Photo Credit: © Mohammed Al-Asfoor
The Lifeline Embattled CSO Assistance Fund is a consortium of 7 international non-governmental organizations — supported 22 government and foundation donors — that aims to push back against civic space threats.
History and Funders
The Lifeline Embattled CSO Assistance Fund was launched with the support of 12 governments in June 2011 to push back against a global trend of closing civil society space.
Lifeline is now supported by a Steering Committee of 22 government and foundation donors including: Australia, Benin, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ford Foundation, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mongolia, Netherlands, Norway, Open Society Foundations, Poland, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, and Uruguay.
Lifeline has also received support from the MacArthur Foundation
The Lifeline Consortium
CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation is an international alliance of members and partners which constitutes an influential network of organisations at the local, national, regional and international levels, and spans the spectrum of civil society. CIVICUS works to strengthen citizen action and civil society throughout the world.
The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) promotes a legal environment that strengthens civil society and advances the freedoms of association and assembly, philanthropy, and public participation around the world. Since 1992, ICNL has engaged with partners in more than one hundred countries. ICNL shares a vision in which people are empowered to work together to improve their lives.
FORUM-ASIA is a membership-based organisation, with 47 member organisations in 16 countries across South Asia, Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia whose mission is to promote and protect all human rights, including the right to development, through collaboration and cooperation among human rights organisations and defenders in Asia.
Freedom House (consortium lead) is an independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom around the world. Freedom House speaks out against the main threats to democracy, analyzes the challenges to freedom, and supports front-line activists to defend human rights and promote democratic change.
Front Line Defenders was founded with the specific aim of protecting human rights defenders at risk. Front Line Defenders addresses the protection needs identified by defenders themselves and provides rapid and practical support to at-risk human rights defenders.
People in Need (PIN) is a non-governmental, non-profit organization based on the ideas of humanism, freedom, equality and solidarity that works so that people everywhere in the world have the right to make decisions about their lives and to share the rights expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
SILC, the Swedish International Liberal Center, is a liberal foundation promoting democracy. SILC's aim is to strengthen organizations and individuals in their struggle for democracy and human rights. SILC supports activists and parties in totalitarian and post-totalitarian societies, especially in Eastern Europe, North Africa and Latin America.