Strengthening Civil Society Organisations in Ethiopia: 2025 Progress Report

The past year has marked a turning point for civil society in Ethiopia. Against a backdrop of shifting regulatory requirements, evolving donor priorities, and an ever-present need for organisational resilience, CSRC has deepened its engagement across its three core programme areas: knowledge and regulatory support, leadership and fellowship pathways, and human rights education and advocacy. This report summarises key milestones, challenges, and lessons from the 2025 programme year.

Programme Highlights at a Glance

CSRC's 2025 programme year was defined by breadth and depth. We worked directly with over 80 civil society organisations across six regions of Ethiopia, supported 34 fellowship participants through structured leadership development, and delivered more than 50 workshops, dialogues, and training sessions on regulatory compliance, organisational governance, and rights-based approaches.

Equally significant was our role as a convener — creating structured spaces for CSOs to exchange knowledge, build peer networks, and engage with government stakeholders on policy matters affecting the sector. Several of these convenings directly shaped emerging guidance on CSO registration and reporting practices.

Regulatory Environment: Navigating Complexity

The civil society regulatory landscape in Ethiopia continued to evolve in 2025. Following amendments to the CSO Proclamation and the issuance of updated directives by the Civil Society Organisations Authority (CSOA), many organisations found themselves needing to revisit registration procedures, reporting timelines, and governance documentation.

CSRC responded by developing a suite of plain-language guidance materials — including a step-by-step registration toolkit, a compliance self-assessment checklist, and a frequently-asked-questions guide covering the most common points of confusion. These materials were developed in close consultation with legal experts and reviewed by CSOA officials before publication.

We also hosted four regional regulatory clinics where CSO representatives could bring specific questions and receive direct guidance in an accessible, non-bureaucratic setting. Across the four events, more than 200 participants attended, representing organisations of varying sizes and sectors.

Fellowship Programme: 2025 Cohort Completions

The CSRC Leadership and Fellowship Pathways programme marked its most successful year to date. The 2025 cohort — comprising 34 emerging and mid-career civil society leaders drawn from across Ethiopia — completed a nine-month blended learning journey combining in-person seminars, peer learning groups, and one-on-one mentorship.

Fellows were drawn from sectors including women's rights, disability inclusion, climate and environment, child protection, and community legal aid. The cohort represented eight different regions, reflecting CSRC's commitment to geographic diversity in leadership development.

End-of-programme reflections showed notable growth in participants' confidence to engage in advocacy, lead organisational change, and navigate external relationships with donors and government bodies. Fellows also reported a heightened ability to apply learning frameworks within their organisations — with several having already implemented new governance or programme management practices by the time the programme concluded.

Knowledge Hub: New Resources and Expanded Access

CSRC's Knowledge Hub continues to serve as a central repository of practical resources for Ethiopian civil society. In 2025, we added 28 new documents to the hub, spanning legal guides, financial management templates, M&E frameworks, human rights training manuals, and case studies from CSRC partner organisations.

Total downloads across all hub resources exceeded 4,000 during the year — a 60% increase on 2024. The most downloaded resources were the CSO Proclamation plain-language guide, the board governance handbook, and the fundraising strategy template. We also began offering select resources in Amharic and Afaan Oromo to improve accessibility across language communities.

Convenings and Sector Dialogue

Across the programme year, CSRC organised and co-facilitated 12 multi-stakeholder convenings. These ranged from small, thematic roundtables with 15–20 participants to larger sector-wide forums attended by over 150 representatives from civil society, government, academia, and the donor community.

Key themes addressed in these spaces included: the role of civil society in humanitarian response, accountability and transparency in CSO financial reporting, digital security for activists and frontline workers, and the practical implications of new CSOA directives for smaller community-based organisations.

Feedback from participants consistently highlighted the value of having a trusted, neutral convener like CSRC facilitate dialogue across stakeholders who might not otherwise engage directly.

Challenges and Adaptations

Ongoing insecurity in certain regions continued to limit the reach of in-person activities, particularly in areas where CSRC had hoped to expand its regulatory clinic model. In response, we invested in building a more robust remote delivery capacity — including live-streamed sessions with moderated Q&A and asynchronous video modules that participants could access at their own pace.

Staff capacity and turnover also posed a challenge, particularly in the first quarter of the year. CSRC responded by investing in structured onboarding, team documentation practices, and peer learning systems that reduce reliance on individual knowledge-holders.

Looking Ahead to 2026

Building on the momentum of 2025, CSRC enters the coming year with an ambitious but focused agenda. Priority areas include deepening our regional presence through partnerships with locally-rooted intermediary organisations, expanding the Fellowship Programme to accommodate a cohort of up to 50 participants, and launching a new series of advocacy clinics designed to help CSOs engage more effectively with parliamentary and regulatory processes.

We are also committed to enhancing the Knowledge Hub's functionality — introducing improved search, more curated topic pathways, and greater integration with our training and workshop content. We will continue our work as a trusted voice in sector-wide dialogue, bringing together diverse stakeholders to advance a policy environment that enables civil society to thrive.

Thank you to every organisation, partner, funder, and individual who contributed to making 2025 a year of meaningful progress. The work continues.