Social sustainability in urban and rural Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian communities: How can democracy and human rights be promoted through transnational donations to civil society?

Social inclusivity, equality, and justice, as framed by the Sustainable Development Goals, require democratic processes and respect for human rights.

Across Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, the past three decades have seen many transnational donors attempting to facilitate peaceful and sustainable societies through the promotion of democracy and human rights in community development. This has often been done through funding of local civil society, active across a range of urban and rural spaces.

Yet the donors have faced different political environments and significant variation between and within communities in these three post-Soviet states.

This project focuses on democracy and human rights in Belarus, Russian and Ukraine, and the way such ideas have been transnationally funded over time to try to create peaceful and socially sustainable communities in oppressive and/or war-torn societies.

The purpose is to examine how ideas of human rights and democracy can be transnationally promoted with the aim of creating safe, participatory, and inclusive communities.

Even though information on such civil society organizing is virtually impossible to access today in Belarus and Russia due to risks of repression, and in Ukraine due to the current war, the project circumvents these barriers by conducting archival research at four Swedish organizations all having funded Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian CSOs working with democracy and human rights during the studied period.