The Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum was recently invited to contribute to the OECD Public Governance publication “Towards meaningful civil society participation at the international level” (link to the report below). This is part of an OECD publications series aimed at providing insights and context to inform policies and global dialogue.
Lead researchers Alessandro Bozzini and María Pascual Dapena looked at the challenges, opportunities and factors of success brought by incorporating civil society’s views into complex decision-making processes.
The authors notably noted:
“By engaging with civil society, international and regional organisations and other entities can improve their outcomes, whether policies, programmes, initiatives or other decisions, benefitting from input from specialised or concerned civil society organisations and individual citizens. In addition, engaging stakeholders helps international organisations and entities be more responsive to the ever-changing needs and priorities expressed by their beneficiaries or constituencies.”
“Participation can also make decision making more inclusive by opening the door to underrepresented groups who tend to find it difficult to have their voices heard, such as ethnic minorities, migrants, people with disabilities and people living in remote areas.”
“An analysis of existing comparative experiences suggests that there are benefits to the institutionalisation of an engagement mechanism. Institutionalisation aims to establish stakeholder participation as the norm in a given international organisation or entity, moving away from ad hoc and one-off consultation that largely depends on the public authorities’ will. Engagement would then be an obligation and a systematic requirement for an international organisation or entity embedded in its legal and institutional framework.”
The example of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum structure, as presented by our Director Tania Marocchi, provides the following advantages:
🔹 Greater representativeness of our positions through a balanced governance blending rural/urban members, grassroots organisations/think tanks/larger organisations who all come together in our processes.
🔹 An inclusive approach: the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum sponsors civil society’s participation into all meetings, including internal allowing for a diversity of views and avoiding concentration into the hands of a few big players.
🔹 Mobilisation potential: the diversity, expertise and size of our network allows us to answer varied calls very promptly.
Codifying the participation of civil society into international fora such as the EU through the example of the work done at the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, reinforces civil society’s own visibility, particularly in authoritarian states.
Read the full report “Towards meaningful civil society participation at the international level” on the OECD website.
