The Reconfiguration of Sub-Saharan African Civic Space
A policy brief by: Cassandra Amoafo Williams
October 2026
Across Sub-Saharan Africa, civic space is not simply shrinking, it is being reconfigured. Space is closing for LGBTQI+, intersectional feminist and human rights organisations while it stays open and often expands for those that serve the governments and conservative movements across the region. This brief traces how the reconfiguration is being engineered through three reinforcing mechanisms. The first is a funding imbalance characterized by the collapse of government development aid which has defunded feminist and LGBTQ+ organisations while the private conservative money which finances their opponents remains untouched and has actually expanded. The second is a legislative trend of anti rights politics being written into criminal law from Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act to Ghana’s Family Values Bill and now into a draft African Charter which has been endorsed by twenty African parliaments. Third is a repression of a generation of young activists seen most starkly in Kenya where the state has targeted the very people who could continue movements and rebuild civic space.
This alarming trajectory is not fixed however and this brief sets out how it can be altered. Donors and feminist funders should resource intersectional feminist and LGBTQI+ organisations directly and flexibly. The African Union and its human-rights bodies should measure the draft African Charter against the Maputo Protocol before it advances. Finally feminists movements and their allies should continue to use the strategy that has reliably reversed the trend which is continuous litigation.
Read the full brief here.
