About the CSO Meter

What is the aim of the CSO Meter?

The CSO Meter supports regular and consistent monitoring of the environment in which civil society organisations (CSOs) operate in the Eastern Partnership countries. It consists of a set of standards and indicators in 11 different areas to measure both law and practice. It is based on international standards and best practices.

How to use it?

The CSO Meter provides a holistic picture of civil society’s environment that helps understand the context and identify priorities. The country reports allow partners and the civil society sector to have a clear plan and specific recommendations of progressive law reforms needed to improve civic space, many of which partners have already started implementing. The partners have engaged in 60 advocacy actions and ECNL provided technical assistance to 24 initiatives. . Within the project, the ECNL and partners worked to contribute to more transparent state funding procedures and a comprehensive volunteering law in Armenia, supporting philanthropy in Moldova, as well as the civil society development strategy in Ukraine. The project also empowered partners to push back against restrictions, such as in the case of COVID-19 bans on assemblies in Moldova, the Foreign Agents Law in Georgia, and an unfavourable draft lobby law in Ukraine.

With the CSO Meter and its country and regional reports, you can:

Compare findings and scores under each area year by year and track progress or regression.
Compare achievements or obstacles in one country to those in another.
Propose evidence-based solutions for advocacy and policy-making and organise debates on challenges and proposed recommendations.
Learn about the most pressing trends in the region relevant for civil society, their impact on the environment and what can be done.
Prepare infographics or other promotional materials.
Assess proposed legislation aﬀecting the environment for CSOs.
Develop more detailed thematic reports based on the information collected.
Stay on top of important developments in each country throughout the year through the regular early warning updates on the website.

What areas does it cover?

The 11 areas of the CSO Meter are split in two parts:

Fundamental rights and freedoms that are essential for the existence of civil society: Freedom of Association, Equal Treatment, Access to Funding, Freedom of Peaceful Assembly, Right to Participation in Decision-Making, Freedom of Expression, Right to Privacy, State Duty to Protect and Digital Rights.
Necessary conditions that ensure additional support for the development of civil society (though their existence without fundamental rights and freedoms is not sufficient to ensure an enabling environment), including: State Support and State-CSO Cooperation.

Read more about the areas in this briefer.

How was it developed?

The CSO Meter was developed through a highly consultative and collaborative process, supported by the European Center for Not-for-Proft Law Stichting (ECNL). It was co-drafted by a core group of experts from partners in each of the six Eastern Partnership countries:

Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center (Armenia) | MG Consulting LLC (Azerbaijan) | Civil Society Institute (Georgia) | Promo-Lex Association (Moldova) | Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research (Ukraine)

It was consulted in 3 rounds with more than 807 CSOs across the region. As such, the CSO Meter is a result of a true local eﬀort and covers issues that partners identified as relevant for their country contexts.

In 2020 and 2021, we adjusted the CSO Meter to reflect the lessons learned from the practical implementation and address latest trends, with special focus on emergency measures that restrict fundamental freedoms. We also added a new area on digital rights as well as new protections in the area of freedom of peaceful assembly, concerning digitally-mediated assemblies. The scoring model introduced first in the 2021 reports allow for a more nuanced comparison between countries, areas and years. This updated methodology has been consistently used in the monitoring of recent years, allowing for a comprehensive comparison.