TAI Weekly

TAI Weekly | The Civic Playground: New Democratic Imagination

By TAI (Role at TAI)
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TAI Weekly

March 31, 2026

Dear readers,

TAI was at OECD headquarters last week for the Global Anti-Corruption and Integrity Forum and for the annual meeting of the Network of Foundations Working for Development. Both events saw the launch of major new publications - check out both in this Weekly. Plus, we have stories ranging from corporate accountability to gendered impacts of tax abuse to a deep dive on youth and democracy, and the role of music in rights struggles. 

And don’t forget the jobs, fellowships and events calendar.

Happy reading!

TAI team

What's New

The International Civil Society Centre examines how civil society organizations worldwide are responding to the rise of anti-rights movements. Sharing lessons across regions, the piece explores emerging approaches and the growing recognition that stronger alliances are essential for long-term resilience.

China's green finance sector reached nearly RMB 48.55 trillion in 2025, driven by steady development across five key pillars. A new report by SynTao Green Finance outlines how 2026 will shift focus toward transition finance, biodiversity finance, and climate adaptation, as the country works to continuously improve its policy and market system. (Chinese only)

A new joint report by the Center for Economics and Social Rights, Alternative Information and Development Center (AIDC), and Tax Justice Network,  “Bled Dry”, examines the gendered impact of tax abuse, illicit financial flows, and debt in Africa, surfacing how these interconnected crises fall disproportionately on women.

The OECD's Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2026 assesses integrity systems across 62 countries, identifying both progress and persistent gaps in implementation. The report also explores emerging tools to address fraud, public procurement vulnerabilities, and organised crime.

The Sentry's latest investigation into the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) finds over a billion dollars tied up in vacant buildings, failed projects, and poorly managed investments across the UK, South Africa, and Liberia. With roughly half of the LIA's $62.85 billion in assets still unfrozen and many losing value, the report calls for a full forensic audit before any further restr

ictions are lifted, as ordinary Libyans continue to face economic hardship.

A new report from Red Española para el Desarrollo Sostenible proposes fresh frameworks for renewing the narratives around international development cooperation. Developed in collaboration with the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it responds to a communications landscape increasingly marked by disinformation and polarisation, arguing that cooperation must be repositioned as a tool for addressing global challenges that affect people's wellbeing.

Hearings have begun in France in the first major climate lawsuit against a multinational oil company. A coalition of civil society groups and local authorities is asking judges to determine whether TotalEnergies must reduce its fossil fuel production to meet its emissions obligations under the French duty of vigilance law, a case being closely followed by African campaigners opposed to the company's controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline.

The Democracy Narratives Alliance has published a new research brief that offers practical guidance on the narratives that shape public support for democracy, and how advocates and funders can deploy them more effectively.

A data story from Land Portal explores how failures to protect land access rights compound exclusion, displacement, and insecurity, and reflects critically on the opportunities and limits of the "Do No Harm" approach in development practice.

The European Parliament has approved the EU's first-ever anti-corruption law. The new Anti-Corruption Directive establishes binding minimum definitions for nine criminal offences, including bribery, embezzlement, and abuse of influence, across all member states, marking a significant step toward harmonised integrity standards in Europe.

A new report, “Money Talks”, draws on firsthand accounts from inside criminal networks to show how corruption is the invisible engine driving environmental destruction worldwide, and why no law or institution can hold without addressing it at the root.

Africa No Filter has united some of the continent's most influential creative and communications leaders through the Opportunity Africa Creative Council. Co-chaired by Moky Makura and Thebe Ikalafeng, the Council brings together architects of Africa's narrative power to collectively shape how the continent is represented globally.

The South Centre and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung have published a report on the UN Treaty on Business and Human Rights, that examines how corporate accountability frameworks can be strengthened in an era of widespread deregulation.

ESSENTIAL LISTENING:

Don't miss this podcast by Charles Kojo Vandyck (RINGO / WACSI) on power, partnership, and the future of civil society. Drawing on the RINGO Project's core premise that the international development system is not just under strain but fundamentally outdated, Vandyck makes the case for shifting from charity to solidarity, from control to partnership, and from compliance to trust.

From Our Members

PACKARD FOUNDATION: Shares a new report co-authored by Michelle Shevin and Kelly Born, that examines the intersection of AI and democracy. The piece calls for stronger public-sector procurement standards, greater transparency in datasets and model deployment, independent measurement of harms, and participatory oversight mechanisms.

FORD FOUNDATION: Explores how locally led “civic hubs” are helping rebuild trust and strengthen democracy across rural America. Through its support to the Trust for Civic Life, community-based groups create spaces for people to come together, work through differences, and act on shared priorities, showing how democratic renewal often starts at the local level.

TAI SECRETARIAT: TAI's 2025 Annual Report reflects a year of mounting pressure on civic space and philanthropy, set against rising attention to fiscal policy, climate finance, and development. In response, TAI focused on fostering coordination, shared learning, and informed decision-making, convening 51 meetings and engaging nearly 2,000 participants to help build a more connected and responsive funding ecosystem.

TOOLS AND TRENDS FOR FUNDERS

The OECD has released the third edition of “Private Philanthropy for Development”, detailing over $68.2 billion in philanthropic contributions to development between 2020 and 2023. Funders working on governance issues will want to look closely at the "Government and Civil Society" funding data within the report.

A new piece in Green Money explores what happens when donor-advised fund (DAF) holders get organized, making the case for mobilising collective approaches to move from isolated giving to coordinated, systemic impact.

The latest WINGS report for Latin America and the Caribbean (available in Spanish, with an English summary) maps eight trends shaping the region's philanthropic ecosystem. A valuable read for any funder operating in or looking to engage with the LAC region.

The National Center for Family Philanthropy makes the case for earlier, more proactive funding to support democratic processes, pointing to the impact of initiatives like “All by April.” As described by Lourdes Rodríguez of the David Rockefeller Fund, advancing funds ahead of election cycles allows nonprofit partners to plan, hire, and build trust within communities. The piece argues that family foundations are uniquely positioned to move quickly and direct resources where they are most needed to sustain free and fair elections.

ESSENTIAL LISTENING:

New podcast: Sounds of Justice, from the Global Campus of Human Rights, created and hosted by Ignacio Saiz. Featuring voices from across disciplines, the series explores the role of music in human rights struggles and what it means to center listening in the field.

Focused Topic of the Week

The Democratic Pressure from Below: How the World's Youth Are Reinventing Civic Life

Whether through deliberation, digital culture, satire, or collective action, a new democratic imagination is taking shape. What unites assemblies in Europe, social platforms in Nigeria, humour research, and street protests in Asia is not a single ideology but a shared diagnosis: existing democratic architectures were not built with this generation in mind, and this generation is no longer willing to wait for renovation. 

Children and young people's assemblies, as explored in DemocracyNext's interview series, represent one of the most structurally promising experiments in this shift: creating deliberative spaces where the youngest citizens don't merely observe democracy but actively constitute it. These assemblies challenge the foundational assumption that civic participation is an adult privilege, and in doing so, they reframe the question of democratic legitimacy altogether. If those most affected by long-term policy decisions — climate, education, debt — are systematically excluded from making them, the democratic claim of any system becomes philosophically suspect.

Yet formal assemblies are only one node in a much wider ecosystem of emerging civic cultures. In Nigeria, the redesign of civic engagement has taken a radically different form: a social-first "news movement" platform built around the logic of where young people already are, rather than where institutions wish they would be. This approach, embedding political information into the rhythms of digital life, reflects a growing recognition that the gap between information and participation is not simply a knowledge problem. It is a structural and cultural one. When civic content is designed with the aesthetic and relational grammar of youth culture, it stops being an obligation and starts becoming an identity. Nigeria's GST experiment suggests that democratic literacy can be cultivated not through civics classrooms alone, but through the same channels that generate memes, music, and collective meaning.

The question of what democracy feels like — not just how it functions — is precisely what the Democracy Literacy and Humour Project is investigating across European social groups. Humor, long treated as peripheral to serious political discourse, may in fact be one of its most honest registers: a space where people express ambivalence, distrust, and longing in ways that formal deliberation rarely permits. That Europeans are being asked what they find funny about democracy — and what democracy finds funny about them — is itself a quietly radical act. 

A Carnegie Endowment's analysis of Gen Z protests across Asia documents a profound disconnect between young citizenry and older ruling classes that has sparked massive demonstrations motivated by electoral grievances and anti-corruption demands. Governments are finding that they cannot assume that doubling down on digital repression will keep youth down - Nepal and Bangladesh show more meaningful democratic change can result. How well new governments will succeed depends in part on their ability to connect with youth. 

JOBS

CALLS

  • EDGE Funders' Global Engagement Lab is a 9-month program for progressive funders seeking systemic change and personal growth, with cohort learning and in-person retreats. Applications open March 2026; costs USD 4,000–7,000, with discounts for EDGE members.

  • The American University Washington College of Law is accepting applications for its 2026 Summer Anti-Corruption Law Certificate Program (June 1–4 and 8–11, in person and remote). Four courses are on offer, covering bribery law and compliance, cryptocurrency and illicit finance, anti-corruption legal frameworks, and AI, with discounted rates for NGO, academic, and government participants, and limited tuition assistance available.

  • The European Endowment for Democracy provides rolling funding for local democracy organizations in the Eastern Partnership, Middle East and North Africa, and Western Balkans & Turkey.

  • Support for independent media in Kenya – Media Development Investment Fund. Capacity building programme. Rolling deadline.

  • WINGSForum 2026 is calling for member-led session proposals. Submit your ideas, experiments, and lessons learned for a wider stage. Deadline: April 23, 2026.

  • The Open Government Partnership Transparency Fellowship is a fully-funded, five-day immersive experience for mid- to senior-level professionals in government, civil society or media from Georgia, Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine. It will take place 13-17 July 2026 in Lithuania and Latvia. Deadline: 31 March 2026.

  • The National Endowment for Democracy offers grants to advance democratic goals and strengthen democratic institutions. Deadline: June 6, 2026.

  • Thousand Currents will host its first Academy in the Global South this August in Brazil, focused on internationalism and global solidarity, including immersive engagement with social movements shaping transformative change. August 2-7, 2026 | São Paulo, Brazil.

CALENDAR

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