Manushya Foundation in collaboration with USAID, FHI360, and the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) wrote Thailand's 2021 CSO Sustainability Index Report. The Report provides a complete picture of the state of civil society across seven dimensions, such as legal environment, organizational capacity, financial viability, advocacy, service provision, sectoral infrastructure, and public image.

 

Overall CSO sustainability in Thailand deteriorated in 2021. Thailand has the lowest level of CSO sustainability in the Asian region, as a result of the shrinking space and enforcement of draconian laws and policies under the rule of the current undemocratically constituted government. The legal environment underwent extreme deterioration due to increasing state oppression and restrictions on civic space, highlighted in the threat of a draft law intended to regulate the sector. Organizational capacity and service provision both recorded slight declines, primarily due to the effects of COVID-19 restrictions and limited capacity, further spurred by the slight deterioration in financial viability. At the same time, however, the infrastructure supporting the CSO sector improved slightly as CSO collaboration increased. Though the government continued to discredit CSOs’ activities in 2021, the overall public image of the sector also improved slightly, thanks to notable improvements in public perceptions of CSO work, while advocacy remained relatively unchanged overall.

 

 

About the project: The Civil Society Organizations Sustainability Index (CSOSI) project, which is funded by USAID and implemented by FHI360 in partnership with ICNL, assesses the sustainability of CSO sectors in countries around the world. Manushya Foundation is the implementation partner for the CSOSI report of Thailand. The report is based on input provided by civil society experts, including experts from INGOs, CSOs, CBOs, grassroots, and human rights defenders.