IDOS actively supports the Team Europe Democracy Initiative

On 16 and 17 September the Team Europe Democracy (TED) Initiative held its annual networking meeting in Brussels. Key topics included challenges to civil society amid harmful narratives and shrinking donor budgets, civic and political participation and the launch of a new Media Support Toolkit to strengthen media freedom and information integrity.

IDOS is a member of TED, which is an initiative that aims at developing a common response to challenges to democracy, based on a close cooperation between the EU institutions and EU Member States, think tanks, academia and civil society organizations (CSOs). To this end, network members share research, best practices, lessons learned, approaches and tools on democracy support.

Apart from presenting IDOS’ work on information integrity, civil society and democracy support at the members’ fair, IDOS also actively contributes to the TED working groups.

Dr Lena Gutheil serves as a focal point for the TED Working Group 2 on “Civic and political participation”. She facilitated group discussions on the implications of harmful narratives that delegitimize civil society actors both in the EU as well as in partner countries. The discussions were a follow-up of a previously organized webinar that IDOS co-organized in collaboration with ECDPM, Oxfam and EADI as part of TED. The group discussions served to develop recommendations on how to best support CSOs in light of the current difficult conditions characterized by state repression, eroding societal legitimacy and shrinking donor budgets.

As IDOS focal point for the TED Working Group 3 “Media & Digital”, Dr Anita Breuer participated in the working group meeting in which the new Media Support Toolkit was launched. The toolkit is a key instrument for strengthening media freedom and information integrity. It brings together the expertise of the Media & Digital working group on disinformation, information security, and media support, and translates this into concrete recommendations for EU delegations, member states, and development agencies.