The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) recently hosted the Global Forum 2015: Shaping Civic Space in Stockholm Sweden from May 10-12, bringing together over 200 of the world’s leading experts in civil society, government, multilateral institutions, and the donor community.

This year’s Forum was marked by a sense of urgency unlike any other in recent times. In too many places, governments are becoming increasingly effective in their efforts to shrink civic space. Speakers included Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Director-General, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Maria Leissner, Secretary General, Community of Democracies, and Maina Kiai, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and a member of the World Movement Steering Committee.

Attendees from eighty countries, including several World Movement participants and Secretariat staff, discussed foreign agent laws, hate speech and the freedom of expression, the Post-2015 development agenda, mass protests, government surveillance, counter-terrorism, restrictions on LGBT rights, and other cutting-edge issues affecting civil society space.

The World Movement facilitated two sessions: “Using International Instruments for Local Solutions” and “Beyond the Usual Suspects,” which included discussion of the Defending Civil Society toolkit.

The event was organized by the ICNL, through the Civic Space Initiative, implemented in partnership with ARTICLE 19, CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, and the World Movement for Democracy.

For more information on the Global Forum, please visit the site.