Civil society plays a crucial role as the voice for the most vulnerable, contributing to robust democracies and accountable governance. However, they continue to work in an increasingly restrictive and hostile environment in many parts of the world. 

NGO workers, human rights defenders, and journalists are increasingly threatened and attacked, often with impunity.

The work of civil society is often stigmatised, through “foreign agent” laws or other legislative and administrative measures which hamper legitimate NGO activities. The use of excessive force against peaceful protesters hinders democratic participation. The EU strongly condemns attacks on freedom of association and peaceful assembly.

The EU is mobilising all tools at its disposal to counter these trends, providing substantial financial support to civil society. The EU System for Enabling Environment (EU SEE), launched in 2023 with €50 million, monitors and promotes civic space in 86 partner countries.

Civil society including youth must have a strong role in shaping the UN’s Pact for The Future, to advance the Sustainable Development Goals and uphold human rights.

As we prepare for the Summit of the Future later this year, it is vital to safeguard a safe and open civic space worldwide. On World NGO Day, we honour the invaluable work of civil society in building resilient and inclusive societies.

Background

The EU adopted the Global Europe Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) programme worth €1.5 billion for the period 2021-2027 under NDICI-Global Europe. Funding supports civil society organisations outside of the EU. There is also substantial additional funding through other programmes and sources.

In 2023, the new global initiative was launched with two consortiums of CSOs to design an ‘EU System for Enabling Environment (EU SEE)’ to systematically monitor and enhance support to an enabling environment for civil society in 86 partner countries. It will include an EU SEE Monitoring Index, an early warning mechanism and a rapid and flexible support mechanism (FSM) in support of CSOs to help building up their resilience and to rapidly react to situations of deterioration and/or positive developments in our partner countries. The EU SEE will have a budget of €50 million, which testifies to the EU’s strong commitment to supporting civic space (see here).

The EU has launched nine partnerships for a total of €27 million. This includes six new thematic partnerships with CSOs will take a deep dive into the fundamental freedoms of peaceful assembly and association, the cornerstones of civic space, while the other three will focus on freedom of expression by protecting independent media worldwide.

The EU also launched the ‘Team Europe Democracy’ worth €19 million, which brings together 14 Member States and the EU to look at the quality of democracy, with an important component on the contribution of civic space.

The EU continues to support The Protect Defenders.eu mechanism with a €30 million envelope until 2027 focused on Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) at risk. It has provided vital support more than 70,000 Human Rights Defenders at risk since 2015.

Furthermore, under the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA III), in 2021 -2023 the EU committed €219 million for civil society and media in the Western Balkans and Türkiye.