Thinking Democratically: A Comprehensive Approach to Countering and Preventing Shrinking Space

3.5 International donors
International donors can play a major role in capacitating civil society and political actors to defend
and expand democratic space, in addition to their diplomatic leverage as global political players.
The case of Georgia illustrates this well. Through cooperation under the EU-Georgia Association
Agreement and the Visa Waiver decision, the EU has encouraged two successive ruling parties to
implement substantial reforms in the justice system, public administration and human rights
framework. In addition, the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe has played a major role in
protecting democratic space through its opinions on the ongoing constitutional reform. This shows
the potential impact of a coordinated and strategic approach to supporting democratic space in
countries where the EU has such incentive mechanisms.
When it comes to strengthening civil society, however, trends among European donors have not been
so supportive of democratic space and those who defend it. In Kenya, Zimbabwe and Indonesia,
shifting donor priorities have resulted in a reduced amount of resources for civil society. Within this
restricted funding pool, there has been less appetite for watchdog-like activities, and more for
governance support and technical support to civil society for contributing to government-led
processes. In Kenya and Indonesia, this trend has been particularly strong among the bigger donors,
while smaller donors have continued support to CSOs in a more political manner. In Zimbabwe, the
sudden reduction in funding after 2013 has greatly limited CSOs’ ability to defend democratic space
and has created competition for scarce resources between different CSOs.
In Kenya and Indonesia, the shift in funding away from critical CSOs, towards government-led agendas
for change and governance assistance has resulted in part from an apparent improvement in the state
of democracy. In addition, both countries grew economically from lower income countries to middleincome
countries, which also significantly reduced the amount of funding provided by donors. Latin
American countries have faced the same problem. However, the difficulties civil society face in
countering shrinking democratic space and coping with the reduced amount of funding points to the
need for donors to remain engaged with civil society on such activities. By giving the government
control over the type of assistance provided to civil society, donors limit the ability of CSOs to
effectively influence policy and maintain critical functions as a counterbalance to the state.
In Zimbabwe, the EU’s political strategy of reengagement with the government resulted from a
perceived political opening and was in principle welcomed by Zimbabwean civil society. However,
its narrow scope was overly focused on pushing for ‘constructive engagement’ of Zimbabwean civil
society with the government – rather than fulfilling their role as a watchdog – at a time when
democratic space was still very clearly under attack. The relationship between Zimbabwean civil
society and donors sometimes became uneasy, as donors frequently accused civil society of being
partisan and against the government. The incoherence of donors’ political agenda’s in combination
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