| Type | International non-profit / civil society organisation |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Mandeep Tiwana | |
| Website | civicus |
CIVICUS is an international non-profit organisation focused on civil rights and citizen action. It was founded in 1993 and is based in Johannesburg, South Africa. The organisation has more than 9,000 members from over 175 countries.
In 1991, an international group of 20 leaders from non-governmental organisations and social movements met to explore how to support citizen participation in governmental decision-making processes. In 1993, a founding board established CIVICUS, with the name derived from the Latin term meaning "of the community".
CIVICUS has described itself as "a global alliance dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society around the world". Its headquarters are in Johannesburg, and there are offices in Geneva and New York City.
The governing body of CIVICUS is an international board, which as of March 2025[update] comprised 12 civil society leaders from around the world.
In 2014 the organisation had members in more than 145 countries.
In 2023/4, their main funding partners were the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ford Foundation, Denmark Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Open Society Foundations, and Lifeline Embattled Fund, among many others.
Former heads of the organisation include Miklos Marschall (Hungary), Kumi Naidoo (South Africa), Ingrid Srinath (India), Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah (Sri Lanka) and Lysa John (India).[when?]
Mandeep Tiwana is the current secretary general of the organisation.
CIVICUS receives institutional support from a variety of sources from organizations with similar goals, such as the Ford Foundation and Open Society Foundations, as well as individual contributions, membership fees, and registration fees for the CIVICUS World Assembly. Aggregated income from 2017/2018 was roughly US$9.6 million.
CIVICUS identifies countries that it believes are experiencing a fast decline in civic freedoms, adding them to a list known as its Monitor Watchlist. The organisation classifies the state of civic freedoms in countries according to its rating system of open, narrowed, obstructed, repressed, and closed. Past lists have included Zimbabwe, Argentina, El Salvador, and the United Arab Emirates.
The first watchlist for 2025 was published in March, and included the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Italy, Pakistan, Serbia, and the United States. The decision to add the U.S. was made on the basis of what CIVICUS described as an "assault on democratic norms and global cooperation" by the Trump administration. The report cited numerous examples, including the mass government layoffs, the appointment of loyalists, the withdrawal from the World Health Organization, and the review of all U.S. foreign development assistance programs. CIVICUS also identified the Trump administration's targeting of pro-Palestinian protesters, Trump's limiting of media access, and its attack on the rule of law and checks and balances, comparing it to McCarthyism.
In July, CIVICUS noted that the U.S. was experiencing democratic backsliding and moving towards a normalized form of authoritarianism in an escalated manner. It downgraded the state of civic freedoms in the U.S. to "narrowed", noting that U.S. citizens can still "exercise their rights and freedoms but 'violations of these rights also take place'".
In December, CIVICUS once again noted the increasing transformation towards authoritarianism and decline of civic freedom. It downgraded the state of civic freedoms in the U.S. from "narrowed" to "obstructed", noting that civil rights in the U.S. are now restricted legally, often involving illegal means such as surveillance, government harassment, and attacks in the public sphere. "Citizens can organise and assemble peacefully", writes CIVICUS, "but they are vulnerable to frequent use of excessive force by law enforcement agencies, including rubber bullets, tear gas and baton charges."
In an open letter of 25 July 2022 addressed to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, CIVICUS sought the UN chief's intervention to protect human rights in Nicaragua. The letter raised concerns over the continuous attacks on civil society organisations by President Daniel Ortega's regime and his Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) party. CIVICUS also urged its members to sign the letter, which was available online.
On International Women's Day, 8 March 2024, a range of organisations, including Amnesty International, International Service for Human Rights, and CIVICUS, reiterated calls for Saudi woman Nourah al-Qahtani's release from prison, as well as those of other women sentenced for similar alleged activities.
In its latest State of Civil Society Report, CIVICUS documented a sharp deterioration in the operational environment for non-governmental organizations across more than 120 countries, pointing to widespread legal and administrative restrictions. The findings detailed how state authorities increasingly deployed bureaucratic mechanisms, such as arbitrary deregistration, delayed licensing approvals, intrusive financial audits, and legal prohibitions on foreign grant funding, to restrict the operations of human rights and advocacy NGOs. CIVICUS also recorded escalating physical and operational threats against civil society actors in armed conflict zones, alongside retaliatory legal measures against international accountability bodies like the International Criminal Court.
Beyond administrative barriers, CIVICUS tracked the practical counter-strategies that NGOs deployed to maintain operational capacity under intensifying state pressure. In response to deregistration orders and asset freezes, non-governmental organizations mobilized joint legal defense teams and initiated strategic litigation before domestic and regional tribunals. CIVICUS noted that affected organizations also adapted by establishing rapid-response funding pools, pooling operational infrastructure, and coordinating collective evidence-gathering to sustain reporting to multilateral human rights bodies despite domestic funding cuts.
Following the 30 September 2026 adoption of legislation by the Slovenian National Assembly effectively dismantling the country’s dedicated NGO Development Fund, the global civil society alliance CIVICUS, through its monitoring mechanisms, reported that the measure could potentially introduce structural financial constraints for domestic non-governmental organizations. Documentation indicated that the redirection of dedicated statutory revenues might disrupt ongoing multi-year operations across human rights, transparency, rule of law, and anti-corruption sectors, with observers noting that existing agreements signed with over 300 non-governmental entities could face prospective funding interruptions or administrative termination.
In response to these developments, CIVICUS and its regional monitoring partners were reported to have tracked joint civil society appeals in early October 2026 highlighting the risks associated with the use of expedited legislative procedures that bypassed public consultation. It was suggested that international monitoring networks had registered recommendations urging national authorities to consider institutional guarantees to safeguard contractual commitments, while noting that similar administrative defunding measures across the region had historically been monitored by CIVICUS as potential indicators of narrowing civic space.
{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)