Civic space preservation and restoration

ongoing

CPR project is designed to strengthen the consortium to coordinate, assess, build capacities, improve policies and address the shrinking civic space they’ve been experiencing in Croatia and Austria. Hence the name “CPR”, in terms of preservation and restoration of rights and values of European civic spaces. The general objective of CPR is to empower CSOs to protect and promote EU values under attack, especially related to shrinking civic space and defenders’ fundamental rights with a focus on the environment, through transnational cooperation and exchange of knowledge and skills. The main target groups are environmental CSOs, the general public and the decision-makers. We aim to engage and offer CSOs in the field of environment protection and social change working in HR and AUT tools to address challenges and enable them to run national campaigns for strengthening civil society, which is crucial for developed value-based democracies. We will achieve this through 5 work packages: WP1 will ensure effective management of the project and dissemination of results to HR, AUT and EU environmental and wider human rights movements. With WP2 we will map, compare and make 2 in-depth analyses of the current civic space contexts in HR and AUT. WP3 will enable mutual learning and exchange of good practices through 3 laboratories for activist tools and techniques that will build capacities of different CSOs networks on the wider EU level. WP4 will ensure that HR partners have space to gather stakeholders, plan and advocate for better implementation of policies, access to information and public participation. Recommendations for decision-makers will be produced to initiate positive changes. With WP5 partners will design 2 national campaigns in HR and AUT and 1 local in HR on topics of climate and resources justice, based on data collected and knowledge gained throughout the whole project.