Repression and resilience: Diagnosing closing space mid-pandemic

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36 REPRESSION AND RESILIENCE: DIAGNOSING CLOSING SPACE MID-PANDEMIC IDEAS FOR ACTION • Increase support to civil society for advocacy on democratic space issues, including by mainstreaming civil society participation across different geographic programmes of the NDICI and incorporating policy dialogue - led by civil society - into budget support or sectoral cooperation programmes, for instance in the health sector. • Protect and safeguard human rights defenders and journalists, by strengthening monitoring and reporting mechanisms on human rights violations, as well as boosting rapid assistance and protection mechanisms, including the issuance of emergency visas, temporary relocation and emergency funding for defenders at risk. • Create a dedicated team to support the organisation of civil society consultations, so as to root EU action in local expertise, but overcome the practical difficulties and time-consuming nature of organising consultations. Meaningful civil society consultations need to be the basis of any democratic recovery strategy, complemented by dialogues with political parties, media actors and other non-state actors like religious groups. • Enforce conditionality clauses that are already in place, by periodically assessing bilateral agreements and budget support contracts to verify whether countries (still) live up to their obligations on international human rights conventions and identify cases where the EU can use its leverage to encourage an opening of democratic space. 5. Embed accountability and transparency in support to democratic institutions and watchdogs Transparency and participation were immediately compromised in the crisis response, showing that much more needs to be done to embed open government principles and citizen engagement mechanisms into all aspects of public administration and decision-making, including public procurement processes. In countries where governments will try to cement the lack of participation and transparency beyond the pandemic, oversight actors will have to fight hard to bring it back. This calls for an increase in support to oversight actors - including judiciaries, legislatures, civil society and media - in order for them to more effectively counter attacks on democratic space and provide oversight.
REPRESSION AND RESILIENCE: DIAGNOSING CLOSING SPACE MID-PANDEMIC 37 IDEAS FOR ACTION • Embed open governance principles and participatory mechanisms into sectoral cooperation agreements as well as targeted support programmes to public institutions. • Support public oversight over procurement processes and open governance, particularly by supporting anti-corruption agencies, ombudsman institutions, parliamentary committees, judicial bodies, civil society, and the investigative media. • Boost support to parliaments and judiciaries, with a focus on executive oversight and forming alliances for democratic space. • Support the development and roll-out of civic tech for participation and public scrutiny, with long-term funding that extends well beyond the development of the tool to include maintenance and outreach. • Support investigative journalism and independent media for in-depth investigations and monitoring of the use of pandemic recovery funding. 6. Support targeted action on inclusiveness in post-pandemic recovery The failure of most countries’ pandemic response to meet the needs of women and the most vulnerable populations is symptomatic of the general absence of these communities at the decision-making table. Structural reform to advance inclusiveness and equality should be at the heart of the EU’s external support to COVID-19 recovery, to protect democratic space and make it representative of all voices in society. IDEAS FOR ACTION • Support inclusive policy dialogue on national recovery plans, with women and minorities at the table, as the basis for programming, so that the NextGenerationEU budget will contribute to both structural reform and meet the acute needs of women and vulnerable populations. • Contribute to political parties’ advancement of women and underrepresented groups, through internal reform, gender audits and policy-development support, as they are critical gatekeepers to inclusive participation in political decision-making processes. • Support targeted action, in addition to mainstreaming, to women’s groups and organisations that bring together vulnerable groups, through direct, long-term and context-specific support. • Country-Level Implementation Plans of the Gender Action Plan should be based on intersectional data collection and analysis that is inclusive of, and disaggregated by, gender and other intersecting identities.
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Repression and resilience: Diagnosing closing space mid-pandemic

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