Protecting Civic Action in an Increasingly Digital World
Civil society increasingly depends on digital technology. Organisations communicate with communities through social media, store sensitive documents online, coordinate teams through messaging platforms, conduct advocacy digitally and rely on email and cloud services for everyday operations.
These technologies have created enormous opportunities for civic participation. They have also created new vulnerabilities. Phishing attacks, compromised passwords, account takeovers, online harassment, disinformation, surveillance concerns and poor organisational security practices can disrupt the work of civil society organisations and expose civic actors to significant risks.
For organisations operating in fragile and conflict-affected environments, these challenges can be even more serious.
In 2026, the Open Knowledge Development Initiative launched Digital Resilience and Protection for Civic Actors in Northeast Nigeria, with support from CIVICUS under the Digital Democracy Initiative.
The project was designed not simply to teach digital-security concepts, but to understand the actual risks facing organisations and help them develop practical responses.
The level of demand quickly demonstrated the scale of the challenge.
An open call for organisations interested in digital-security assessments received 128 applications. Ultimately, 65 civil society organisations were assessed, providing OKDI with a broader picture of the digital-security challenges facing civic actors across the region.
The assessment process examined organisational practices, systems and vulnerabilities and supported the development of tailored recommendations to help participating organisations strengthen their security.
But assessment was only one part of the approach.
OKDI brought civic actors and digital-security stakeholders together to co-create a Digital Civic Protection Toolkit, designed to translate technical security concepts into practical guidance that organisations could use in their everyday work.
A Virtual Digital Security Clinic provided another layer of practical support.
The clinic reached 66 participants and created an opportunity for civic actors to work through immediate digital-security concerns. Participants took practical actions during the process, including enabling two-factor authentication, changing passwords and reviewing application permissions.
The project also established a Digital Resilience Support Desk, creating a first point of contact through which civic actors experiencing digital-security incidents could seek initial support and, where necessary, referrals for additional technical, legal or psychosocial assistance.
Digital protection, however, is not only about devices and passwords.
Constant exposure to online harassment, threats, information overload and the pressure of digital civic work can affect mental and emotional well-being. For this reason, OKDI integrated digital well-being and psychological resilience into the project alongside more conventional digital-security practices.
A two-day physical training further brought these different dimensions together, covering digital threats, privacy and account protection, legal rights, psychological resilience and healthier approaches to digital engagement.
The project also used radio, videos, infographics and other public-education materials to take digital-safety information beyond direct participants.
Digital security is no longer simply an IT issue. For civil society, it is an organisational resilience issue. For journalists and activists, it can be a personal safety issue. And for democracy, it is increasingly a civic-space issue.
One lesson has become increasingly clear through this work:
Digital security is no longer simply an IT issue.
For civil society, it is an organisational resilience issue. For journalists and activists, it can be a personal safety issue. And for democracy, it is increasingly a civic-space issue.
Protecting civic action today therefore requires protecting the digital environments in which much of that action now happens.
For OKDI, building digital resilience means helping civic actors do more than react to the next incident.
It means helping them become better prepared before it happens.