As authoritarian regimes crack down on local human rights organizations (LHROs), these restrictions have led to calls for more variety and sustainability in financing strategies for the global South. One of the strategies that has gained the most traction is a shift toward local funding, as outlined by Jenny Hodgson. In addition, Annika Poppe and Jonas Wolff have argued that we must take governments seriously in their normative arguments against foreign funding and thus, foreign interference.
We should focus on adjusting to the contextual financial needs of human rights defenders. However, while local funding may be viable and beneficial in certain contexts in the global South, in others—namely in authoritarian regimes—local funding can magnify the problems of unsustainability and collective self-determination. Generalizations when debating local versus foreign funding are unhelpful; instead, we should focus on adjusting to the contextual financial needs of human rights defenders. In some authoritarian contexts, legal and structural challenges to local fundraising may make this impossible or counter-productive. One such challenge is the persecution of LHROs through legal and extralegal measures, and another is the problem of severe power inequality.
First, several authoritarian regimes have delegalized the very existence of LHROs by controlling the approval process for organizations and removing their previously authorized status. This forces many organizations to seek more “creative” registration methods in more lenient dictatorships, or forego registration in the most severe cases, while maintaining their operations. Sometimes local organizations go so far as to locate their headquarters outside the country, while maintaining local operations through activists on the ground. Local funding under these circumstances is illegal, and could lead to charges of terrorism or extralegal violence. Examples of this are cases like Rwanda and much of the Gulf, where only pro-government NGOs are allowed and activists are under constant threat of arrest and violence.
