The CIVICUS Civil Society Index (CSI) is an action-research project, based on an
international participatory tool used to evaluate the state of civil society, help identify its
needs and plan actions to strengthen it. The CSI has two main objectives: to increase
knowledge and awareness of the condition of civil society around the world, taking as a
starting point the experience of civil society organisations themselves and also to
strengthen the stakeholders and key players of civil society through promoting an intersectoral
dialogue, collective learning, and the development of a common strategic
agenda.
The CSI has been developed and coordinated since the mid-1990s by CIVICUS: World
Alliance for Citizen Participation1
along with the London School of Economics and the
University of Heidelberg. More than 60 countries around the world have participated in
the CSI, and its 2008-2011 action-research project was implemented in six Latin
American countries. At the country level, the CSI is implemented by partner
organisations of CIVICUS that, with the support of local alliances, carry out the research
and dialogue activities that the project comprises. In Chile, the 2008-2011 version of the
CSI was carried out for the second time by Fundación Soles2
.
The most well known output of the project is the CSI Diamond. In this visual graphic, the
quantitative results of the CSI research are presented for each of the five CSI
dimensions of civil society: Civic Engagement, Level of Organisation, Practice of
Values, Perception of Impact and External Environment. The dimensions are each
presented on a 0 to 100 scale. On each of the axes, the score of 100 represents a
theoretical optimal value for each dimension - the highest level of development. In the
case of the External Environment, for example, the closer the score comes to 100, the
more favourable the context for the development of civil society is judged to be.
In general terms, the CSI Diamond for Chile´s civil society showed moderate values for
most of the ?internal? dimensions (Civic Engagement, Level of Organisation, Practice of
Values and Perception of Impact), corresponding to a medium level of development.
The score for the External Environment, on the other hand, suggests a more favourable
arena for the advancement of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs).