Civil society is being cut off and locked down at the same time

Since 2024 in Georgia, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that receive 20% or more of their funding from abroad are forced to officially register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power”. The following year, the country’s USAID funding was slashed by more than 95%. These organisations were left to try to rapidly understand and comply with new, punitive laws with no budget or legal advice – or close their doors. 

This is not an isolated case. We are witnessing a pernicious, coordinated attack on civil society. It has already proved terminal for many smaller organisations, while those left behind are desperately fighting for the sector’s survival. 

Increasing legal needs

Last year, we surveyed nearly 150 civil society organisations (CSOs) about how their legal needs have changed in the past 12 months. 50% of respondents experienced increased legal needs in the past year. For small organisations – those with fewer than 10 staff – this figure rose to 58%. 

One Latin American organisation told us that CSOs “need more and more help when it comes to policies”, while another in Asia described how increased regulatory activities, often varying by jurisdiction, “have increased compliance obligations and introduced additional complexity into routine decision-making and program delivery.” 

It is these same organisations facing rising legal challenges which are also battling new and/or stricter laws targeting civil society (36%), and these are compounded by funding changes or cuts (34%). This shift in funding is not just owed to the well-documented sweeping cuts to international aid budgets in the last few years. The withdrawal of aid has been exacerbated by a growing trend of laws that criminalise foreign funding, forcing the hand of donors who wish to sustain financial support and effectively strangling CSOs’ funding pipelines. 

In short, this means that the organisations losing funding are also facing higher compliance costs from new foreign agent laws, anti-money laundering (AML) requirements, and data governance obligations. They are being asked to do more with less, at precisely the moment when the legal environment demands more resources, not less. The result is the decimation of their operations. One CSO told us that “we have had to let go of around 2,000 staff globally”, as well as “closing several country operations and downscaling a large majority of country operations”.  

The global picture

This is a global pattern. 74% of the CSOs we surveyed worldwide cited loss of funding among the top three most serious risks they face. When it comes to increased legal needs, an even starker picture is painted through regional differences, with the number rising to 65% in Asia and 71% in North America. 

Meanwhile, a sinister force has emerged through heightened political pressure and scrutiny, with influential voices even painting the sector as inefficient and fraudulent. This systematic attack on civil society is straight from the authoritarian playbook. The tactics mirror the lawfare and financial ruin we have witnessed being poured on independent news outlets; silenced and suffocated as countries around the world increasingly turn into autocracies. 

Let me bring this to life for you.

• In Latin America, a youth-led charity in Venezuela is navigating a prohibition on foreign funding.
• In Eastern Europe, exiled media outlets face foreign agent designations in their home countries while operating legally abroad.
• In Kenya, the Weaponising the Law report documents how strategic lawsuits against public participations and cybercrime laws are being used systematically against journalists.
• In Namibia, a human rights organisation faces increasingly restrictive legislation that is criminalising their work with LGBTQ+ communities.

Our solution

The Thomson Reuters Foundation has an expansive network of more than 7,000 CSOs and social enterprises and 120,000 lawyers through our TrustLaw service, along with 20,000 journalism alumni from our media development programmes. This allows us to spot patterns, trends, and insights that others may not. The same foreign agent laws threatening CSOs are also being deployed against journalists. And in a climate of dwindling funding, support to withstand these challenges is increasingly difficult to procure. The legal tools are converging. The communities being targeted are converging. The response needs to converge too. 

That is why we launched our Resilience Accelerator. Applying our experience and expertise in providing pro bono legal protection for journalists and newsrooms under threat, media development programmes and operational support, we have created a holistic programme that is co-designed with CSOs to provide tailored support which strengthens their defences against the systematic attacks facing civil society.  

The first cohort of this programme will conclude in the next few months, and we are excited to share our learnings with you. If you are interested in partnering with us to support the next cohort, please get in touch now.