Protecting civic space to foster more meaningful public participation in Czechia - National Launch Event

The project Protecting civic space to foster more meaningful citizen participation provides tailored support to strengthen civic space and citizen participation across the EEA & Norway Grants beneficiary countries, drawing on OECD frameworks, data, and good practices. It combines country reviews, capacity-building guidance and trainings, and monitoring tools to improve legal frameworks, public policies, and institutional practices, fostering more participatory and resilient democratic governance.

The Czech component of this multi-country project will adopt a unique, youth-specific angle. Czechia’s current National Youth Strategy includes objectives that build upon the OECD Recommendation on Creating Better Opportunities for Young People, which calls on governments to establish the legal, institutional and administrative settings to strengthen the trust of young people of all backgrounds in government, and their relationships with public institutions.

On 17 August 2026, the OECD held the launch event of the Protecting civic space to foster more meaningful participation for Czechia in Prague. The event offered an opportunity to introduce the objectives, scope, approach and timeline of the project to Czech government institutions and civil society stakeholders.

Following the launch event, the OECD conducted fact-finding interviews with government officials and non-government stakeholders from civil society and academia, in order to build shared understanding of Czechia's context and identify Czechia's specific needs and priorities for this project.