EU System for an Enabling Environment for civil society (EU SEE)

EU System for an Enabling Environment for Civil Society (EU SEE)

On this page you can find links to and information about the EU System for an Enabling Environment for Civil Society (EU SEE). This is a grant-funded programme, led by two civil society consortia in collaboration with civil society organisations in over 80 countries across the world. 

Civil society globally is facing challenges resulting from the increasingly and rapidly shrinking civic space and the continuous deterioration of the environment in which civil society operates.

Civil society plays a crucial role as an actor in supporting societal development, including a whole of society ‘enabling environment’. At a time when the EU is investing in ‘whole of society’ partnerships through the Global Gateway, it is crucial that civil society be supported to continue its work in monitoring and safeguarding its enabling environment, which is part of wider enabling environment conditions required for good governance and transparency, cooperation and investments. 

An enabling environment for civil society to thrive, express itself freely, and actively engage in shaping its context, is upheld through six fundamental principles:

1. Respect and protection of fundamental freedoms,
2. a legal framework and administrative practices which allow civil society to do its work across many functions
3. a good funding landscape including access to diverse resources
4. good civil society-state relations characterised by state openness and responsiveness to civil society
5. a positive acknowledgement of the work of civil society and how civic engagement and cooperation contributes to wider society
6. access to digital and secure spaces online.

The EU SEE fosters collaboration and involvement of civil society actors at global, regional, national and subnational levels, including through participatory funding mechanisms. It brings a systems approach through a chain of monitoring, early warning and flexible support actions designed to contribute to enabling civil society actors to preventively engage in, and adapt and respond to, situations of deterioration and/or positive developments in their operating environment. 

The EU SEE focuses on prevention as it aims at targeting root causes for shrinking space, by monitoring the enabling environment for civil society and establishing an Early Warning Mechanism that aims at addressing deterioration in the enabling environment and supporting opportunities for improving the enabling environment for civil society. The intelligence and insights will then inform the activation of flexible support opportunities for preventive and proactive actions to support a robust and independent civil society.

The EU SEE implementing partners are:

• Early Warning and Monitoring Mechanism: Hivos, Transparency International, Forus, CIVICUS, Democracy Reporting International, European Partnership for Democracy; and
• Flexible Support Mechanism: Oxfam, Protection International, CIVICUS and Urgent Action Fund Latin America and the Caribbean.

Information updates are available through alerts, Country Snapshots and Country Focus Reports on the EU SEE Digital Hub.

For further information about this programme, please contact partners Hivos for an overview of the programme and the Early Warning and Monitoring Mechanism, and Oxfam Novib for information about the Flexible Support Mechanism for CSOs. 

Contact: EUSEE@hivos.org