Across West Africa and beyond, civic space is shrinking, and many people are feeling its impact. Community voices are increasingly ignored, while civil society organisations face tighter regulations.
Public criticism is sometimes dismissed as troublemaking, and peaceful protests are often met with suspicion.
In several countries, new laws have made it more difficult for citizens to organise, access funding, or speak freely.
Ghana is widely recognised for its democratic stability and is often described as one of the most stable democracies in the region. Yet even here—particularly in underserved communities—civic space is not as open, inclusive, or well-protected as it should be.
When young people fear speaking out, community groups struggle to register or operate, and citizens are excluded from local decision-making, then democracy quietly weakens.
From where I stand as a grassroots leader working in the Upper West Region, the shrinking of civic space does not always come with sirens. Sometimes it comes softly through silence, discouragement, and the normalisation of exclusion.
But communities are not powerless
Across northern Ghana, communities are developing local solutions to protect civic freedoms, defend civil society space, and resist repressive practices—not through violence, but through creativity, organisation, and courage.
Community education is the first line of defence.
One of the strongest tools we have seen is civic education at the grassroots level.
In many rural communities, people are not fully aware of their constitutional rights, the role of local government or the lawful ways to demand accountability. This gap creates fear and makes repression easier.
Community-based organisations, youth groups, women’s associations, and faith leaders are responding by organising town hall meetings, community durbars, school dialogues and radio discussions in local languages.
These platforms simplify civic information. They explain voting rights, freedom of association, freedom of expression, and the importance of citizen participation. When people understand their rights, they are more confident to engage peacefully and responsibly.
Education does not remove all risks, but it removes ignorance, which is often the first tool of repression.
Youth-led innovation and digital civic space
Young people in the Upper West Region are also carving out new civic spaces through digital tools. Community radio, WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, and youth media platforms are increasingly used to document local issues, mobilise volunteers, counter misinformation and promote peaceful advocacy.
These platforms allow young people to speak when physical spaces are limited or politicised. They amplify local stories that rarely reach national media.
They also help connect rural communities to national media conversations on governance, development, and human rights.
For many young people, it has become a critical arena for expression, solidarity, and accountability.
Coalitions instead of isolated voices
Another powerful community response is coalition-building
Instead of working alone, local NGOs, youth networks, women’s groups, disability-oriented organisations, traditional leaders, and media actors are forming alliances to monitor local governance, engage district assemblies, resist unfair decisions and protect activists facing intimidation.
Collective action reduces vulnerability, and it is harder to silence many organised groups than one isolated voice.
Coalitions also increase credibility and help local concerns travel upward into regional and national policy spaces.
This shift, from lone advocacy to community blocs, is one of the most effective grassroots strategies against the shrinking civic space.
Peaceful resistance rooted in culture
In the Upper West Region, culture remains a strong civic tool. Chiefs, elders, queen mothers, and opinion leaders still hold moral influence.
Community actors are intentionally working with these traditional structures to protect civic freedoms through culturally respected methods such as dialogue, mediation and public forums.
This approach prevents violent suppression of dissent, resolves civic disputes peacefully, protects marginalised voices and challenges harmful norms without confrontation.
It reframes civic engagement not as rebellion, but as community responsibility.
Why community perspectives matter in policy
Discussions about shrinking civic space often happen in capital cities and conferences, but the real impact is felt in villages, schools, markets, and youth centres.
When community voices are absent from policy discourse, laws risk becoming disconnected from lived realities. Restrictions may appear “administrative” on paper but become oppressive in practice.
Community-led perspectives remind policymakers that civic space is not abstract; it is daily life. Repression does not only affect activists; it affects farmers, students, traders and women’s groups. Democracy is not maintained by institutions alone, but by citizens’ freedom to participate.
Perhaps the greatest danger is not new laws, it is normalisation; when people begin to accept exclusion, fear, and silence as “how things are.”
Communities across northern Ghana are quietly resisting that normalisation.
Every civic training, youth forum, women’s meeting, radio discussion, coalition dialogue, and peaceful petition is a declaration that civic space still matters and must be protected from the ground up.
Conclusion
Shrinking civic space cannot be reversed by policy statements alone. It requires listening to communities, funding grassroots initiatives, protecting local organisers, and recognising that democracy survives or collapses at the community level.
From the Upper West Region, the message is clear: Communities are not waiting to be rescued. They are already building solutions.
What they need is recognition, protection, and a seat in the conversations that shape their future.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh