Our CSO Meter monitors and assesses the environment in which civil society organizations (CSOs) operate in the Eastern Partnership countries. It monitors key areas of civil society law and practice, ranging from issues of freedom of association and assembly, through participation in decision-making to the impact of emerging technologies and AI on CSOs. Based on a set of standards and indicators rooted in international safeguards, the CSO Meter then assesses countries’ compliance under each area. The evidence collected through this monitoring effort empowers CSOs to advocate for progressive law reforms in their countries.
Developed locally to build partnership and trust
The CSO Meter was developed through a highly consultative and collaborative process led by ECNL with a group of experts from the Eastern Partnership region, involving over 800 CSOs.
This process ensured that the CSO Meter focuses on local context, but also offers regionally-relevant findings. Most recently, we also set up the CSO Meter Hub, a community of 21 CSOs from each of the 6 countries to empower a broader group of CSOs and activists to exchange strategies, use the CSO Meter for monitoring and use its evidence for advocacy in their countries.
Reflecting global and regional trends and emerging issues
The CSO Meter is a responsive and living tool: the way it is created and organized ensures that it can capture the latest civic space trends and integrate novelties in the monitoring process. This allows CSOs to address the situation on the ground in a timely manner and reflect on global developments, such as the new protections of digitally-mediated assemblies or the impact of security measures on the civil society work.
Supporting evidence-based advocacy
Monitoring with the CSO Meter tool is connected to clearly planned advocacy campaigns to identify priorities, and support action to influence legislative and policy processes to improve the CSO environment.
The country reports from the first phase of the CSO Meter project (2017-2020) have allowed civil society partners to have a clear plan of progressive law reforms needed. The first set of reports formulated over 270 recommendations to improve civic space, many of which partners have already started implementing. In the 4 years, partners engaged in 20 advocacy actions and ECNL provided assistance in 11 initiatives. As a result, 7 CSO laws and policies were adopted or initiated based on issues identified by the CSO Meter.
CSO Meter contribution: Stories from Armenia and Ukraine
Armenia: CSOs’ work supported through improved access to state funding
State funding is an important source of funding for CSOs in Armenia, but existing processes of how grants and subsidies are allocated to legal entities from the state budget needed improvement. The CSO Meter research identified the necessary priorities for reform. Based on this evidence, our partner Transparency International Anticorruption Center (TIAC) prepared draft amendments to the existing regulation to ensure that state funding procedures become transparent and accountable. The government adopted these amendments in January 2021. In particular, the new rules further regulate the activities of the grant selection committee, tackle conflict of interest issues, and ultimately ensure transparency of the overall selection process.
Ukraine: Shared vision for the development of civil society
Developing policies and measures aiming to strengthen civil society should be done in close cooperation between the state and CSOs, and based on real needs on the ground.
The Ukrainian government has indeed organised a highly participatory approach for both government institutions and CSOs to draft together the National Strategy for Promoting Civil Society Development 2021-2026. The Strategy directly refers to the evidence from the CSO Meter report: it contains a chapter on enabling environment developed by UCIPR, our CSO Meter expert, and includes best practices based on ECNL recommendations, such as ensuring monitoring of the progress with implementation. This gives recognition to the importance of implementation, and inserts the voice of civil society in the monitoring phase.
Hear more success stories from our partners here:
Responding to civic space challenges with monitoring that is based on international standards
Through its methodology, the CSO Meter brings a shared understanding of international safeguards and the optimal environment for CSOs across countries and different stakeholders. We believe that the CSO Meter’s overall approach to regular monitoring may be of value for other regions, as well. Indeed, the 2021 EU Agency for Fundamental Right (FRA) report ‘Protecting civic space in the EU’ specifically recommends that the CSO Meter could be adapted to keep track regularly and consistently of civic space challenges within the European Union.
“The methodology of the European Commission’s ‘CSO Meter’ applied in Eastern Partnership countries could be adapted for this purpose. Such a mechanism should be developed in close consultation with civil society and identify ways for EU institutions to respond rapidly when there is evidence of civic space restrictions.”
Learn more at www.csometer.info!
The CSO Meter project is funded by the European Union.
