The CONCORD HUB 3 Meeting will take place from 13-15 March 2018 in Brussels. CONCORD HUB3 focuses specifically on promoting civil society space. The meeting will gather approximately 80 participants coming from EU member states, the Black Sea Region & the Balkans, it will provide space for discussion where the national context, needs and challenges are to be heard at EU level. The 2018 HUB3 Spring meeting will be co-organised with the European members of the CSO Partnership on Development Effectiveness (CPDE), namely Balkan Civil Society Development Network and Black Sea NGO Forum.
The event constitutes an effort of European civil society development organizations to build a platform for discussions, exchanges and solutions of shared problems. approaching subjects such as: enabling environment for CSOs, shrinking space by illiberal democracy, CSO accountability, the engagement of civil society in EU policy, civic participation and community engagement.
On 13 March an event focusing on Promoting Civil Society Space is going to take place, with BCSDN facilitating two sessions at the meeting. The first session will be delivered together with the Black Sea NGO Forum on the topic of “Enabling Environment for Civil Society in the EU Neighborhood – Regional Challenges, Possible Synergies & Engagement at European Level”. The purpose of the session is to raise awareness about the challenges concerning the enabling environment for civil society in the countries of the Western Balkans and Eastern Neighborhood and to identify common needs and challenges, possible synergies for greater impact and/or advocacy.
The second session, titled “Transforming Accountability”, will aim to raise awareness for the need of improving the internal environment for civil society development to compliment our struggle for civil society space. The Global Standard for CSO Accountability will be discussed as a tool for the implementation of the Istanbul Principles. The session will explore in groups how can we operationalize the philosophy of the Istanbul principles, create complementary learning spaces, contribute to a more enabling environment and use this tool for further monitoring and evaluation framework.
The full agenda is available here.