The Digital Democracy Initiative (DDI) at CIVICUS is seeking a highly qualified consultant to support the operationalisation of the CIVICUS Digital & Civic Space Strategy design. The consultant will develop a series of thematic Advisory Notes corresponding to the five strategic focus areas identified in the Strategy Design Framework, and will facilitate a structured consultation process with key stakeholder communities — including the CIVICUS DDI community, CIVICUS staff, partner organisations working on digital rights and related fields, CIVICUS members and networks — to ensure the strategy is grounded in evidence, reflects diverse perspectives, and is positioned for effective implementation.

Location: Global/Remote
Duration: 7 months
Application Deadline: 31 May 2026

About Us

CIVICUS is a growing global alliance of more than 15,000 members in 175 countries. We work together to expand civic and democratic space. We strive to promote excluded voices, particularly from the global south.

Our Strategic Plan is built on the assumption that we are stronger when we work together. Expanding civic and democratic space requires a collective effort where our members and allies design and test sustainable solutions and deliver impact at scale.

To make this happen, CIVICUS works on five core objectives:

• Generate timely knowledge and analyses on civil society actions in relation to civic and democratic space
• Coordinate targeted advocacy to defend and expand civic and democratic space
• Contribute to stronger emergency and sustained support ecosystems for activists and organisations at risk
• Strengthen public discourse on civic space and reinforce civil society narratives
• Build counter power with the most affected groups and their movements

About the Digital Democracy Initiative (DDI) and the Digital Civic Space Strategy

The Digital Democracy Initiative (DDI) is a programme that emerged from Denmark’s Tech for Democracy initiative in response to the shrinking democratic and civic space. Its objective is to promote and protect local inclusive democratic space in the digital era. The initiative is implemented by a Consortium of Partners comprising Access Now, CIVICUS, Digital Defenders Partnership, Global Focus, European Partnership for Democracy, Fundo de Mujeres del Sur, Witness, and IWGIA. The DDI – Project 1: Enabling and Amplifying Action for Civic Space and Inclusive Democracy Project is a constituent Project within the DDI Programme.

After two years of implementation across six regions — East Asia, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia — the DDI has generated a substantial body of evidence, learning, and relationships that now form the foundation for a formal CIVICUS Digital & Civic Space Strategy.

The Strategy Design Blueprint, developed internally, proposes a structure and substantive content framework for the strategy. It organises the strategy around five thematic focus areas: (1) Digital Security and Resilience; (2) Information Integrity, Disinformation, and Electoral Civic Space; (3) Civic Technology and Digital Democracy; (4) Digital Rights and Policy Advocacy; and (5) Digital Inclusion and Equity — and maps these against CIVICUS’ five core work functions. The Blueprint also proposes cross-cutting considerations including AI governance, partnerships, and financial sustainability.

The next phase of strategy development requires both deepening the substantive content of each thematic pillar and ensuring the strategy is developed through a participatory process that reflects the perspectives of the communities it is designed to serve. This consultancy is central to both objectives.

Background

Civic freedoms are increasingly contested in the digital realm. Governments, big tech companies, and others are deploying digital tools — from surveillance technologies and internet shutdowns to AI-generated disinformation and algorithmic suppression — to restrict, monitor, and manipulate civil society. At the same time, digital technologies offer transformative possibilities: connecting movements across borders, amplifying marginalised voices, enabling real-time accountability, and building new forms of civic infrastructure.

The implementation of the CIVICUS DDI has generated six critical insights that directly inform the strategy: that digital exclusion is a civic space issue, not merely a technical one; that local actors are the primary innovators; that disinformation is the defining cross-cutting threat; that digital security is foundational infrastructure; that AI demands proactive, rights-based engagement; and that fragmentation across workstreams limits overall impact. These insights now need to be translated into a coherent, evidence-based strategy with clear thematic depth, operational pathways, and broad civil society ownership.

The Advisory Notes to be developed through this consultancy will serve as the primary substantive inputs to the strategy drafting process — providing analytical depth, mapping the global landscape in each thematic area, grounding strategic choices in evidence, and surfacing the perspectives of those most affected. Together with the consultation process the consultant will facilitate, they will ensure the final strategy is both intellectually rigorous and institutionally legitimate.

Key responsibilities

This consultancy will address a critical gap between the Strategy Design Framework and Blueprint, and a finalised, implementation-ready strategy. The Advisory Notes and consultation process will:

• Provide substantive depth to each of the five thematic pillars, grounded in current global evidence and the DDI’s own programme experience.
• Surface the perspectives, priorities, and recommendations of the CIVICUS DDI community, CIVICUS staff, partner organisations, and CIVICUS members and networks – ensuring diverse civil society voices shape the strategy’s direction.
• Identify gaps, tensions, and emerging challenges within each thematic area that the strategy must address.
• Generate accessible, shareable knowledge products that can support internal alignment, donor communications, and public advocacy.
• Inform the drafting of the final strategy document by providing the analytical and consultative foundation from which strategic choices can be made with confidence.

Scope of Work

This consultancy is expected to cover two interconnected streams of work: the development of five thematic Advisory Notes and the design and facilitation of a multi-stakeholder consultation process. The scope of work includes, but is not limited to, the following tasks:

Stream 1: Thematic Advisory Notes

The consultant will develop one Advisory Note for each of the five thematic focus areas identified in the Strategy Design Blueprint. Each Advisory Note should be approximately 8 to 12 pages in length and should serve as a standalone analytical and strategic reference document. Each Advisory Note should:

• Provide a concise mapping of the global landscape in the thematic area, inclusive of key trends, actors, risks, and opportunities, as well as draw on existing literature, DDI programme evidence, and the consultant’s own expertise.
• Summarise the most significant insights and lessons generated by the DDI in that thematic area, including both what worked and what did not.
• Identify the strategic choices, tensions, or gaps that the CIVICUS Digital Civic Space Strategy must address in that area.
• Propose concrete strategic recommendations — for objectives, activities, partnerships, and positioning — grounded in evidence.
• Be written in accessible, non-technical language suitable for a civil society audience, including CIVICUS members and networks not directly specialised in digital rights.

The five Advisory Notes will cover:

• Advisory Note 1 — Digital Security and Resilience: individual and organisational digital security; rapid-response resilience support; psychosocial and holistic resilience; legal compliance in digital contexts; peer trainer networks within civil society.
• Advisory Note 2 — Information Integrity, Disinformation, and Electoral Civic Space: disinformation monitoring and fact-checking infrastructure; deepfake detection and AI-generated content literacy; electoral integrity technologies; counter-narrative production; platform accountability advocacy.
• Advisory Note 3 — Civic Technology and Digital Democracy: AI-powered tools for civic use; accountability and legal empowerment technologies; offline and low-bandwidth civic participation; the Civic Tech Lab as an integration and scaling mechanism; the civic technology commons.
• Advisory Note 4 — Digital Rights and Policy Advocacy: tracking digital restrictions globally; advocacy on digital legislation affecting civil society; engagement with global norm-setting processes; platform accountability; AI governance advocacy; coalition building for digital rights.
• Advisory Note 5 — Digital Inclusion and Equity: supporting CSOs working with digitally marginalised communities; offline and hybrid civic participation design; digital literacy as civic competency; regional equity within CIVICUS programmes; the gendered digital divide and feminist digital organising.

Stream 2: Multi-Stakeholder Consultation Process

In parallel with the development of the Advisory Notes, the consultant will design and facilitate a structured consultation process with the following stakeholder communities:

• CIVICUS DDI community: grantees, Digital Action Lab participants, hackathon alumni, Regional Support Mechanism partners, and others who have engaged with DDI programming across the six regions.
• CIVICUS staff across programmes, including research, advocacy, communications, innovation and membership teams with relevant expertise or implementation responsibilities.
• Partner organisations working on digital rights and related fields: organisations with specialised expertise in digital security, information integrity, civic technology, digital rights advocacy, and digital inclusion, including DDI Implementing Partners and other relevant civil society actors.
• CIVICUS members and networks: the broader CIVICUS membership base, including those not directly engaged with digital programming but whose civic space experience and perspectives should inform the strategy.

The consultation process should include:

• Design of structured consultation instruments — including interview guides, focus group frameworks, and/or online survey tools — tailored to each stakeholder community.
• Facilitation of at least one consultation session per stakeholder community, using formats appropriate to the audience (virtual focus groups, one-to-one interviews, online surveys, or regional roundtables as appropriate).
• Particular attention to ensuring meaningful participation from civil society actors in the Global South, including in languages other than English where necessary for which CIVICUS will facilitate interpretation/translation.
• A synthesis of consultation findings that identifies areas of convergence, divergence, and emerging priorities across stakeholder groups, disaggregated where relevant by region and stakeholder type.
• Integration of consultation findings into the Advisory Notes and the overall strategy input package.

Deliverables

At the end of the consultancy, the consultant will submit:

• Five thematic Advisory Notes (one per thematic focus area), each approximately 8 to 12 pages, ready for internal circulation and external publication.
• Consultation design package: instruments, protocols, and stakeholder mapping used in the consultation process.
• Facilitation of the strategy consultation sessions.
• Consultation synthesis report: a 10 to 15 page document summarising findings from all stakeholder consultations, including areas of convergence and divergence across communities.
• Strategy input package: a consolidated document integrating a summary of the five Advisory Notes and the consolidated consultation findings into a set of prioritised recommendations for drafting the strategy.
• Leading on the drafting of the strategy working in close collaboration with the relevant CIVICUS teams. A final strategy draft will also be reviewed and edited by the relevant CIVICUS team.
• Presentation of findings to CIVICUS staff and DDI leadership, including a facilitated discussion on key strategic choices.

Desired Knowledge and Experience of the Consultant

We are seeking an experienced researcher, strategist, or civil society expert or consultant (individual or team) with expertise spanning digital rights, civic technology, and civil society strategy development. Demonstrable experience in the following areas is required:

• Graduate degree in Political Science, International Relations, Technology Policy, Law, Digital Rights, Communications, Development Studies, or related fields. A postgraduate degree is an asset. 
• Strong expertise across thematic focus areas of the strategy, with a demonstrated understanding of how they interact – particularly the intersections between digital security, information integrity, and civic technology.
• Proven experience producing high-quality strategic documents, thematic briefs, or policy analyses for civil society, multilateral institutions, or international NGOs.
• Experience designing and facilitating participatory processes with diverse stakeholder communities, including in multi-lingual, multi-regional contexts.
• Familiarity with the global digital rights landscape, including key organisations, coalitions, norm-setting processes, and advocacy spaces such as the Internet Governance Forum, UN Special Procedures, and regional human rights mechanisms.
• Understanding of the civil society sector and the specific digital challenges faced by civil society organisations, activists, and human rights defenders, particularly in the Global South.
• Demonstrated ability to synthesise complex, cross-cutting material into accessible and actionable insights for non-specialist audiences.
• Excellent writing and analytical skills in English. Proficiency in additional languages – particularly French, Spanish, Arabic, or Portuguese – and familiarity with political and technological contexts in the Global South are highly desirable.
• Experience working with global civil society networks, digital rights coalitions, or international civil society alliances is strongly preferred.

Reporting Requirements

The consultant will report to the Programme Quality & Innovation Lead. Regular progress updates and milestone reviews will be conducted throughout the consultancy to ensure alignment with the strategy development process and overall timelines.

Application Process

Interested consultants should submit the following documents to digitaldemocracy@civicus.org  with the subject line “Proposal: Digital Civic Space Strategy ” by the application deadline.

• Cover letter (1 to 2 pages) explaining your qualifications, interest in the consultancy, and how your expertise spans the thematic areas covered.
• A detailed CV highlighting relevant professional experience, skills, and publications or work products.
• A detailed proposal outlining your approach to developing the Advisory Notes and facilitating the multi-stakeholder consultation process, including proposed methodology, tools, and techniques, with a work plan detailing the timeline, key milestones, and deliverables.
• A detailed budget proposal, including your proposed daily remuneration rate in US$, estimated number of workdays per deliverable, and any additional costs.
• Two samples of previous work directly relevant to the consultancy – for example, thematic briefs, strategic analyses, or facilitation frameworks.
• Contact information for three individuals or organisations that can attest to the quality and impact of your previous work.

Please read the application process carefully and follow all steps. Only applicants submitting the application in the required format and with all required components will be considered. Kindly do not share application documents through external download links.

Selection Process

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted and may be asked to provide further information or to participate in a brief interview. Due to the volume of proposals expected, we are unable to provide detailed feedback on each application; however, all candidates will be notified of the outcome of their application.

If you have any questions, please contact us at digitaldemocracy@civicus.org

Note: Proposals that are entirely AI-generated and submitted without substantive original input from applicants may be disqualified during the evaluation process.