CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society leaders which advocates for citizen participation, recentlly launched its State of Civil Society Report 2014: Reimagining Global Governance. A UNV paper on Volunteerism, civic engagement and the post-2015 agenda was among more than 30 contributions to the report from the world’s leading experts on civil society as well as inputs from CIVICUS members, partners, supporters and others in the global CIVICUS alliance.
On 2 June 2014, CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society leaders which advocates for citizen participation, launched its State of Civil Society Report 2014: Reimagining Global Governance. The paper by the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme on Volunteerism, civic engagement and the post-2015 agenda was among more than 30 contributions to the report from the world’s leading experts on civil society as well as inputs from CIVICUS members, partners, supporters and others in the global CIVICUS alliance.
The varied contributions highlight changing global political dynamics, an emerging disillusionment with global frameworks of governance and a fundamental lack of accountability within international decision-making. The report also contains the findings of a pilot project, based on research conducted with more than 450 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), which assesses how well intergovernmental organisations engage civil society.
The report cites CIVICUS’ Enabling Environment Index, which measures participation, tolerance, trust in CSOs and giving and volunteering. The 2013 report noted that:
“Low levels of giving and volunteering as well as a lack of interest in public participation are the reasons why 63.4 percent of the countries in Europe are below the global average…more needs to be done to build trust in non-profits and a culture of giving and volunteering in order to strengthen civic engagement and CSO impact.”
“The full report will be a source of useful references for UNV as we prepare the next State of the World Volunteerism Report,” said Peter Devereux, Policy Specialist (Volunteerism and Civil Society) with UNV’s Volunteer Knowledge and Innovation Section.