The EaP CSF is an important platform to understand the regional dimension and current challenges of civil society and link them to the EU policies for the region.

The Civil Society Summit is unique in bringing together civic actors face to face – as organisation and individually it helped us to gain valuable insights for our work with EaP countries, connect with other stakeholders and start new partnerships.

For us in AMO, the Eastern Partnership and keeping strong people-to-people ties and civil society component of our cooperation has been one of the long-term priorities, particularly because we have been one of the founding organisations of the Forum in 2009.

The shrinking space for civil society across many EaP nations makes it crucial for activists and experts from diverse backgrounds to unite in their efforts. Environmental issues transcend borders, and meaningful progress can only be achieved through collective action and shared expertise offered through events like the Civil Society Forum organised by the EaP CSF.

My organisation, CGS “Strategy XXI”, was invited as an expert to the Forum and participated in the EaP Energy Panel and the Eastern Partnership LNG Network. We were able to discuss with representatives of the European Commission, Energy community, Energy Regulator, operators of gas networks, storages and LNG Terminals, other business, embassies and academia from the EU, Eastern Partnership countries as well as from the US. This greatly contributed to the exchange of best practices and models and allowed us to be heard by all levels.

The EaP CSF brings together people with the same values and principles, and it helps to find partners or even friends in the countries of the region. When the full-scale invasion of Ukraine happened, most of the EaP CSF colleagues provided enormous support to Ukrainians, and I will always be grateful to them for that. 

We are united with our neighbour countries by rivers, forests, mountains. And, like them, we have similar problems regarding climate change and nature protection. Participating in the EaP CSF and its events help us create joint policies for good environmental governance.

For the Belarusian Association of Journalists, feeling the support of the international community and fellow journalists is essential. We see it as support not only for our organisation, but also for the entire Belarusian independent media sector in the country and in exile. It is very important for us that in this mad world plagued by wars and conflicts people do not forget about Belarus, about Belarusian independent journalists and about our friends and colleagues behind bars. 

In 2023, the Ukrainian National Platform redistributed the prize fund from the EaP CSF Civil Society Award for the benefits of Ukrainian troops. The funds were used to purchase stretchers for Ukrainian combat medics in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia areas and for electrocardiographers in Kharkiv hospital” 

The Civil Society Award was and remains a recognition of the efforts and contribution of the Promo-LEX Association to the democratisation of the country and the Eastern Partnership region.