At the occasion of the Launching Event  of the fifth phase of the South Programme : "Protecting human rights, rule of law and democracy through shared standards in the Southern Mediterranean", taking place in Lisbon, the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe gathers a group of fourteen civil society experts from the Southern Mediterranean to support youth civic participation in democratic reforms.

Conceived as a partnership-driven and networking-oriented meeting, the meeting is the first of a series of Euro-Med civil society “Labs” that between 2023 and 2025 will bring together civil society experts on various areas such as public policies, gender equality, digital rights, climate justice, migration, arts and culture, or food security, among other. This first Lab has the objective to foster the participation of young people in decision making and democratic reforms, while addressing the issues that are shaping the international agenda today.

The activity is organized in the framework of the joint initiative between the European Union and Council of Europe towards an enlarged common legal space between Europe and the Southern Mediterranean based on human rights, rule of law and democratic governance standards. Its recommendations will be integrated in future actions of the South Programme as well as in the activities of the North-South Centre and more concretely, in the strategy of the the North-South Centre Summer Universities’ and the Mediterranean University on Youth and Global Citizenship (MedUni).