Democracy is being threatened by an increasingly explosive combination of crises that, with the war in Ukraine, are multiplying the impact on people in the Czech Republic, Europe and its neighbourhood - migration, climate change and drought, the covid 19 pandemic, rising energy and food prices. A vibrant civil society is a pillar of democracy, enabling citizens to participate in public affairs, strengthening social cohesion, contributing to community building and creating a common identity.
Cooperation between the state, civil society, private and academic sectors is essential in finding comprehensive solutions to the interrelated problems and challenges of a democratic society. Involving and taking into account the different perspectives, data and experiences of different actors in the development of public policies increases the quality, relevance and ownership of the implementation of these policies, which in turn improves the quality of governance and trust in democratic institutions. Otherwise, there is a risk of growing frustration in society, a decline in trust in public institutions, an erosion of democracy, the rule of law and social cohesion, and the slippage of more of the population into the electorate of populist and extremist parties.
The conference aims to present the principles of partnership and the benefits of cooperation between public administration and non-governmental non-profit organisations (NGOs) through concrete examples of responses to current and expected challenges and crises at different levels - local - national - EU. In addition, to create a space for discussion on what conditions for supporting such cooperation need to be created at national and EU level and what parameters should have a strategy to support civil society prepared at EU level, which can be complemented by the Czech experience from the preparation of the Strategy for cooperation between public administration and NGOs till 2030, or other forms of cooperation from other EU countries in the region.
Tentative program of the conference:
Monday - 17th October
13:00 – 19:00 Promoting participation as a basis for effective partnership between the public administration and NGOs (language: Czech)
Tuesday - 18th October
9:00 – 16:00 Strategic support to cooperation for a democratic society in Europe (language: English)
Registration and detailed program are coming soon!
Organising partners:
- Glopolis on behalf of the informal network of networks NeoN
- Partnership Foundation on behalf of the Reclaim Our Civil Space project
- in cooperation with the Government Office - Department of the Secretariat of the Government Council for Non-State Non-Profit Organisations
- and Spiralis
