In a world scenario in which different forms of authoritarianism are emerging that threaten human rights guarantees, civil society organizations are seeking ways to avoid persecution and restrictions that limit their scope of action. Thus, there are those who, in the midst of the crisis, speak of a moment of opportunity and transformation in the field of human rights.

In this article, we identify some strategies that civil society organizations have developed in recent years to resist the closure of civic space. Subsequently, we focus on explaining one of these strategies promoted by Dejusticia: the Enlaza Strengthening Program. An initiative dedicated to the internal and external strengthening of civil society and community-based organizations through capacity building, the promotion of solidarity spaces within the human rights movement, and the amplification of our collective voice.

Strategies for resisting the closure of the civic space

We identified at least four strategies of resistance to the closure of civic space that have been devised, developed and implemented by social organizations. The first consists of broadening and diversifying advocacy tools. Traditionally, the human rights movement has focused its struggle on legal and juridical tools to produce social change. Currently, organizations have expanded their repertoire of advocacy by incorporating various communication formats. Social media campaigns, street interventions and the use of mass communication channels, such as community radio, have been key in the work of advocacy and resistance to the closure of civic space.

The second strategy has to do with the growing creation of coalitions and alliances between civil society organizations, activists, political actors and other local interest groups. This is the case of Sudan, where the human rights movement managed to evade in 2019 the restrictions on internet cuts during a popular uprising through neighborhood associations that eventually managed to communicate what was happening in the country to the outside world. This generated pressure on the government to cease the repression. Something similar is happening in the networking of Venezuelan civil society, which has played an important role in promoting and sustaining the investigation of the case before the International Criminal Court on the execution of crimes against humanity by the government.

The third strategy has to do with innovative responses to the restrictions imposed by governments on the legality of organizations and the control of their resources. Some organizations have registered their legal status in other countries, others operate informally and some have explored alternative sources of funding. One example is the case of Russian organizations such as OVD-Info and Memorial Human Rights Defence Center, which have documented such actions.

All these strategies are in addition to a fourth one that has been recently consolidated and that we will explain below: the internal strengthening of civil society organizations in terms of mission and administrative knowledge.

Enlaza Strengthening Program: a civil society strengthening program

To face the challenges of this era of closing civic space, it is essential for civil society organizations not only to change our strategies outwardly, but also to strengthen ourselves from within. This implies developing mission and administrative capacities that allow us to sustain our work in the long term and adapt to changing contexts. In this sense, since 2022 Dejusticia has had the Enlaza Strengthening Program, our Civil Society Strengthening Program, which aims to become a space for civil society organizations in countries in the region, such as Colombia, Venezuela and Peru, to strengthen themselves from the grassroots and strengthen the network of the human rights movement.

Through the Enlaza Strengthening Program, we have sought to ensure that strengthening is not a standardized process, but rather a flexible strategy adapted to the specific realities of each organization. For this reason, one of the pillars of our approach is the direct strengthening of organizations, in which Dejusticia’s areas and civil society allies work every six months or annually with social organizations on topics such as communications, strategic litigation, research methodologies, peace, gender, sexual diversity and ethnic-racial rights, among others.

We also carry out collective strengthening through regional and international workshops that bring together organizations from different contexts around shared social and environmental justice needs. At the Enlaza Strengthening Program, the themes of these meetings are chosen by the organizations themselves, ensuring that they respond to their real challenges.

For example, in 2024 we held four regional and two international workshops with the participation of more than 100 Colombian and Venezuelan civil society organizations on various topics such as: climate litigation, peasant reserve zones, harmonization between local justice and ordinary justice in cases of ethnic peoples, advocacy before the International Criminal Court, and the role of journalism in the face of the closure of civic space, among others.

Another fundamental axis of our work is the strengthening of the collective voice. We do this through journalistic work and publications to amplify the voice of these organizations and show their enormous contribution to our rights and our democracy. This exercise not only strengthens our presence in public opinion, but also helps to counteract negative narratives that seek to delegitimize our work. An example of this is the work we did in 2023, with the delivery of 32 articles for the Colombian media El Espectador in a journalistic special called “Tejido Vivo”, which, a year later, we transformed into a book published by Angosta publishing house and launched at the Bogota Book Fair.

Finally, one of the main challenges for civil society is access to funding and long-term economic sustainability. In response, at the Enlaza Strengthening Program, together with partners such as Makaia, we promote the connection with other actors for future funding to facilitate meeting spaces between organizations and potential strategic allies, such as foundations, cooperation agencies, universities and companies. With these connections we seek to generate funding opportunities, technical assistance and collaboration that strengthen the sustainability of organizations in the long term.

In summary, with our Enlaza Strengthening Program, we present a strategy for social organizations and the human rights movement to strengthen themselves internally and externally. This enables them to better confront the economic crisis, widespread inequalities, shrinking civic spaces and different forms of authoritarianism that threaten their survival as well as their ability to impact social policies.