This chapter introduces the concept of civic space as a cornerstone of democratic life and presents the OECD’s ten high-level recommendations on protecting and promoting it. It explains the benefits of civic space protection for governments, the objectives of the guide, and its target audience. It concludes with an overview of the methodology underpinning the guide.
Practical Guide for Policymakers on Protecting and Promoting Civic Space
Abstract
The OECD’s flagship global report, The Protection and Promotion of Civic Space: Strengthening Alignment with International Standards and Guidance, offers a comparative perspective on the protection and promotion of civic space based on data from 52 countries (33 OECD member countries and 19 non-Members), complemented by a review of key trends, challenges and opportunities (OECD, 2022[1]). The report provides a baseline analysis that captures the uneven and evolving reality of the legal, policy and institutional frameworks and practices that surveyed governments have put in place in four key areas Figure 1.1: civic freedoms, access to information, media freedoms and civic space in the digital age and the enabling environment for civil society. Civic space is defined as the set of legal, policy, institutional and practical conditions non‑governmental actors need to access information, express themselves, associate, organise and participate in public life.
The global report includes ten interrelated, high-level recommendations and numerous measures for countries to consider taking, providing a pathway for governments, public administrations, legislatures and independent oversight institutions to take action to strengthen civic space as part of reinforcing democracy among OECD member countries and non-members alike (Box 1.1). The Practical guide for policymakers is a companion to the global report. It takes the ten recommendations as a base and unpacks each one further to provide more detailed, practical guidance for policymakers. It is fully in line with the global report but goes even further by providing a series of detailed explanatory tables, checklists, and figures to aid understanding and learning on key practical steps that can be taken in a wide range of areas affecting civic space.
1. Foster an enabling environment for civil society organisations that facilitates their positive contribution to society.
2. Protect and facilitate freedom of expression.
3. Protect online civic space, including by countering online hate speech and mis- and disinformation.1
4. Foster a public interest information ecosystem that protects independent media and promotes access to information.
5. Safeguard and protect at-risk human rights defenders, as well as CSO members, activists and media workers.2
6. Protect and facilitate freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to protest.
7. Respect privacy and ensure personal data protection, to avoid arbitrary intrusion and interference in public life.
8. Counter the discrimination, exclusion and marginalisation that disproportionately affect certain groups and hinder equal participation in public life.
9. Systematically protect and promote civic space as an enabler of citizen and stakeholder engagement in public decision-making to foster more open, transparent and accountable governance.3
10. Protect civic space both domestically as well as in non-Member countries as part of a coherent policy approach.4
Recommendations 1-9 are focused on OECD member countries’ and non-members’ actions to protect civic space on domestic territory, whereas Recommendation 10 includes an outward focus, by examining actions that can be taken as part of development co-operation and humanitarian assistance, in addition to foreign, trade and climate policy.
The ten recommendations are grounded in international human rights law and OECD and other international standards and guidance. Relevant legal standards are referenced in detail in The Protection and Promotion of Civic Space: Strengthening Alignment with International Standards and Guidance (OECD, 2022[1]) and are not systematically repeated in this practical guide.
Note: The recommendations in this guide are presented in a different order to the global report on civic space.
1. The OECD defines misinformation as false or inaccurate information not disseminated with the intention of deceiving the public. Disinformation is false, inaccurate or misleading information deliberately created, presented and disseminated to deceive the public.
2. The original wording in OECD (2022[1]) was: “Safeguard and protect human rights defenders, journalists, whistle blowers, and other at-risk groups.” This has been expanded for the purposes of this guide.
3. The original wording referred to protected civic space being a precondition of citizen and stakeholder engagement.
4. The original wording referred explicitly to development co-operation (OECD, 2022[1]). For the purposes of this Guide, it has been broadened to encompass any activity in non-Member countries, including development co-operation.
Source: OECD (2022[1]), The Protection and Promotion of Civic Space: Strengthening Alignment with International Standards and Guidance, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/d234e975-en.
Over the past decade, countries have increasingly recognised civic space as a cornerstone of functioning democracies. When fundamental civic freedoms are protected – in line with key international and national legal frameworks protecting human rights – citizens and stakeholders such as civil society organisations (CSOs),1 media workers, trade unionists, and academics can engage with public institutions, express their views, participate throughout policymaking and decision-making cycles, evaluate outcomes, and play a crucial oversight role. Protecting civic space is thus about creating the legal, institutional and social conditions within which citizens and non‑governmental actors can engage in civic activities and exercise their democratic rights beyond and between elections. Furthermore, it is about safeguarding legal rights so that citizens can advocate and participate in public debates without fear of repression, harassment, violence or vilification.
There are many different forms to protect civic space across OECD member countries. These range from constitutional guarantees and legislation governing civic freedoms, to offices promoting access to information, free and independent media and measures to counter hate speech and disinformation. They also include protection programmes for media workers and rights defenders, and government funding and public benefit status for CSOs. A thriving civic space thus emerges from the joint efforts of a range of institutions, both within and outside of the public sector.
Why the need to protect and promote civic space? Governments have clear national and international legal obligations in relation to civic space protection. Moreover, countries reap many benefits from the higher levels of citizen engagement that protected civic space facilitates. These include strengthened transparency and accountability, more effective and responsive policymaking, greater ownership of public policies and better and more inclusive outcomes as part of making democracy deliver for citizens (OECD, 2017[2]).
What does the guide aim to achieve? The guide aims to support lawmakers and policymakers in implementing the OECD’s high-level recommendations on protecting and promoting civic space. It does this by identifying the most relevant actors, policies, institutions and practices, and providing concrete guidance on implementation, based on evidence that the OECD has gathered. Its focus on 64 good practices from 27 national contexts illustrates how countries are adapting and responding to complex challenges in a wide range of policy areas. Recommendations are primarily focused on opportunities and challenges identified in OECD member countries. Additionally, the guide also includes foundational issues that are more relevant to non-Members and is thus relevant for any governments wishing to reinforce their democracies by raising standards in this area. While the main area of focus is the protection of civic space on Members' domestic territory, the guide also highlights actions that can be taken in partner countries as part of development co-operation and humanitarian assistance, in addition to foreign, trade and climate policy.
Who is the guide for? Responsibility for promoting and protecting civic space lies with a broad range of actors, including different state institutions and branches of the state. The guide is designed to support a range of decision-makers, including in line ministries, national statistics offices, National Human Rights Institutions (NHRI), ombudsman institutions, executive agencies, schools of public administration, parliaments and parliamentary committees, regional and local governments, and other key institutions, such as the police and security agencies.
Box 1.2 describes the methodology underpinning the guide.
The guide is anchored in the data-gathering process and related learning from the flagship report, The Protection and Promotion of Civic Space: Strengthening Alignment with International Standards and Guidance (OECD, 2022[1]).1 This process involved gathering and validating government data in 2021-22 from 52 countries, including 33 OECD member countries, 20 European Union member states and 13 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition to drawing on the OECD’s database of practices supporting civic space protection and promotion, the guide also draws on learning from the OECD’s country-focused work (Civic Space Scans and Country Reviews), in addition to events held by the Observatory of Civic Space.
The guide was developed by the OECD Observatory of Civic Space within the Innovative, Digital and Open Government Division (INDIGO) of the OECD’s Public Governance Directorate. The OECD's Development Co-operation Directorate contributed content and the guide was reviewed by OECD teams working on open government, digital transformation, online safety, and data governance and privacy, countering mis- and disinformation, integrity, governance indicators and trust, statistics and data, civil society in the context of development co-operation, and science, technology and innovation.
1. The report was based on a survey on civic space that included 33 questions (and sub-questions yielding approximately 300 data points for the graphs and charts) for national governments, based on the OECD’s analytical framework for civic space; and a separate section on access to information that included 29 questions.
2. The Observatory of Civic Space has undertaken six country studies since 2020, either as independent Civic Space Scans or Country Reviews or as part of studies on open government: on Finland (OECD, 2021[3]); Portugal (OECD, 2023[4]); Romania (OECD, 2023[5]); Brazil (OECD, 2022[6]); Tunisia; and Morocco (forthcoming).
The guide forms part of a spectrum of actionable guidance developed by the OECD in the context of its work on the protection of civic space and open government. As such, it is anchored in the OECD’s Recommendation of the Council on Open Government (OECD, 2017[2]). It is also in line with the OECD’s DAC Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society in development co-operation and humanitarian assistance (OECD, 2021[7]), in addition to the Luxembourg Declaration on Building Trust and Reinforcing Democracy (hereafter "the Luxembourg Declaration"), issued by ministers and representatives of 42 countries and the European Union in 2022 (OECD, 2022[8]). The Declaration includes a commitment to “an enabled and protected civic space”, mirrored in the Reinforcing Democracy Initiative, notably in Pillar 2 on Enhancing Representation, Participation and Openness in Public Life and its accompanying Ministerial Action Plan.
Notably, for the purposes of this guide the term “citizen” is meant as an inhabitant of a particular place and not a legally recognised national of a state. The term stakeholder is meant as “any interested and/or affected party, including: individuals, regardless of their age, gender, sexual orientation, religious and political affiliations; and institutions and organisations, whether governmental or non-governmental, from civil society, academia, the media or the private sector” (OECD, 2017[2]).
References
[4] OECD (2023), Civic Space Review of Portugal: Towards People-Centred, Rights-Based Public Services, OECD Public Governance Reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/8241c5e3-en.
[5] OECD (2023), Civic Space Review of Romania, OECD Public Governance Reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/f11191be-en.
[8] OECD (2022), “Declaration on Building Trust and Reinforcing Democracy”, OECD Legal Instruments, OECD/LEGAL/0484, OECD, Paris, https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/en/instruments/OECD-LEGAL-0484.
[6] OECD (2022), Open Government Review of Brazil: Towards an Integrated Open Government Agenda, OECD Public Governance Reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/3f9009d4-en.
[1] OECD (2022), The Protection and Promotion of Civic Space: Strengthening Alignment with International Standards and Guidance, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/d234e975-en.
[3] OECD (2021), Civic Space Scan of Finland, OECD Public Governance Reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/f9e971bd-en.
[7] OECD (2021), “DAC Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Assistance”, OECD Legal Instruments, OECD/LEGAL/5021, OECD, Paris, https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/en/instruments/OECD-LEGAL-5021.
[2] OECD (2017), “Recommendation of the Council on Open Government”, OECD Legal Instruments, OECD/LEGAL/0438, OECD, Paris, https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/en/instruments/OECD-LEGAL-0438.
← 1. For the purposes of this guide, CSOs are an organisational representation of civil society and include all not-for-profit, non-state, non-partisan, non-violent, and self-governing organisations outside of the family in which people come together to pursue shared needs, ideas, interests, values, faith and beliefs, including formal, legally registered organisations as well as informal associations without legal status but with a structure and activities (OECD, 2021[7]). The term excludes government representatives, legislators, academia and media.