Civil Society

The office coordinates activities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. The focus is on supporting democratic and constitutional reform processes and strengthening civil society. The office is involved in the areas of gender equality and the advancement of women, historical reappraisal and green climate policy.

A serious and critical examination of the German colonial history needs a concept of inclusion for LSBTIQ in development cooperation.

Since winning the presidency in 2016, Rodrigo Duterte’s regime has enacted policies of fear and repression that have eroded democratic norms and endorsed violations of fundamental rights.

The following article on opportunities and challenges in the mining sector in Afghanistan illustrates the situation in the country at large.

Governments and corporations are driving the demand for water, land and organic resources of all kinds as never before. Citizens are fighting for their rights and working to preserve their livelihoods. Our study "Tricky Business" shows how the mechanisms of expropriation work. [external_media:soundcloud.com/boellstiftung/tricky-business-bollfocus]

Despite its diversity, ASEAN member states have one common trait: state repression. This is in contrast to ASEAN´s aspiration to be people-centered. How repression looks on the ground can illustrate the example of the Bersih movement for fair elections in Malaysia.

In 1967 the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was founded. This dossier sheds light on the institutional framework of ASEAN and analyses with contributions by civil society and academia, where social and ecological justice has, or should have, its place in Southeast Asia.

So far, the engagement of the ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People´s Forum has been disappointing. A new strategy for people-to-people regional integration is needed.

In Hungary, NGOs are now required to register as “civic organisations funded from abroad” if they receive financial support from a foreign source. The government is trying to delegitimise any organisation that criticises certain government policies, says Veronika Móra.

When the 19 member countries and the EU gathered in Hamburg for the G20 Summit one important topic was not on the agenda: from China to Mexico, Turkey to Russia, Saudi Arabia to India – the respect for fundamental human rights can no longer be taken for granted.

Myanmar’s transition to democracy has earned the country a lot of appraisal on the international stage. But over the last year, the boundaries between what is permitted and what will get people in trouble slid back and blurred again.

On 22 June 2017 international experts Gerald Knaus, Rebecca Vincent, and Berit Lindeman spoke with Anar Mammadli and other representatives of Azeri civil society about the critical human rights situation in the country, ways to potentially solve it, and European strategies.

Germany depends on the import of metallic, mineral and fossil fuel resources. The extraction of these raw materials takes place at the expense of the environment and leads to human rights violations. The German Federal Government has to take these consequences adequately into account.

The attack on CEU is one in a series of attempts to eliminate the so-called enemies of illiberal democracy. The government has manufactured a fear-inducing narrative by inventing an imaginary enemy threatening the people of Hungary.

The hostile environment created by the government makes the work of civil society actors practically impossible. To be a human rights activist in Macedonia is to be a person that is constantly threatened, attacked, and demonized.

A Keynote on the Civic Charter at its Launch at the Global Perspectives Conference on 26th October 2016 in Berlin.

India likes to consider itself the “world’s largest democracy”. In practice, however, there are many restrictions on the freedom of expression. The space available to civil society organizations for action is increasingly restricted.

Civil society space is under attack worldwide. In her welcoming speech to the Global Perspectives Conference, Barbara Unmüßig urged 160 representatives of civil society organisations from around the globe to stand in solidarity with each other and to put the issue of shrinking and closing spaces back on the political agenda.