Finland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen has invited Demo Finland’s Executive Director Anu Juvonen to serve as the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Civil Society during Finland’s OSCE Chairpersonship. In her role, Juvonen intends to ensure a broad and meaningful role for civil society.
This year, Finland holds the Chairpersonship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, the OSCE’s Chairperson-in-Office, has invited Finnish experts to serve as her Special Representatives on various subject matters. One of Finland’s priorities during the Chairpersonship is to strengthen the role of civil society in OSCE activities. To further this objective, Foreign Minister Valtonen has selected Anu Juvonen, Executive Director of Demo Finland, as the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Civil Society.
- Executive Director of Demo Finland since 2016.
- Juvonen has worked in the field of international affairs for over 25 years. Most of her work has concentrated on civil society, both in international organisations and in various NGOs.
- From the very beginning, her work has been guided by a human rights-based approach. At first, the focus was on children’s rights, but for the last decade or so, on civil and political rights.
- From 2021 to 2024, Juvonen served as a Policy Advisor on Civil Society to the Council of Europe, seconded by Finland. Currently, she serves in the Human Rights Delegation of the Finnish National Human Rights Institution, the Human Rights Centre and as the President of the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD).
Anu Juvonen, what is the role of Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Civil Society?
My main mission is to facilitate the active participation and meaningful involvement of civil society actors in the OSCE. In practice, this means building relations and contacts with different civil society actors and ensuring the role of civil society in the OSCE activities.
As the space for civil society is shrinking, it is important that the rights of citizens to voice their opinions are systematically safeguarded.
What are your main objectives or messages as a Special Representative?
My focus is on producing a roadmap for the OSCE to strengthen the meaningful participation of civil society, together with different political actors and NGOs. I also intend to consolidate the role of the Special Representative on Civil Society – a role which has only been held by two people before me during the previous chairpersonships. As the space for civil society is shrinking, both globally and in OSCE countries, it is important that the rights of citizens to voice their opinions are systematically safeguarded.
How does civil society contribute to strengthening democracy and security?
Civil society holds a multifaceted role both in upholding security and defending humanity. Civil society has always played an important watchdog role in holding decision-makers accountable through monitoring decision-making and the implementation of decisions and reacting to any shortcomings. This is essential in the context of the OSCE because although political, the organisation’s decisions are not legally binding and have no reporting mechanisms or appeal processes. For this reason, the watchdog role of civil society is of paramount importance.
Civil society also plays an important role in generating information and data. Numerous organisations are active at grassroots level, gathering data that would be impossible to produce by state-led international organisations. Civil society has also been a significant source of social innovation. For example, women’s suffrage and improvements in labour rights have been civil society-led advances.
The role of civil society should not be reflected solely in the human dimension pillar but should be strengthened in all dimensions of the OSCE.
In the crisis-prone world that we live in, civil society also plays an important role in resilience. It contributes to societal cohesion by reaching out and working with communities and actors that would otherwise not be reached.
Why is civil society involvement needed at this moment when military and security issues are so pressing?
For that exact reason! The role of civil society should not be reflected solely in the human dimension pillar but should be strengthened in all dimensions of the OSCE. Hearing civil society’s critical voice in policy preparation and implementation and having its role as the watchdog is immensely important in ensuring ethical action during conflicts. In particular, the decades of experience that different peace organisations have is invaluable both in raising awareness of conflicts and in monitoring policies that impact conflicts.
The OSCE’s strength has always been its wide concept of security. In addition to the politico-military aspect, the role of economic, environmental and human aspects has been seen as a highly important part of comprehensive security. Civil society action is seen as critical in all of these. It is therefore important to emphasise the visibility and inclusion of diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise in all discussion and decision-making – including in the politico-military dimension. The more diverse the knowledge and understanding involved, the better the quality of the decisions.
How do citizens and civil society organisations contribute as part of the OSCE?
The OSCE currently has procedures that support a more active role for civil society and factions which are either composed of or actively work with civil society actors. For example, the Civic Solidarity Platform, a network of over 100 NGOs, develops advocacy plans and recommendations for the OSCE’s activities and closely monitors its work. In the field of democracy, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) involves civil society in various ways.
The more diverse the knowledge and understanding involved, the better the quality of the decisions.
Civil society’s participation cannot be taken for granted, especially during this time when funding for critical actors in the civil society sector has actively been cut. In other words, the various possibilities for meaningful participation must be constantly developed. This is one of the objectives of the Finnish Presidency of the OSCE. However, when strengthening the role of civil society, we must ensure that its participation is not just a matter of a box-ticking exercise, but rather deliberate. For this reason, operational planning is prepared in co-operation with civil society actors.
- The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is one of the world’s largest security organisations and security-related discussion forums. Its activities are based on the Helsinki Final Act signed at the 1975 Helsinki Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe.
- The OSCE’s work includes addressing a wide range of security-related concerns, including arms control, confidence- and security-building measures, human rights, national minorities, democratization, policing strategies, counter-terrorism and economic and environmental activities.
- Finland has also selected other Special Representatives for its chairpersonship, including H.E. Ambassador Terhi Hakala as the Special Envoy of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, and Member of Parliament Saara-Sofia Sirén as the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Gender. For a list of all the Special Representatives, see the Foreign Ministry’s website.