Resilience Fellowships

Resilience Fellowships

We are pleased to announce the launch of the fifth edition of the Resilience Fellowship, which provides a platform for cross-sectoral, global and interdisciplinary collaboration between civil society actors, human rights activists, journalists, artists, scholars, policymakers, grassroots community leaders and others working to counter the effects of organized crime.

Theme for 2024

For the 2024 Fellowship, we are looking for civil society actors who support communities in contexts of fragility, particularly communities facing conflict.

The results of the 2023 Global Organized Crime Index show that conflict zones are particularly vulnerable to organized crime. High levels of conflict in a country not only affect its resilience to organized crime, but also allow illicit economies to flourish and create space for the involvement of domestic and foreign criminal actors. States that have been embroiled in conflict and instability rank high under the Index in terms of their criminality levels.

In fragile contexts, where state institutions are weak or lack legitimacy, civil society organizations play a critical role in countering the effects of criminality. Civil society actors often fill the gap left by the state by assisting victims of crime, implementing prevention programmes and initiating investigations. Civil society becomes a lifeline in fragile communities.

The following examples illustrate the dynamics between fragility and organized crime, and how civil society actors from different sectors are actively responding to these challenges. This list is not exhaustive and we will give priority to innovative strategies that go beyond these examples.