Dossier

Beyond Survival: Rethinking Civil Society, Solidarity, and Ecosystem Resilience in Cambodia
Lead image for dossier

Cambodia’s civil society landscape is entering a period of profound transition. As global development cooperation contracts amid geopolitical realignment, shrinking civic space, and changing donor priorities, longstanding assumptions about funding, legitimacy, sustainability, and international solidarity are increasingly being challenged.

This dossier brings together Cambodian and international perspectives on what this moment of ecosystem shift means for the future of civil society, feminist organizing, and collective resilience. Moving beyond narrow discussions of organizational survival, the contributions explore deeper questions of dependency, political agency, locally rooted sustainability, and the reimagining of civic ecosystems beyond donor-centred development models.

The reflections build on and contribute to ongoing discussions within Cambodian civil society on NGO resilience, localization, and changing funding architectures.
“See also: NGO Resilience in a Changing Funding Landscape”

At the intersection of crisis and possibility, the dossier asks what kinds of collaborative, adaptive, and socially grounded forms of organizing may emerge in a rapidly changing post-aid landscape — and what must be protected, transformed, or reinvented in the process.

rethinking-group-discussion-on-the-hill

Ecosystem Shift and the Future of Cambodian Civil Society

This introductory reflection examines Cambodia’s historically externally shaped civil society landscape at a moment of profound transition. Against the backdrop of shrinking development cooperation and changing geopolitical realities, it argues for a broader rethinking of dependency, resilience, and development pathways — while exploring how this shift may also open space for more locally rooted, collaborative, and adaptive forms of civic organization.
Heike Löschmann
In it toolkit

Beyond Survival: Feminist Resilience and the Politics of Ecosystem Shift

This companion reflection to the Feminist Resilience Toolkit brings Cambodian feminist perspectives into wider debates on resilience, ecosystem shift, and civil society transformation. Against the backdrop of shrinking civic space, funding precarity, and organizational exhaustion, the text explores resilience not as mere survival, but as a political and collective practice grounded in care, solidarity, and transformative agency. By connecting global feminist debates with locally grounded experiences from Cambodia, the companion text contributes a critical Global South perspective to ongoing conversations on funding justice, movement resilience, and the future of civil society ecosystems.
Sotheavin Doch
Getting the Money We Need — A 101 Guide on Fundraising for Small Grassroots Organisations

Getting the Money We Need — A 101 Guide on Fundraising for Small Grassroots Organizations - Reflections from the HBF Cambodia Office

This companion reflection introduces a practical fundraising guide developed by AWID and Justice Funders through the lens of ecosystem-oriented civic resilience. Rather than treating fundraising purely as a technical exercise, the text explores how locally rooted, collaborative, and partially informal forms of organizing can strengthen long-term sustainability, autonomy, and adaptive capacity in rapidly changing funding environments.  
The Program Team of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Cambodia Office

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