Open Society Foundations

Big news: We’re committing $400 million over eight years to develop green industrial policies that contribute to economic growth in the Global South and address the climate emergency. This is a significant increase in our support for economic development. This is the first major new program to be announced following a two-year organizational transformation at Open Society and builds on our long history of supporting economic and social rights in addition to civil and political rights. “The current economic system is failing developing countries. It stops them from being able to grow economically and fight climate change at the same time. We need new ideas to create fairer, more just societies. That's why Open Society is committing $400 million to help achieve this goal,” says Open Society President Binaifer Nowrojee. Our new Economic and Climate Prosperity program will fund efforts in the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and North Africa region, and Southeast Asia that support green and equitable economic agendas that create jobs, reduce inequalities, and explore the impact of international taxation and financing on developing countries’ investment in green initiatives. We will support civil society organizations and independent economic think tanks working on policy issues in countries including Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Senegal, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Share if you think it’s time to build economic and climate prosperity in the Global South and read more: https://osf.to/3zGYtcT. #OpenSociety #ClimateResilience #ClimateChange #EconomicDevelopment #EconomicProsperity #ClimateEmergency

Tunisians vote on Sunday for president, but the conclusion is already foregone: current President Kais Saied will be reelected. Since his “self-coup” in July 2021, authoritarianism is rising, crackdowns on dissidents are increasing, other presidential candidates have been arrested, and democratic institutions are being dismantled. How did Tunisia—the last holdout from the Arab uprisings of 2011, the country that gave democracy a chance the longest—run headlong into autocracy? Leftist activists and intellectuals have ignored Saied’s authoritarian turn because of an anti-imperialist nativism, Tunisian political sociologist Nadia Marzouki argues in her piece for the 25th edition of The Ideas Letter, published by our Ideas Workshop. Saied heralded the collective deep frustration at a lack of economic prosperity and political stability in the country from 2011 to 2019 while combining nativism, Islam, and anti-imperialism into a form of populism. “In its nativist and nationalist iteration, the anti-imperialist narrative that has enabled Saiedist supporters is not just anti-democratic. It is obsolete. It situates the locus of anti-imperialist struggles solely at the level of the nation state at a time when a significant part of today’s decolonial political debates, despite all their internal diversity, revolve around centering peoples and communities rather than states, and when ideas such as diasporism, exile, transnational solidarities are key to the thinking of non or post Zionism and post supremacism. The silence of ‘decolonial’ Saiedists vis à vis the plight of Sub-Saharan migrants reveals how decolonialism works as a fig leaf for authoritarian and statist nationalism,” she writes. Read her whole piece in the latest edition of The Ideas Letter: https://osf.to/3zKRUGn

39 million of Brazil’s workers are informally employed as delivery workers, as domestic workers, and in other jobs. 54% of informal workers are Black. Female, LGBTQIA+, and disabled workers are also disproportionately informally employed. These workers often lack the protections that workers in the formal sector have: a minimum wage, maximum limits on working hours, social security, sick and maternity leave, retirement options, and on-the-job safety. Informal workers are left more vulnerable as a result. “I’m a father. I have a family waiting for me at home. But every day when I leave for work, I’m not sure if I’ll come back.” Rodrigo Lopes, a union leader for delivery workers, has worked 10 years as a motorcycle delivery worker. He’s survived 12 accidents and lacks legal protection to keep him safe on the job. To strengthen the rights of informal workers in Brazil like Rodrigo, the Labora Fund, supported by Open Society, helps to create fair and equitable labor conditions through policy and advocacy training and mobilization. These activities have helped groups of delivery workers, domestic workers, sex workers, gig workers, and workers with disabilities advocate for their rights. This has already resulted in new working standards, like new bags for delivery workers that cause less pain. Share is you think it’s time informal workers get the rights they deserve and read more: https://osf.to/4eK2rR2 #OpenSociety #Brazil #WorkersRights #GigEconomy #InformalSector

Thousands of families have lost their homes through demolitions, evictions, and sales just because of who their neighbors are. That’s the effect of Denmark’s “ghetto laws.” Through these laws, the Danish state seeks to reshape the demographic makeup of neighborhoods across the country. A neighborhood is designated a “ghetto” if most of its residents are of “non-Western” background—especially impacting non-white and Muslim populations. Residents in one affected neighborhood, Mjølnerparken in Copenhagen, are fighting back against these laws. Some of these residents have lived in the neighborhood for decades, and the law has been forcing them to leave. “No matter how well we do, we will all still be defined by the term ‘on-Western.’ Now we have lost the home that my children were raised in.” says Muhammad Aslam, a taxi owner who lived in his home in Mjølnerparken for over three decades. Residents have brought a legal case that argues that the sale of over 200 homes in the neighborhood is discriminatory and violates their rights, including the right to respect for their homes. “When the housing association knocked on my door to serve me the eviction notice, I felt like the child I was when war broke out in Bosnia...Even though they were serving me with papers, it felt like having a gun pointed at me all over again, with nowhere to turn,” says Mediha Focak, another Mjølnerparken resident who came to Denmark as a refugee from war-torn Bosnia. The lawsuit is now before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which will decide whether the Danish government is breaching European law. A ruling in favor of the families and individuals from Mjølnerparken would be a victory for them—and for the struggle against racial discrimination in the EU. Share and read more: https://osf.to/4gHpvSd #OpenSociety #Denmark #GhettoLaw #Copenhagen #Discrimination #AffordableHousing #Racism

We welcome the announcement from the foreign ministers of Germany, Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands that they will start a legal effort to bring accountability and justice to the Taliban for their ongoing abuses on women and girls’ rights in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is now the only country in the world that has banned young girls from secondary schooling and university education. It has also imposed severe restrictions on women’s employment and legal rights. The four foreign ministers said at a news conference in New York that they will inform Afghanistan’s Taliban of their international obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)—which the country ratified in 2003. This launches a process that could lead to action against Afghanistan in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Additional countries have expressed support for this effort, including Albania, Belgium, Iceland, Malaysia, Morocco, Panama, Sierra Leone, and Slovenia. “Holding the Taliban accountable for Afghanistan’s treaty obligations to protect the rights of women and girls is long overdue. This effort follows the courageous leadership and resistance of Afghan women, who continue to fight for their rights in the face of oppression. It offers a path toward a more sustainable future for Afghan women and girls, showing that they will not be forgotten, but supported in their pursuit of justice and equality,” says Open Society’s Natasha Arnpreister. As part of its support for international human rights, Open Society has examined the feasibility of CEDAW signatories bringing a case at the International Court of Justice against Afghanistan's Taliban. Share if you think Afghanistan’s women and girls deserve better rights and read more: https://osf.to/47JP156 #OpenSociety #Afghanistan #WomensRights #InternationalJustice

Today at 1:15pm EDT, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, CEO of Rappler, and press freedom advocate Maria Ressa will give the 2024 #KofiAnnanLecture, co-hosted by the International Peace Institute (IPI), Kofi Annan Foundation, International Crisis Group, and us. Open Society President Binaifer Nowrojee will give opening remarks. Watch live: https://lnkd.in/dt-P7vKs

Once part of the same fight against bigotry, the struggle against antisemitism and the struggle against racism have become disconnected, argues historian David Feldman in a piece for the latest edition of The Ideas Letter, published by our Ideas Workshop. He offers a way to bridge the disconnect. This disconnect has accelerated after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and during Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza. A war of words globally now parallels the violent physical war taking place on the ground and “pits Hamas’s genocidal antisemitism against Israel’s reinvention of apartheid, a crime against humanity.” These conflicting visions of the conflict itself divide the responses to it. How did anti-antisemitism come to be separated from anti-racism in this way? First, one must understand how the terms “racism” and “antisemitism” came about and in which contexts, especially in relation to Zionism and anti-colonialism, over the course of the 20th Century and second, how these terms and their understanding have changed since the 1960s and 70s. Feldman traces the evolution of these terms and points to the 2001 United Nations World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, as “a rupture between the politics of anti-antisemitism and international anti-racism.” This surfaced two contentious and connected issues: reparations for slavery and colonialism in the past and the conflict between Israel and Palestine in the present. Read Feldman’s whole piece, including an attempt to bridge the divide between the struggles of antisemitism and racism, and more in The Ideas Letter and subscribe to receive the letter via email: https://lnkd.in/epkxjrHS

“There is a convergent agreement that democracy must comprise key yardsticks as a good governance approach relevant for the development of the continent… The belief is that once these conditions are present, it will become the foundation to build a self-regulating governance architecture in Africa which responds to citizen’s needs, assures social justice, appropriate management of the economy, sustainable peace and security as well as the promotion of favorable environment for all individual pursuit,” writes our Chukwuemeka B. Eze, director of Democratic Resilience in Africa.

On September 26 at 1:15pm EDT, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, CEO of Rappler, and press freedom advocate Maria Ressa will give the 2024 #KofiAnnanLecture, co-hosted by the International Peace Institute (IPI), Kofi Annan Foundation, International Crisis Group, and us. Open Society President Binaifer Nowrojee will give opening remarks. Watch live: https://lnkd.in/dt-P7vKs

To commemorate National Voter Registration Day in the U.S., we’re highlighting three grantee organizations that are encouraging more political and civic engagement by women and young people across the country. If you’re a U.S. citizen 18+ and want to vote, you can register or check if you’re already registered at https://lnkd.in/g_3vePg. The Alliance for Youth Action grows people power through supporting youth organizations who strengthen democracy across key issues like abortion access, climate justice, housing, public safety reform, and voting rights. Run for Something recruits millennial and Gen Z leaders, who are majority women and people of color, and have worked to expand abortion access, stop book bans, and engage young voters. Power Rising brings together Black women across various sectors to turn power into action and create an actionable agenda to be implemented in their communities and nationally that leverages social, political, professional, cultural, and economic power. In December 2023, we announced a $50 million investment to nonpartisan civic engagement among women and young people, including to these three organizations. Learn more: https://osf.to/3Nc17Lx Amanda Litman photo: © Karsten Moran/NYTimes/Redux, Dakota Hall photo courtesy of Dakota Hall, Leah D. Daughtry photo: © Shawn Thew/EPA/Shutterstock #OpenSociety #NationalVoterRegistrationDay #VoterRegistration #Elections #Voting #USElections #USA