About SANE
The Solidarity Action Network (SANE) brings together international civil society organisations (ICSOs) and their local partners to support each other when faced with undue threats and challenges to their operations or civic space restrictions more broadly. SANE enhances cooperative mechanisms for joint actions beyond public statements of solidarity to push back against clampdowns on civil society.
- We capture case studies and best practices on organisational resilience mechanisms and coalition responses to undue scrutiny, attacks and civic space restrictions. We collect them in the so-called Solidarity Playbook.
- We exchange information, share lessons learned and existing mechanisms.
- We identify common goals that move beyond sharing protective strategies. We encourage more joint actions, explore non-public forms of solidarity and design and test new solidarity mechanisms. These mechanisms for example include guidelines on crisis response mechanisms, access to legal support, communication expertise or diplomatic connections.
- We aim at connecting humanitarian/development organisations with human rights organisations, initiating cross-sector solidarity and building possible bridges to other networks and initiatives.
Further cross-cutting elements include digital and narratives dimension of the network. We explore digital dimensions of solidarity mechanisms as they form a tremendous potential as well as a significant shift in the nature of threats currently experienced around civic space restrictions (e.g. online surveillance, cyberattacks, restrictions on internet access, disinformation campaigns). We further examine a narrative dimension and explore how ICSOs can move from reactive to proactive narratives and how they can develop positive narratives for themselves and the sector as a whole. After strengthening exchange on best practices and supporting solidarity mechanisms at the global level, we will look at possibilities of connecting the initiative with the national (country) level to further involve ICSO partners in building resilient and solidary country coalitions.
The intensity and frequency of attacks on international civil society organisations combined with a shared value to protect and help one another gave rise to the Solidarity Action Network.
Through consultation at the Innovator’s Forum and interviews with ICSO staff members, we discovered a desire to actively support each other in solidarity when an organisation from the community is under undue pressure.
- Phase one (July to October 2019): A team of consultants collected pilot cases on response mechanisms to undue attacks and on global and national-level response coalitions. The results were shared with ICSO and CSO representatives at the International Civic Forum (ICF) in Addis Ababa in October 2019. The 2019 case studies are available at this website.
- Phase two (November 2019 – April 2020): We explored all viable format options with help of consultants and decided on a final format. We set a Working Group consisting of ICSO and CSO representatives who give a strategical guidance and an Advisory Group for further input and feedback. We brought the Working Group together in a virtual meeting to set the overall framework of the project.
- Phase three (May 2020 – June 2021): We focus on collecting case studies and building a network to share best practices and develop new solidarity mechanisms.