Strengthening civil society across Europe - Eurochild’s achievements in 2025
Annual Report 2025.
Eurochild’s impact is driven by our role as a network to connect and empower civil society to ensure policies that affect children are grounded in child rights principles. We work in close collaboration with child rights leaders, activists, practitioners, and experts across our Europe-wide network and with our allies across civil society. In 2025, we responded to anti-child rights movements by supporting our members; supported members access funding and partnerships; amplified child rights civil society to engage in policymaking and advocacy; and grew the Eurochild network.
- Responding to anti-child rights movements by supporting our members
Since 2022, Eurochild has responded to the rise of Anti-Rights Movements in Europe. These movements attack democracy, shrink civil society space, and backlash against universal human rights, undermining the freedom, safety and action of those defending human rights in the process. In 2025 we launched our campaign to centralise resources and evidence from our members in response to these attacks on civic space and child rights defenders.
In 2025 we:
- supported direct action with our members in Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Serbia in response to anti-rights attacks in their countries.
- co-signed a joint statement with Philea reaffirming the vital role of philanthropy in defending civic space and democracy across Europe and beyond.
- At the EU level, we influenced the new EU Civil Society Strategy, adopted in late 2025. We welcome its goals for stronger protections, better engagement, and fairer funding for CSOs, yet warn that children’s rights still lack a dedicated focus, and meaningful participation must be fully enforced. Our work to influence the new Multiannual Financial Framework also highlights the crucial role civil society organisations have in ensuring accountability and partnership in ensuring EU funds help those most in need.
- Supporting members' access to funding and partnerships
Eurochild facilitates partnerships and exchange within our membership and across wider civil society to help members unlock funds to continue their essential support for children, families and communities across Europe. In 2025 we:
- Held 1,300+ engagements with members related to funding opportunities and partnership creation, and issued 46 Letters of Support to strengthen members’ own funding applications. We also submitted 6 proposals together with members from Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Kosovo, Netherlands, Serbia, Slovenia, and Spain – in total, members secured more than €3 million in projects that Eurochild supported;
- Advocated for more funding support for civil society, including as part of the 2025 Civil Society Week;
- Created resources to support civil society accessing EU funding, with a new toolkit on EU funds.
- We launched the EU-funded Daphne-CHILD programme, a €1.35million re-granting and capacity building initiative that supports 48 CSOs across 9 European countries prevent violence against children. 9 Eurochild members are funded through the programme. Eurochild leads the programme with our member Terre des hommes Lausanne Foundation, and with support from expert advisors Alketa Lasku, Bruce Adamson, Cath Larkins, and Raluca Verweijen-Slamnescu.
- Amplifying child rights civil society to engage in policymaking and advocacy across Europe
Through our advocacy work, Eurochild amplifies and supports members’ advocacy to the EU and other inter-governmental policy. In 2025 we:
- Held 6,700+ engagements with members on advocacy and influencing opportunities. These engagements range from facilitating members to participate in EU-level policy, providing expert contributions, and participating in Eurochild publications.
- Created our largest annual flagship report ever, Unequal Childhoods: Rights on paper should be rights in practice. This year’s edition involved 84 CSOs across Eurochild membership from across 36 countries.
- Eurochild is a member of several networks and working groups such as Social Platform, EAPN, European Economic & Social Committee, Child Rights Connect, Lifelong Learning Platform, ISSA and the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee for the Rights of the Child.
- We worked closely with other civil society organisations through informal alliances and coalitions: Co-leading the EU Alliance for Investing in Children, CRAG (Child Rights Action Group), the European Expert Group on the Transition from Institutional to Community-Based Care (EEG), the EU CSA Legislation Advocacy Group (ECLAG), Purpose, Initiative for Children in Migration (ICM), the L4WB Community, SDG Watch.
- Strengthening Eurochild network with new members reaching 228
In 2025, the Eurochild network continued to grow, reaching 228 members from 41 countries.
After our General Assembly in May, we welcomed Center for Missing and Exploited Children (Croatia), French Council of Associations for Children’s Rights – COFRADE, Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, L’Ecole des Valeurs (Luxembourg), Child and Youth Friendly Governance Project (Switzerland), Charity Organisation "Charity Fund RIDNI” (Ukraine), Eriks Development (Sweden).
After our EGA in November 2025, we welcomed Professor Ann Skelton (individual), Trust for Social Achievement (Bulgaria), Breza Association(Croatia), Health Services Research Centre (Cyprus), Asociace Dité a Rodina (Association Child and Family) (Czechia), CyberSafeKids (Ireland), Guimaraes Human Rights Defense Association (Portugal), Charitable Fund “BGV” (Ukraine), Hungarian Child Rights Coalition, and Kids of Ukraine Charity Fund.
- Strengthening civil society’s work to elevate the voices of children and young people
As part of Eurochild’s work to elevate the voices of children and young people, we worked closely with civil society organisations, ensuring that members and Eurochild engage with children in a meaningful way to ensure that diverse voices of child human rights defenders influence decision-making in Europe. In 2025, we:
- Worked with the 12 supporting organisations for our Eurochild’s Children Council;
- Worked with the 6 supporting organisations for the National Eurochild Forums;
- As part of our newly set up Network of Online Visionaries in Action (NOVA) Council, we are working with 8 organisations to support children from six European countries;
- In our Daphne-CHILD programme, each of the 48 CSOs we are funding are involving children meaningfully in their projects’ design and delivery Eurochild provided training on safeguarding to support grantees’ work.
