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.

This article is not an emotional claim, but a justified attempt to stop the systemic harm that occurs under the guise of ‘aid.’

How does measurement for local donors differ from measurement for institutional (international) donors? In other words, what do international donors value in your data, and what do local donors value?

We witnessed similar abandonment not long ago. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the West went into an overdrive of selfishness and decided to starve the Global South of vaccines. They forget one thing: when we are not safe, they are not safe. Well, the pandemic is over, and we are here. The development aid cut is no different from the vaccine apartheid we witnessed during the pandemic days.