The Commonwealth Foundation offers grants of up to £30,000 for projects lasting up to two years to civil society organisations in the Commonwealth. They support projects that seek to facilitate constructive engagement between civil society and decision-makers, including civil society participation in policy development and implementation.

To check eligibility criteria and apply, click here. The deadline for this year’s call is 24 October 2024 1pm BST.

The third Durban International Book Fair #DIBF2024, takes place from 27 November to 1 December 2024 at Eduvos, Umhlanga. Durban is Africa’s only UNESCO City of Literature. This year’s main theme goes back to basics, to “Once Upon a Time…” as the country grapples with the crisis according to the Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study (Pirls) that 81% of grade 4 South African children cannot read with comprehension in any language.

Join us at #DIBF2024 as we dive into the magic of storytelling. The enduring allure of stories that have shaped human culture and been cherished across generations will be the main focus of the fair.

Don’t Miss Out! Secure your ticket to #DIBF2024 today at www.madeindurban.co.za.

I can relate to this. It is a personal fear that I carry with me as I wrestle with my own positionality and contribution to a more just future. It’s an important question: What am I doing to resist and create positive change in the world?

Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Invisible Man, and Hercules don’t scare me. The FBI, the anti-American committee, J. Edgar Hoover, President Nixon, President Johnson, Martha Mitchell and her husband, or her man or her woman, Ethel Kennedy, all the Kennedys, Bank of America, Chase-Manhattan, Rockefeller, none of these people scare me. What scares me is that one day my son will ask me, ‘What did you do, daddy, when the sh*t was going down?’
~ Richard Pryor

We live in a complex time.  The current socio political, economic and environmental context is marked by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity – what is sometimes referred to as a polycrisis.  Alongside  issues such as climate change AND denialism and growing nationalism, society must contend with fading global solidarity and a tendency for all of us to isolate and  look inwards driven by a narrowing sense of who and what our communities are. All of this is fuelled, it seems, by growing, co-ordinated right-wing campaigns to drive polarisation and undermine human and civil rights and freedoms.

But despite a sense of crisis and a seeming erosion of decades of human rights gains, resistance to these conservative trends and calls for change can be seen everywhere – from the radical political shifts in European election outcomes to the West African coups and recent uprisings against tax laws in Kenya. While this chaotic moment in history is stressful, it also offers opportunity for practice to shift, for reform to happen and perhaps even for systems that no longer serve a purpose to be replaced. This is a tremendous chance to reinvent and rebuild institutions and practices better aligned with our values and principles and anchored in people’s experience.

And so we arrive at a question: What role does/should civil society play in these uncertain times? This is  especially important given that, in the examples quoted above and in the space of change more generally,  formal civil society is conspicuously absent when tipping points are reached and people come together and confront power directly.

Before we can approach this question though, we have to make a fundamental admission  – that we make up civil society, and that for too long we have wanted to act to confront and change the system without acknowledging that we are embedded in it and bound to it. Perhaps, even more confronting is to accept that civil society itself is a product of the very system we seek to change, and in many instances reinforces and upholds it. We are part of the system. We curate and maintain it in order to protect the privilege that it accords to us.  These times provide an acute challenge for those of us working in the development/civil society sector to examine our own power, position and complicity in maintaining a system whose outcomes, we can all agree, leave a lot to be desired.

Civil society itself  continues to  reinforce negative forms of power, built on  narratives that give us – the activist, the development practitioner the ‘thinkers’-  the power to ‘solve’ problems, through processes far removed from the experience of those who live with these problems.  Despite radical rhetoric, pre-packaged, ahistorical and ‘saviourist’ development  has become the norm.  It seems that we are called upon to re-remember that people as individuals have power and agency, and when connected to others, can create radical change with or without civil society’s assistance.  We need to learn from the actions that are happening all around us and despite us. The demand on civil society is to  be enmeshed within the struggles of others  working to embrace  a more radical solidarity. Civil society must, in these chaotic times, slow down, commune,  counter the need to have ready answers, be guided by principles of justice and be willing to be informed by experience and worldviews  of others.

This radical, and more human, solidarity is multipolar, not located in the binaries which bind our imagination: north to south; the haves and have nots; or the powerful and the powerless. Rather this radical solidarity is one in which we all find community and support. This solidarity is practiced through the processes of building community – contesting, agreeing and disagreeing, respecting and drawing strength from each other. And beyond this, holding ourselves and each to account to a commitment to a particular politic and values.

And so, fundamentally this piece asks us to reflect on the personal before we engage the systemic:  How does the system manifest in what I do? How willing am I to disrupt the very system that provides me with a sense of purpose, validation of my ‘goodness’ and livelihood?  What contribution can I making to a practice that is liberatory, that contributes to human dignity and fundamentally transforms normative notions of power? What are the small acts of resistance within my control that will enable a more fundamental shift in the system?

Allan Moolman, September 2024

At the 5^th African Philanthropy Conference hosted by CAPSI and themed “The Next Frontiers of African Philanthropy”, Zanele was invited to make a presentation on decolonised practice. Her input entitled  “Expressions of solidarity and decolonisation of philanthropy in Southern Africa” drew on her academic studies about and work experience with ACT Ubumbano, and challenged participants to go beyond rhetoric to look at whether our practice and actions are advancing solidarity. The conference brought together speakers and academics who shared insights on what the next level of philanthropy on the continent could look like.

More information on the philanthropy conference can be found here.

Zanele’s slide presentation can be found here.

EPIC-Africa is a Senegal-based non-profit that provides data and actionable insights about African civil society organizations (CSOs). This data enables CSOs, funders, and other stakeholders to know what groups exist, where they are, what issues they work on, and what support they need.

Having identified gaps in knowledge on women-led and focused CSOs in Africa, EPIC-Africa has designed this mapping to better understand the situation of these organisations, with a view to enhancing their ability to attract needed support and achieve their goals. We also hope that the survey will offer participants space to reflect that can inform strategic conversations, both internally and with current and prospective partners, and help make philanthropy more effective for them.

Click here to find out more and to participate in the survey.

As promised, we have compiled a report on our conversations at the Solidarity Hub in Europe in June. It is not an event report in the traditional sense. Rather, it is reflective notes about some of the key insights and issues raised by participants. You can access the report here, and if you want to see some pictures click here.

ACT Ubumbano’s work is generating interest quite broadly, and Ashley was invited to Belfast by Ulster University to engage in a discussion on decolonising development. We shared a platform with the John Hume & Thomas P. O’Neill Chair in Peace at the University and the Social Change Initiative , an organisation promoting progressive social change for communities to become fairer, more inclusive and peaceful.  Ashley also met with the Principal of St Mary’s University College in Belfast.