By Mônica C Ribeiro
Brazilian civil society has played a fundamental role in placing the guarantee of access to rights on the public agenda. Since the country's redemocratization, following the end of the military dictatorship, organized civil society has guaranteed a series of rights in conjunction with the Constituent Assembly that generated the 1988 Federal Constitution.
Since then, some sectors of civil society have remained organized to maintain and expand these rights, which is fundamental to guaranteeing democracy in the country. In the current political moment in Brazil, its role has been, more than ever, one of resistance, in the sense of seeking to guarantee the rights hard won in previous decades. And its strengthening is therefore essential for this.
“Today we are experiencing a crisis of representative democracy. This can be seen in the mixture of public and private interests, in the threat to the independence of institutions, in the emptying of spaces for social participation, even in the disrespect for diversity and freedoms in the running of our country. Therefore, in this process of weakening mechanisms of participation and social control, the importance of strengthening civil society is essential so that movements, articulations and groups of people have a voice and visibility”, assesses Cristiane Azevedo, from ISPN (Instituto Society, Population and Nature).
For Graciela Hopstein, coordinator of RFJS (Philanthropy Network for Social Justice), civil society is a fundamental field for the construction of public policy agendas, as well as a space for the fight for rights and for the monitoring, evaluation and monitoring of these public policy.
“It is a participatory and disputed space, fundamental for the construction of democracy. Guaranteeing citizen participation, creating mechanisms that guarantee freedom of expression and echo the voices of different groups. Space for collective construction, where it is possible to think about the common. Civil society was absolutely fundamental to the redemocratization process in Brazil, because it was truly the space where the possibility of direct voting was achieved. It is where public agendas are built that are linked to the needs for improvements for the population, in different aspects.”
Harley Henriques, general coordinator of Fundo Positivo, agrees with Graciela, and highlights that strengthening civil society is essential to guarantee its participation in the spheres of public policy construction. “The stronger civil society is, aware of its political role as a proponent of public policies, strengthened in its networks and in the technical capacity to operate, the more it will be skilled and capable of participating in democratic processes through, for example, seats in forums of mixed representation, of councils, in a horizontal relationship with the executive, legislative and judiciary powers, thus composing the exercise of democracy.”
The importance of social justice philanthropy in the current Brazilian scenario
For Graciela, the role of social justice philanthropy in the current Brazilian political and economic scenario is to support groups that seek to build public policy agendas, in a situation that is absolutely devastated in the context of the current federal government.
“Continuing to support these groups is to continue supporting the resistance, because we believe that this conservative and right-wing cycle will continue for some time. Strengthening these groups is absolutely necessary for building the future. Community and social justice philanthropy has played a very important role in strengthening resistance and the fight for rights. We are talking about the rights of political minorities, but also about citizenship rights, especially in the current context of closed spaces for public participation.”
For Cristiane, social justice philanthropy strengthens local movements and articulations, enhancing the reach of their voices to ensure that their rights are not threatened, and that democracy is maintained.
“This role must be played to promote coordination between local leaders, grassroots organizations and civil society, to increase the visibility of their agendas collectively. In this way, they will be able to contribute, with the strength of their voices and actions, to the transformation of this reality of democratic crisis and political, social and environmental setbacks that we are all facing in Brazil.”
“Social justice philanthropy is increasingly important and strategic, especially in the current Brazilian context, because it fosters, drives and strengthens community initiatives, enabling these voices to be amplified and the possibility of an equitable society, which can have access to rights for everyone. This philanthropy strengthens civil society in offering community services, in the production of knowledge, undoubtedly benefiting the least favored and the most vulnerable in this unequal and unfair country”, adds Harley.
The role of the Philanthropy Network for Social Justice and member organizations in this context
As a space that brings together a large part of the financiers of independent philanthropy in Brazil, the Philanthropy Network for Social Justice, as a political actor, has the mission of influencing the philanthropic ecosystem so that, increasingly, there are resources to support civil society, strengthen it and also the field of rights.
“Although it is not a community fund or foundation, because it is not directly linked to base communities or movements, the RFJS has precisely the mission of creating dynamics to recognize and influence this field and for civil society to truly occupy an important place on the country's political agenda. From influencing donors and public opinion to recognizing the importance of supporting grassroots civil society groups for the construction of democracy”, defines Graciela.
The Network's member organizations, in turn, work with different sectors of civil society and with diverse agendas in the field of community philanthropy and social justice in order to contribute to transformation through the donation of financial resources to organizations, collectives, leaders and grassroots groups that work in the field of defending rights.
“Despite being in a political and environmental context of significant setbacks, largely encouraged by the positions of government leaders who are deliberately anti-environmental, anti-indigenous and anti-traditional peoples and communities, the ISPN continues to seek dialogue in favor of the social objective greater than sustainable development. Our way of contributing to generating transformation in this scenario is through the PPP strategy – ECOS: Promotion of Ecosocial Productive Landscapes, which is based on democratizing access to financial resources, encouraging social participation, with dialogues between different segments and networks of the civil society, and spheres of government”, highlights Cristiane.
The ISPN strategy also seeks the production and management of knowledge by valuing dialogues between local knowledge and practices, strengthening the relationship between researchers, academia and communities, fostering social and productive inclusion.
Fundo Positivo has been operating in the field of national philanthropy for eight years, being the only one that works primarily in the field of preventive health. “It was promoted by a federal government policy, and its role is to enable the financing of community projects, providing resources, mainly, in regions where the State is not present, seeking to serve a diversity and plurality of themes and beneficiary audiences. We finance projects throughout the national territory and also contribute to strengthening civil society by offering spaces for improving technical capacity, training on strategic topics in institutional and project management and promoting the articulation of network actions”, says Harley.
With more than 200 projects financed across the country, Fundo Positivo also works on social inclusion and access to rights for certain more vulnerable groups and in situations of social exclusion. As an example, the organization has an LGBTQIA+ fund that directs resources to strengthening this movement in the country through national networks and social movements operating in the field.
Territorial leadership and transformation
Cristiane Azevedo highlights the role of local and peripheral leaders as fundamental to the process of transformation and social change.
Taking the leaders of Peoples, Traditional Communities and Family Farmers (PCTAFs) as a focus, she observes that the work of dialogue and struggle carried out by this segment over many years has allowed them to achieve some achievements. However, in this recent period of our history, the setbacks, generated since 2020, require even greater engagement and persistence from their leaders in the process of guaranteeing their rights, their ways of life and, consequently, democracy itself.
“The role of these leaders and their grassroots organizations continues to be of paramount importance in articulating local resources and potential, as well as in their quest to influence private and public actors to achieve the improvement and adaptation of public policies related to their struggles. However, these leaders currently face the challenge of making their voices heard and their demands considered.”
She also highlights that, at the moment, many of these leaders are working hard to ensure that their rights and ways of life are guaranteed. Therefore, this role is one of resistance and struggle to maintain its visibility and work for nature conservation through the sustainable use of biodiversity in its territories. A fight that generates collective benefits that will be shared with the whole of society.
“For Fundo Positivo, the leaders who are the focal point of the relationship have an extremely strategic role in consolidating the effectiveness of philanthropy in the Brazilian scenario. Because these leaders are the ones who know the territory under ownership, the emergencies, the agenda and the priority agenda. And they have the capacity for local articulation, whether with public management, with other social movements, other civil society organizations. They feed back into the Positive Fund agenda from the moment we launch notices that represent the needs identified in the territories by these leaders”, defines Harley.
