Closing Civil Society Space - Threat to World Bank's Mission and SDGs

Combating Corruption in Closing Spaces: Implications for Governance Panel Discussions

Lifeline Consortium partners Freedom House and ICNL coordinated a panel at the World Bank Annual Meeting, joined by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Human Rights Watch, to highlight the suppression of journalists and civil society organizations (CSO) combating corruption and advocating for transparency and good governance. It discussed how the World Bank’s mission and the new Sustainable Development Goals can be leveraged to keep the space for civil society and media from closing further.

Useful information on this subject is also available from The Coalition for Human Rights in Development  http://rightsindevelopment.org/

Videos from the panel are below:

Dr. Robert Herman - Vice President for Emergency Assistance Programs and Multilateral Initiatives - Freedom House

Jessica Evans - Senior Researcher/Advocate for International Financial Institutions – Human Rights Watch (Overview)

(Recommendations) 

Dr. Courtney Radsch - Advocacy Director - Committee to Protect Journalists

Yoseph Badwaza- Sub-saharan Africa Program Officer - Freedom House - (Formerly Secretary General of Ethiopian Human Rights Council)

Dr. Claudia Escobar Currently a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow - National Endowment for Democracy - Judge in the Guatemalan Judicial System

Irene Petras - Legal Advisor-Africa - The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (Formerly of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights)