Trust, Accountability and the Future of Civic Space – Reflections from Peace Connect and International Civil Society Week

This October and November 2025, Cooperation Canada joined civil society organizations, activists and partners for Peace Connect, in Kenya, and the International Civil Society Week (ICSW), in Thailand, two global convenings dedicated to collective action, strengthening civic space and building solidarity around the world.  

Hosted by Peace Direct and CIVICUS respectively, both gatherings provided timely spaces for reflection and collaboration amid growing pressures on civil society globally, from closing civic space and digital repression to the polarization of public discourse and declining trust in institutions. Participants from across regions shared experiences of resilience, solidarity and renewal, exploring how civil society can adapt to a rapidly changing landscape.  

Both gatherings highlighted an important truth — the global cooperation sector must reach beyond its familiar circles, cultivating broader partnerships, greater trust and shared accountability. Below are further insights drawn from these moments. 

Partnerships Beyond Echo Chambers 

The sector faces challenges that demand wider alliances and deeper listening, reaching beyond familiar networks. This means engaging youth movements, educators, researchers, cultural and faith leaders, artists, social innovators, journalists, and local governments who shape public understanding of global solidarity and civic life in diverse ways.  

Trust as the Foundation  

Across both events, conversations on locally led development reinforced that meaningful partnership is built on trust. Trusting others to lead. Trusting ourselves to step back. And trusting that shared goals can be achieved through different paths. Building trust in marginalized communities may begin with creating the conditions for participation, ensuring that people can move out of survival mode and into spaces where they can shape decisions that affect their lives.  

Horizontal, Vertical & Inward Accountability 

And if trust is the foundation of partnership, accountability is what gives it strength. Participants highlighted the need to expand our understanding of accountability beyond upward reporting to donors or institutions. True accountability flows in multiple directions: upward, sideways, and inward.  

Horizontal accountability toward peers and communities strengthens transparency and collaboration. Vertical accountability to institutions and funders deepens credibility and the responsible use of resources. But it is inward accountability, the practice of self-reflection, that reflects coherence between our values and our actions. Civil society actors are encouraged to continually examine how their own practices might reproduce the same hierarchies they seek to dismantle.  

A Caution on Competition for Local Proximity 

As civic space and funding contract, new pressures are reshaping how civil society operates. One participant described a troubling trend: “competition for local proximity” or the race to appear closest to the ground or most “authentic” to secure legitimacy or resources. This competition goes beyond funding; it can quietly reshape the fabric of communities, turning collaboration into rivalry and relationships into transactions over who has access, representation or the right to tell the story. 

True proximity is not about who’s closest, but who’s trusted. It grows from relationships built on reciprocity, time and shared accountability. Civil society actors and their partners are urged to resist these competitive instincts and instead cultivate collaborative proximity, where legitimacy is shared across networks and community power is strengthened collectively rather than claimed individually. 

Who Tells What Story… and How?  

At both gatherings, participants reflected on how civil society defines and communicates its impact. At Peace Connect, the discussion began with a fundamental question: who decides what counts as success? Many organizations acknowledge that they are often required to adopt donors’ definitions of impact, even when those measures fail to capture the real value of their work. This raised deeper questions about voice and ownership: Who sets the benchmark? Who decides what gets reported back? 

At ICSW, the conversation turned to storytelling itself: who tells the story, and how? Some argued that civil society must do a better job of communicating its impact, while others suggested that the work should speak for itself or that communities and partners should be messengers. Ultimately, it is believed that how stories are told, and by whom, shapes how legitimacy is built. Genuine storytelling therefore involves shared authorship, where those most affected by the work also define and narrate its impact. 

Reimagining the Future of Civil Society 

At both events, Cooperation Canada and our partners at RACI (the Argentinian Network for International Cooperation) co-hosted sessions on Reimagining the Future of Civil Society Organizations. Drawing on insights from Cooperation Canada’s Global Cooperation Futures Initiative, these sessions introduced emerging trends and scenarios for the global cooperation sector, prompting participants to explore how global shifts and public trust might reshape our work beyond 2030. 

Participants reflected on what it would take for civil society to remain relevant and trusted in this changing landscape, envisioning new forms of partnership, more flexible funding models, and better ways to communicate the value of civil society in people’s daily lives. 

Across both sessions, there was a growing appetite to use strategic foresight not only to anticipate change, but to reimagine what comes next, to move from reactivity toward proactive and anticipatory practice that centers the agency of civil society to shape its future. Insights from these sessions will inform the Vision 2035 document, key output of the Ottawa Civic Space Summit next year.  

As we look ahead, the conversations at Peace Connect and ICSW remind us that sustaining civic space begins with how we work, how we partner, how we build trust and how we hold ourselves accountable. Expanding the circle is not only about inclusion; it is about cultivating relationships and reflexes that make the sector resilient. Through initiatives like the Ottawa Civic Space Summit, Cooperation Canada will continue to convene and connect those committed to reimagining what equitable, trusted and accountable cooperation can look like in the years ahead.