Annual report 2021

The COVID pandemic continued to rage across the world, with bells tolling for the estimated 18 million people who died in its wake. Two years on, and still there is no international agreement on waiving the intellectual property rights preventing vaccines being made universally available. Instead, distribution of the inadequate donations made available to the Global South was outsourced to COVAX, which proved woefully inept. As was expected, the pandemic amplified all the pre-existing inequalities between and within countries. The full extent of the economic consequences we are likely still to see. With the realisation of how vulnerable to disruption global value chains are, the pandemic may also have ushered in a new phase of de-globalisation.

Meanwhile, the world witnessed the final chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in May. The War on Terror was ended, and the New Cold War began. The US set its sights on China in the battle for control over core digital technologies, such as 5G and Artificial Intelligence. Then at year end, the drums of war heralding the Russian invasion of Ukraine were already audible though few thought it would actually come to that. Now that it has, a new dimension compounds the maelstrom of converging crises we are living through.

With this context in mind, TNI crafted new five-year goals in line with our mission to serve as a knowledge hub for progressive social movements. We set ourselves the challenge of developing ideas for feasible pathways to just futures, on communicating these popularly with high impact narratives and, in so doing, to contribute to a growing movement willing to fight for this vision.

TNI worked with allies in 43 countries over the course of the year. We began the year with an important conference tackling some of the key political questions confronting progressive movements. We worked hard to learn from movements in new regions relevant for the challenges we see. This included work with activists in North Africa, Eastern Europe and China, whose perspectives are crucial for building a truly internationalist movement. Some examples of the efforts we were involved in with a view to stimulating visions of what is possible included a manifesto on climate-saving, gender transformative and democratic public services, and an exploration of the potential of public-community partnerships. We also produced a handbook on just energy transitions, including what agroecological food systems could look like. And we solicited emancipatory ideas to address state violence. On average, TNI (co)produced and publicised four quality products a week. More importantly, we attracted mass audiences. Nearly 27,000 people came to our webinars, more than 30,000 people have signed up to news on what we are producing, 60,000 watched or heard our audio-visual productions, and more than 2 million visitors read materials on our website. Major press outlets across the world cited our work, too, helping us to reach estimated audiences of more than a quarter of a billion. While it is hard to measure what the impact is of this exposure, we are confident that we have swelled the ranks of those who share our vision.

On the internal front, we were very sad at the sudden death in February of René Roemersma, who had helped TNI with work on fair trade cannabis over a number of years and was a dear friend to a some colleagues. We also said a fond hasta luego to Monica Vargas and Cecilia Olivet, who had worked for TNI for 7 and 16 years, respectively. We are happy that both remain connected to the Institute as Associates.

Financially, TNI’s total income remained steady. We were pleased to gain the confidence of three new foundations, which helps us diversify our funding base. We have been making a concerted effort to raise donations too, which bore fruit with a 37% increase on the previous year. Our result was healthy, largely derived from donations, consultancies and currency fluctuations. The Supervisory Board approved putting this towards our continuity fund, which currently stands at 67% of our goal of one year’s operating costs.

We are immensely grateful for the support and ongoing commitment of our funders; all those who gave donations – small and large; and our wonderful Associates, President, Supervisory Board members and volunteers, who give their time and labour with such love and enthusiasm.

With warmest regards,

Fiona Dove
Director