AR: Activity Report 2024-25

Activity Report 2024-25

The activity report covers the period from January 2024¹ to April 2025, is
presented and adopted by the General Assembly 2024.

We Empowered progressive changemakers by:

Annual Work Plan: Unite-Think-Act: Political Participation of Green Youth of
Eastern Europe

The Work Plan (WP) aim was to enhance political participation of young people of
Eastern Europe through strengthening the political vision and strategic
approaches of green youth organisations of the region, and to empower them to
engage in negotiations and diverse forms of social dialogue with different
stakeholders on local, regional and cross-regional levels.

The WP consisted of two phases and will consisted of an international Refocusi
Summer Camp that happened in Tbilisi, Georgia (5-10th August) as the first
phase, followed by Local Actions (LAs).

The first phase, Refocusing Summer Camp , will on one hand provide the space for
young people who are politically active in countries of EE to rethink key
aspects of their political contexts and share with each other their visions, and
on the other, offer them with skills and knowledge of different tools for
defining their vision, conducting political action, creating strategy for
achieving specific goals, and engaging in social dialogue with different
stakeholders. Moreover, it will set the stage for the second phase of the WP and
provide them with an overview of the analytical and action tools they can
utilise in order to better understand different contexts they are in and
subsequently choose the right methods for negotiations and political action.

Refocus Local Actions aimed to provide resources and space to young progressive
organisations in Eastern Europe to refocus their political vision by creating
strategies, policy documents or campaigns.

We facilitated and supported 7 Local Actions (Note: One of the local actions
took place in an authoritarian country and due to security risks, we are not
publishing its details nor results):

Regional Meeting

In 2025, we incorporated the regional meeting into the Summer Camp. We dedicated
additional day for work in regional groups (South Caucasus, Balkan, Centre-East)
to facilitate intercultural dialogue and create sub-regional visions for the
collective Eastern European aim of upholding democracy and green values.

As an outcome of these sessions, we developed three separate strategic
approaches specific to the regions of Eastern Europe that would feed into our
Strategy 2024-2028.

Study Session

During the six days of the Study Session “Breaking the Barriers: Green Economics
and Youth Political Participation in Eastern Europe” that was held in the
European Youth Center in Budapest in November 2024, organised by the Cooperation
and Development Network Eastern Europe (CDN), in cooperation with Youth
Department of the Council of Europe, we discussed, exchanged experiences, and
generated knowledge about human rights, economy, and proposed ways of overcoming
economic barriers to political participation. The intersection of these topics
and the overarching theme of inequality were incorporated to discuss a variety
of issues. The study session fostered an exploration of the systems in which we
live - patriarchy, capitalism, and colonialism/imperialism - and the ways these
systems impact social and economic rights of people. Another key aspect was the
focus on intersectionality and the ways in which all these topics interact with
one another. The study session also aimed to show different perspectives and
alternatives to the most prevalent issues related to economy and political
participation, giving the participants the chance to discuss solutions and steps
towards a greener, more sustainable future. Finaly, participants had a chance to
gain practical experience in using advocacy tools which they will be able to use
in their local, country, and regional contexts.

Tbilisi Security Conference

As part of “Green Visions on European Security” project, in collaboration with
Green European Foundation, we organised one-day conference in Tbilisi on 11th
August after the Summer Camp. During the event we spotlighted and dived deeper
into the work on the security and defence policy that CDN and GEF worked on
during 2023 and 2024. The discussed topics included: non-violence principle,
environmental and energy security, peacebuilding and defence policy (with
representative of Latvian Ministry of Defence). We also provided the space for
authors of articles created in the previous part of project to present their
findings. We gathered experts both from within our network, and beyond. We
followed-up the conference with the series of quotes from speakers on our social
media; the findings were also useful in creating Foreign Policy & Security
chapter for new political platform.

We Strengthened the Network by:

General Assembly

General Assembly (GA), took place in Vilnius, Lithuania on 27-28th April, hosted
by Belarusian Young Greens. GA - the highest decision-making body of CDN – was
the biggest one in CDN history and brough together over 60 people: the delegates
from Member organisations and other friends from the Green political movement to
share, network and debate. We elected Executive Committee, adopted activity and
financial plan for the next year, amended documents and adopted three resolution
concerning the internal governance of CDN. All the documents adopted are
available on the website. In 2024, we also discussed and adopt new Strategy for
the upcoming four years, accepted new Member Organisation Mladi zeleni (Czech
Young Greens). All the adopted documents. During the Political Conference that
was a part of GA, we debated about importance of election in fighting the
authoritarianism with delegates from Georgia, Serbia, Poland and Latvia (to
underline the importance of EU elections). Thanks to cooperation with Green
Forum, we also hosted the special guests from Young Greens from Africa and
Americas.

Executive Committee Meetings

The Executive Committee met live five times during the reporting period: in
February and April 2024 for the 2023-24 mandate, as well as in May and July 2024
and February 2025 for the 2024-25 mandate. Thanks to introduction of the
delegation order, the EC Meetings were shorter and more productive, and there
was no need for additional meeting. We decided that the minutes from the live EC
Meetings that are published on the website should be more detailed and
transparent than previously.

Moreover, the regular bi-weekly meeting were happening on regular basis, 15
times during the 2024-25 EC mandate.

Regional Calls with MOs and Feedback

The regular online regional calls with Member Organisation happened only in the
Balkans region. It proven to be a success than should be continued next year in
other regions. Regular calls were not conducted in other regions due to
resignations or inactivity of EC responsible members, and lack of additional
capacity to replace them fully. Besides the calls, responsible EC persons
arranged in person meetings during regional meeting to discuss important
political and organisational developments.

In February 2025, the MO Survey was sent to Member Organisations to assess CDN
work and gather input for planning future activities.

Study Visit

The Study Visit were conducted to Croatia on 6-8th December 2024. The decision
on the study visit was made by Executive Committee following the political aims
that arose during the year: to facilitate cooperation between our MO Zeleni
prozor and Možemo! Youth Group and research on how potential cooperation between
two Member Organisations from the same country would look like in the future.

The study visit succeeded, as Možemo! Youth Group are applying for membership in
2025, with the explicite consent for that from Zeleni prozor.

Strengthening Internal Capacities

CDN started its strategic work on strengthening internal capacities to be able
to effectively deliver its work and achieve objectives. We developed Office
guidelines (adopted in February 2025) defining the working conditions of the
Office personnel, improved and reinforced delegation order and started
newsletter.

As every year, we organised Treasurer Meeting, where we introduced our Treasurer
(and back-up person) to finances of CDN. This year, thanks to better task
delegation order and using digital accounting tools, we were able to do it
online.We participated in external training of European Youth Foundation and
Council of Europe’s Youth Department, thus deepening our cooperation, and
improving crucial skills and knowledge of the CDN EC and Office, most notably:
Study Visit „Enhancing international cooperation in times of war“ in Lviv,
European Youth Capital 2025 (October 2024), Consultative Meeting "How
Confident?... Artificial Intelligence, Young People and Youth Work" (January
2025) or “Training Course on Essentials of International Youth Activities
(February 2025).

We Brought Eastern European Perspective by:

New Political Platform Creation

At the 2024 GA, we decided to rewrite our political platform, so it an up-to-
date, comprehensive and detailed. CDN Team firstly consulted the structure of
platform during the Summer Camp, and then during open cosultation meeting in
October. We opened the form for proposing postulates for platform in October
2024, where we received input from 3 MOs, and further consulted draft document
on Study Session. Unfortunately, due to resignation and inactivity of primarly
responsive for political platform EC member, ready draft document was published
for consultation only on 1st February, so about 2-3 weeks later than in first
timeline, thus the consultations were shorter than planned. Representatives of 3
Member Organisations took part in that part. The full document after
consultation was accepted by EC on 15th February, and will be voted during GA.

Digital Events

We managed to organise two ElectionVision webinars, on Taiwan (together with
Global Young Greens) and on European Parliament elections. We did not organise
ElectionVision on the elections that happened in the second half of 2024 because
of lot of events and lack of capacity of Office and EC in Q4/2024 and Q1/2025,
however we have it in plans to organise joint ElectionVision 2024-25 webinar in
new format.

Moreover, as mentioned previously we organised digital political platform
consultations.

Statements and communication

CDN actively monitored and responded to important political developments in
Eastern Europe by publishing statements and through social media. We published
12 statements and 3 opinion pieces throughot the reporting period, as well as
experimented with new formats (sanctions campaign, short reels with
representatives of MOs at the events or series of quotes from conference).

In March 2024, we updated our visual identity (logo, social media templates) to
to enable consistency in our communication and facilitate the creation of
content for EC and Office.

Since September 2024, we create newsletter to disseminate essential updates,
valuable insights, and informed perspectives on key political developments,
current events and ongoing issues in Eastern Europe. Besides, we ask Member
Organisation for their contribution, further fostering engagement in the
network.

Networking

We maintained and strengthened the cooperation with our sister-organisation
Federation of Young European Greens. We implemented our revised relation paper
in practice. Consequently, we took part in each other’s GAs and other events,
published 4 collaboration posts, and had close communication both on the EC-EC
contact persons, and Office-Office line. Most importantly, We joined as minor
partner - represented by one of EC Member in the Prep-Team - in FYEG's activity
"Ready, set, go... The Green Future" in Baku, November 2024. We also cooperated
in organisation of European Train Tour in Belgrade (March 2024) and had joined
EC meeting during EGP congress in Lyon (February 2024).

Moreover, we seeked involvement in activities hosted by EGP and Greens/EFA,
thereby further deepening our relations within the Green European community. We
participated in both EGP congresses in 2024. We also sent the e-mails to MEPs
from Greens/EFA to ask for (financial or substantive) support - unfortunately
with response only from Erik Marquardt's office. We continued networking and
cooperation with other Green organisations, by participating in events by Green
Youth of Montenegro, Green Thought Association (Turkey) or Global Young Greens
(meeting in North Macedonia).

We continued the great cooperation with Green Forum as our main partner.
Unfortunately, our previous agreement with ForumCIV was terminated and we needed
to move to another partnership programme. The transition was smooth and with
invaluable help from the Green Forum, unfortunately it took away a lot of
capacities from the Office in Q4 2024 and Q1 2025.

We started meaningful cooperation with the organisations beyond European Green
movement. Notably, we made agreements to deepen cooperation with SAME
(Solidarity Action Day Movement in Europe) and JEF-Europe (Young European
Federalists). We also established contact with IFJ (European Youth Forum) with
the intention to apply for observer or member statute after reaching necessary
number of members. We sent the three new grant applications for funders we did
not cooperate before, during the reporting period and got good feedback, however
did not succeed.

¹ In the previous years, CDN had Activity Plans presented work from January-
December However, in 2024 we have decided to transition to a new approach in
order to enhance transparency, democracy, and allow for a better planning. Our
Activity Plans will now align with the timeline from one General Assembly to the
next.