part of the solution for the crisis of affordable housing in many countries of the world. With this post, I would like to encourage a debate, eg, at the 61st ISOCARP World Planning Congress #WPC61 on 1-4 December 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 1976 and alarmed by rapid and uncontrolled urban growth, particularly in the developing world, the UN General Assembly called for the First United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I) addressing the challenges and future of human settlements. Housing remained at the focus of the United Nations Human Settlement Programme UN-Habitat ever since, and this was reconfirmed at Habitat III in Quito 2016. The New Urban Agenda recognizes and promotes a "right to the city," meaning the right of all inhabitants to have equal access to the benefits and opportunities that cities offer. It emphasizes a vision where urban spaces are designed and used collectively for the benefit of all, including those in informal settlements. Yes a vision, but overall, the Agenda is not very strategic and invites more to raising picking instead of integrated problem solving. Meanwhile, cities keep struggling to cope with fast urbanization, migration and growing demand for larger apartments. Urban sprawl is criticized since the 1950s and 60s because of its large demand for land. No densely populated urban areas have higher costs for the water, energy and transportation grid. In addition, developers often focus on profitable housing development while they don’t care for urban infrastructure, public spaces, schools etc. The New Urban Agenda promotes urban density as a key strategy for sustainable and efficient urban development but that doesn’t help those who a looking for housing now. Conor Dougherty is the author of the book Golden Gates: The Housing Crisis and a Reckoning for the American Dream published on 10 April 2025 in the New York Times the article “Why America Should Sprawl. The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth — but to fix the housing crisis, the country needs more of it.” He doesn’t make any effort to paint urban sprawl in rosy colors. Instead, he describes how eg in Princeton, Texas, the nation’s third-fastest-growing city, infrastructure has struggled to keep up with growth. He analyzes how difficult and slow-moving densification efforts in cities are and states, “Even if all the regulatory restraints were removed tomorrow, developers couldn’t find enough land to satisfy America’s housing needs inside established areas. Consequently, much of the nation’s housing growth has moved to states in the South and Southwest, where a surplus of open land and willingness to sprawl has turned the Sun Belt into a kind of national sponge that sops up housing demand from higher-cost cities. The largest metro areas there have about 20 percent of the nation’s population, but over the past five years they have built 42 percent of the nation’s new single-family homes, according to a recent report by Cullum Clark, an economist at the George W. Bush Institute, a research center in Dallas.” For instance, Celina, Texas (picture), has 54,000 residents, compared with 8,000 just a decade ago, and the population is projected to hit 110,000 by 2030. The lack of urbane infrastructure, employment, greenery, and community is striking, but people keep coming because of affordability. While planners and others prefer denser and walkable neighbourhoods like 15-minute-cities, the money to build related infrastructure in addition to houses is often missing or would reduce affordability. A dilemma. There are good reasons to criticize the trend described for the US by Conor Dougherty, but it provides a chance to attain affordable housing for people who cannot find it elsewhere. And the history of these satellite towns has demonstrated that the missing infrastructure, employment and community can be added lateron. It seems, urban sprawl is not the solution, but it might be part of the solution, isn’t it? Let's discuss this here or later on other occasions, like eg the 61st ISOCARP World Planning Congress 'Cities & Regions in Action: Planning Pathways to Resilience and Quality of Life 1-4 December 2025, in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia #WPC61. Reference: Why America Should Sprawl. The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth — but to fix the housing crisis, the country needs more of it. By Conor Dougherty. The New York Times, April 10, 2025 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/magazine/suburban-sprawl-texas.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Click to see the map in the full scale or download map in pdf format here https://anatomyof.ai/img/ai-anatomy-map.pdf.
About the challenge of providing advice on governance and development in times of disruption and transition (English with German captatio ns) Deutsch: Ulrich spricht darüber, wie es ist, in Zeiten von Umbruch, Wandel und vielfachen Krisen als erfahrener Berater zu arbeiten. Obwohl die Situation nicht einfach ist, kann man daraus auch Chancen für effizientere Institutionen und Unternehmen sehen. Erfahrung und Flexibilität sind dabei wichtig, um neue Wege zu finden. English: Ulrich talks about working as an experienced consultant in times of upheaval, change, and multiple crises. Although the situation is not easy, we can also see opportunities for more efficient institutions and companies. Experience and flexibility are important to find new pathways.
"The development of highly capable AI is likely to be the biggest event in human history. The world must act decisively to ensure it is not the last event in human history. This conference, and the cooperative spirit of the AI Summit series, give me hope; but we must turn hope into action, soon, if there is to be a future we would want our children to live in." Professor Stuart Russell, IASEAI President and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley Please join me on 13 February 2025 at ARCS 9.0 for my keynote on 'Urban politics, planning, and economy in the Global South in times of fast developing AI' The two weeks before my conference presentation were full of dynamics in the field of AI, its politics, and development. First came the launch of the 500 billion US$ Stargate Project in the USA, followed by the launch of the Chinese open-source large language model (LLM) DeepSeek. On 6 February the International Association for Safe & Ethical AI held its inaugural conference in Paris, France. Prominent AI scientists including Stuart Russel and the 2024 Physics Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton called for international cooperation to ensure safe and ethical artificial intelligence. On 10 and 11 February 2025, France co-chaired by India hosted the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit in Paris. The speeches by Heads of State and Government including the President of France, the Prime Minister of India, the President of the EU Commission, and the US Vice President gave the impression of how different countries of the world try to position themselves in a race for AI leadership. Urban politics, planning, and economy, not only in the Global South, need longer-term frameworks. How should digital transformation and urban planning be approached in cities facing multiple crises and the new wave of AI technological innovation? The latter is according to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others unprecedented in scale and speed but it is expected to affect all spheres of life. ARCS 9.0 schedule and Zoom link for Inaugural, plenaries and Valedictory. Date - 13th Feb to 15th Feb 2025 Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/95336599575?pwd=NExxgf8gBoubEfKRhhtbalM1ZYjQph.1 Meeting ID: 953 3659 9575
Source of the picture OpenAI: https://openai.com/index/announcing-the-stargate-project/
It was a tremendous privilege in my life to meet Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter for the first time in 1984 (picture) and then again in the summer of 1985 during my internship at Koinonia Farm near Americus, Georgia (USA). Jimmy Carter, who served as the 39th president of the U.S. from 1977 to 1981, died on December 29, 2024, at his home in Plains, Ga. Jimmy Carter was a lifelong farmer who worked with his hands building houses for the poor well into his 90s. I didn't agree with him on all issues (the early 1980s were the time of a new US missile deployment in Germany ordered by Jimmy Carter and a large peace movement against it) but he took the time to discuss it with me and others at Koinonia Farm. That alone was amazing. Even more mind-blowing was that he continued hands-on work on peacebuilding and house renovation for the poor around the world with Habitat for Humanity International well into his 90s. If in my career providing hands-on support became more important than climbing my own career path, this was also due to the example Jimmy Carter gave in the decades after his Presidency. I learned a lot from him about working for peace with humbleness, love, and perseverance. Read more in the New York Times about why Jimmy Carter was known as much for his charity and diplomatic work later in life as he was for his single presidential term, which ended in 1981. https://lnkd.in/d9qxSmTM *. *. *. *. * Note: This post was first published on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/posts/graute_learning-to-work-hands-on-for-peace-from-activity-7279396908270309376-BBjV?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
In 2024, for the first time since 2000, the Parties to the United Nations Rio Conventions on biodiversity, climate change, and desertification faced a very busy 3 months, moving from large Conferences of Parties (COP) in Cali (Colombia) for biodiversity in October to Baku (Azerbaijan) for climate in November to Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) for desertification in December. On top of this Triple-COP, there was the UN High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development and the UN Summit of the Future in September in New York (USA) while UN-Habitat held its World Urban Forum in Cairo (Egypt), and let’s not forget the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-5) which ended last weekend in Busan, South Korea. No real breakthroughs were reported but I noticed many promises to double future efforts. There is a lot that can be critically reviewed about the events, eg what’s the purpose of moving approximately 100.000+ delegates, UN staffers, and other participants worldwide if the necessary political will to agree and resources available are insufficient and the outcomes are limited accordingly? But such a critique would be a bit unfair since I don’t know how many new ideas and initiatives were born during those official meetings, side events, and informal chats that might bloom up in upcoming years despite of the multicrises we’re living in. What needs to be criticized is that the UN System is not progressing on its task to implement its many mandates more “synergistically” by targeting policies, programs, and initiatives to jointly address the goals of the Rio Conventions, SDGs, etc. Instead, the conferences referred to each other but worked mainly within their silos. This is not appropriate in a world full of interrelations and interdepensies. Well, no individual or group can follow up on every aspect, and swarm intelligence of conferences with thousands of participants each seems to be no functioning alternative. But what else could be done? To give an example: How about building an AI-based Large Language Model (LLM) trained with the UN Charter, all UN declarations, national and subnational resolutions, regulations, and programmes? AI Agents for the different conventions and agendas should then be asked to coordinate and propose “synergistic” proposals across policy levels. Of course, the use of artificial intelligence should be wisely supervised by a team of AI experts and professionals from all affected fields. I wouldn’t expect AI applications to solve all problems but to better inform decision-makers and UN agencies on integrated scenarios. This could help to increase efficiency, avoid duplicating efforts, and increase the overall problem-solving capacity of the UN. I would be happy to support such work with my governance and development experience across all policy levels. Picture source: https://www.iisd.org/articles/policy-analysis/cop-nature-climate-adaptation-mitigation
Since the first climate COP in 1995, the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities (LGMA) Constituency has been representing local and regional governments at the processes under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The LGMA also represents ISOCARP - International Society of City and Regional Planners and Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments. ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability acts as the Focal Point of LGMA. The 2015 Paris Agreement marked a turning point, recognizing the essential role of these governments in enhancing Nationally Determined Contributions NDSs and driving transformative climate action. The LGMA is atively present in Baku with a robust agenda, numerous partners, and an esteemed delegation of political leaders representing local and subnational governments. At the center of the presence is the Multilevel Action & Urbanization Pavilion as the global stage for the city and region climate agenda during COP29. The Pavilion brings into focus not only the challenges and needs, but also the accomplishments and commitments of local and subnational actors on climate action. The Pavilion is open from 12 to 22 November in the Blue Zone, Area E, Pavilion I15. We are looking forward to welcoming you at the High-Level Opening on 12 November at 10:00 AM. Please find the agenda of LGMA attached. Please visit also the Youtube channel of ICLEI Global for daily updates https://lnkd.in/dddDCKtA Ulrich Graute - ISOCARP Online Delegate at COP29 and Chair of the ISOCARP Scientific Committee
Report on the Urban Conversation on Ethical Use of AI in Urban Planning at the 60th World Planning Congress in Siena, Italy on 11 OCTOBER 2024