EPD | European Partnership for Democracy

The European Democracy Shield

A First Step Toward Stronger Democratic Resilience

The European Democracy Shield represents the EU’s umbrella agenda for democracy support for the duration of this commission’s mandate. Will it be up to its standards?

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New Approaches to Defending Civil Society

A menu of qualitative changes that might help protect a free and democratic civic space in this ever-more repressive period.

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Global Youth Participation Index

The Future of Democracy Is in Young Hands

A tool connecting the dots between global data and the lived realities behind the numbers, offering a powerful insight into youth political participation across the world.

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Change in the Sahel

Hashtags and Power

Youth digital activism in the Sahel is not uniformly pro-democracy. Social media platforms are used both to mobilise protests and spread political rupture narratives.

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A Roadmap for Electoral Integrity in Africa

EPD promotes the adoption of global standards for election integrity through the AHEAD Africa project.

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Thinking, Advocating, Acting.

Research

We engage in research on the most pressing challenges and opportunities for democracies worldwide.

Policy

We work towards better public policies to support democracy in Europe and around the world.

Programmes

We bring together the expertise of specialists, combining various sectors of democracy support for impactful programmes.

Latest news

18 June 2026 | Article

Designing Democratic Resilience: Five Takeaways from EPD’s Annual Conference 2026

EPD’s Annual Conference 2026 set out to answer two big questions: how do we keep democracies resilient, and how do we rebuild public trust in the people and institutions that run them? The clearest message of the day: democracy isn’t just a value to defend — it’s a strategic asset, as important as security or economic stability. Here are five lessons that stood out.

17 June 2026 | Report

Change in the Sahel: Hashtags and Power

Social media platforms provide citizens with alternative channels through which to express grievances, mobilise protest, and hold authorities accountable; but also facilitate the spread of populist rhetoric, nationalist narratives, and coordinated disinformation.

26 May 2026 | Article

Welcome CaraDem!

The European Partnership for Democracy is glad to welcome CaraDem to our community.

Our members

The most important thing about EPD is in our name. We are a partnership bringing together 21 specialist organisations to support democracy.

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Our overarching objective as EPD is to contribute to setting a comprehensive and effective agenda for democracy support around the world. For the 2023-2026 period, we identified six priorities to this end. Within each of these five priority areas, we conduct research, work on public policies and implement projects.

Information space

We research and act to tackle the most pressing challenges in the information space, supporting media pluralism and the right to freedom of expression.

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Institutions

We work for resilient and accountable institutions that guarantee free and fair elections, oversight of decision-making and the decentralisation of national powers.

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Inclusion

To ensure fair and effective decision-making processes, we contribute to amplifying the voices of young people, women, minorities and people with disabilities.

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Innovation

We explore democratic innovations worldwide and link them to democratic renewal through policy recommendations and participation initiatives.

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International policy

We advocate for strong pro-democracy policies and use evidence from our research and projects to improve the links between policy and practice.

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Infrastructure

We will leverage our collective strength and work with partners across sectors to help retain a strong and more resilient infrastructure for supporting democracy in the future.

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