METHODOLOGY

The CIVICUS Monitor aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of the enabling conditions for civil society within countries and over time. It analyses civic space, defined as the respect in policy, law and practice for freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression and the extent to which the state protects these fundamental rights.

In an attempt to capture these dynamics on a global scale, over 20 organisations with research expertise from around the world work on the CIVICUS Monitor with the aim of providing an evidence base for action to improve civic space.

Civic space updates from CIVICUS Monitor research partners contain qualitative, narrative information related to the situation for civic space in a country. This qualitative information is directed by a set of guiding questions and the resulting data is gathered from a variety of primary and secondary sources. In many cases, country-specific updates come directly from national civil society themselves. In countries where there is no research partner, the CIVICUS Monitor relies on a variety of other sources produced at the national, regional and international levels to produce analysis on civic space.

These civic space updates are then triangulated, verified and tagged by the CIVICUS team. The tagging system enables classification of the information included in the updates and analysis of the most common violations and restrictions faced by civil society groups, activists, human rights defenders (HRDs) and journalists when defending their rights as well as positive developments related to civic space.

The research partners collectively posted a total of 493 civic space updates from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2022. They form the basis for the analysis presented in this report.

CLOSEd repressed obstructed narrowed OPEN

In addition to the qualitative information presented in the civic space updates, in order to draw comparisons at the global level and track trends over time, the CIVICUS Monitor produces civic space scores and ratings for 197 countries and territories. Each country’s civic space is rated in one of five categories – open, narrowed, obstructed, repressed, or closed – based on a methodology that combines several sources of data on freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression and the state’s duty to protect those fundamental freedoms.

In Numbers