Join the Civil Society Resource Hub (CSR-Hub)

Under this pillar, the Hub will empower civil society organizations in West Africa to ward off governmental restrictions and targeted attacks from state and non-state actors by attaining significant improvements in regulatory compliance.

Series of group and personalized compliance clinics, trainings, learning exchanges and technical support services have been lined up under this pillar to enable non-compliant organizations overcome challenges associated with regulatory compliance. 

At the end of the program, participating organizations would be able to constitute effective and inclusive boards, convene board meetings, install strong internal controls, obtain necessary registration certificates, and file annual returns with relevant regulatory bodies.

Capitalizing on the advancement in information and communication technologies, civic actors are increasingly, congregating online, taking advantage of the social media platforms and hashtags (#) to ask critical questions about democratic governance, campaigning for good governance, reforms, corporate accountability, and numerous causes.

With this growing transition to digital activism and online mass action, an equal need for digital security consciousness has become imperative.

Under this pillar, civic groups and organizations will benefit from group seminars and customized trainings designed to increase their capacity to confront digital and surveillance threats negatively impacting their work by implementing cybersecurity and data protection controls, and also learn from others’ experiences of preventing and mitigating cyberattacks.

Participants will benefit from these five areas of strategic focus:

1. Online safety for bloggers, journalists, human rights defenders (HRDs)
2. Data protection for civil society organizations
3. Understanding/Mitigating risks of investigative journalism
4. Whistleblowing safely
5. Rapid response mechanisms in West Africa
6. Social protection mechanisms in West Africa

State-sanctioned clampdowns on the activities of civil society actors take the form of internet shut-downs, press censorship, online surveillance, arrests and detention of critics and dissenters, proscription of self-determination agitations, fines, office raids, equipment/device seizures, negative labelling and the propagation of unhealthy narratives about civil society groups and leaders.  Consequently, the civic space has consistently dangled between obstructed and repressed. Under this pillar, civic actors and organizations in the subregion operating in very restrictive conditions will find it easier to get help such as unhindered access to technical support, social protection, customized services, didactic convenings and peer mentoring. Not only that, sustained incident tracking, trends mapping and analysis, civic space outlooks and country rankings will give off early warning signals, resources and rapid response levers needed to confront the underlying drivers of shrinking civic space in the subregion.

It is almost impossible to run an effective campaign to defend the civic space or for the accountability of natural resource wealth without data and evidence extracted from rigorous research. Borne out of the need to curate more home-grown data on the civic space and for extractive justice, this pillar focuses on building the capacity of civil society and grassroot organizations working in the subregion to conduct research and build solid evidence that can be trusted and acted upon by policymakers, governments and corporations. Group and personalized research clinics have been developed to mobilize strategic knowledge-sharing in a way that also builds capabilities and effectiveness among human rights agents.