In recent years, Africa has witnessed a quiet but significant shift in the development landscape. The gradual withdrawal of traditional donors, due to shifting geopolitical priorities, domestic pressures in donor countries, or the growing critique of aid dependency, has led to many African civil society organizations confronting a stark reality, donor support is no longer guaranteed.
Movements have existed and have been organising long before “funding” and will continue to do so.
What happens when the NGO offices shut down, the donors walk away and the annual reports stop printing? If history and current events are any guide, civil society does not die. It simply changes form.
In today’s context, where international aid is shrinking and trust in global institutions like the UN and development agencies are declining, the need to reimagine development has become more important than ever.
With this method, there is never a final destination we seek to reach – but the journey is everything. We seek continuous improvement, and not a defined “perfect” target.
#ShiftThePower Global Summit will be held in Kathmandu, Nepal from 2 – 4 December 2026.
Lenie Hoegen Dijkhof, Abdoulaye Sawadogo and Malo Debe According to the CIVICUS Monitor 2024 report, Burkina Faso’s civic space was downgraded to “repressed,” dropping 12 points from …
Hungary has around 60,000 registered NGOs. A significant portion of these exist mostly on paper. Many operate in apolitical fields or provide valuable services without engaging deeply with questions of democracy, rule of law, or civic participation. The government’s strategy is subtle and devastating: not overt bans or shutdowns, but a campaign of financial strangulation and administrative pressure. The goal is clear: silence through suffocation.
Civil society was once indistinguishable from community. It lived in cooperatives like Banyankore Kweterana, or the Ghana Marketing Association, in women’s groups like the Women’s National Coalition, in student associations and more. It was relational, relatable and right next door. But somewhere along the way, NGO-ization gentrified civil society’s original landscape and transformed what used to be a local and people-powered civic space into a gated community of professionalized, donor-driven institutions that fenced off the everyday people that originally constituted civil society.
At NTT, we have always wanted to set ourselves apart from the western INGO model of grantmaking.
