Transnational NGO News

This announcement outlines a critical student volunteer opportunity this semester to interact and gain insight from a TNGO fellow. Please apply by Friday, February 8th in order to be considered for this oppurtunity. 

Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty International Secretary-General expressed that Trump's presidential policies are fueling the fire in various human rights campaigns. He bluntly said that most of the current political and business leadership, globally are suffering from denial of reality and this factor is causing many young people to mobilize human rights movements around the world. Naidoo mainly identified climate change and authoritarian governments as major threats to human rights and well-being. He implores young people to continue fighting for human rights and not fall prey towards bias, because it can easily create divisions around human beings. Once a division is created by a bias, it is very hard to remove the bias. We are human beings first and foremost and are born as human beings regardless of where we come from. 

The purpose of the Disinformation Toolkit is to raise awareness of the emerging threat of online disinformation, highlight its ability to negatively impact the work of INGOs at home and abroad, and to provide guidance to INGOS and civil society actors to identify their risks; develop organizational risk mitigation plans; and to build resilience to disinformation campaigns throughout the Inter Action community.

The article talks about the impact of the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) on intergovernmental organizations and NGOs that operate globally. This statute has the potential to to be weaponized by politicians to go after their opponents. What are the implications of NGOs being forced to register as foreign agents under the FARA act and how could it deprive various institutions from developing international relationships that are important for their sustainability?

The article by Doug Rutzen and Nick Robinson describes the unintended implications of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) on various stakeholders in the current political landscape. It analyzes the current legislation that has been suggested to fix various ambiguities of the FARA act which otherwise could be misused as a political weapon and concludes that there needs to be a way to distinguish foreign interference without undercutting democracy in the United States.  

In this interview, Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken, director of the Transnational NGO Initiative, discusses digital NGO campaigning strategies and how transnational NGOs must integrate offline and online action to continue to affect global change, specifically in a digital world.

This article describes how to build a successful movement in four steps in the context of a digital NGO campaigning landscape. The base behind a successful movement is knowing how and when to strategically create change based on a particular cause; it describes ways to capitalize on change to create a lasting movement.