Civil Society and Multilateral Dynamics (Societatea civilă și Dinamicile Multilaterale), an international initiative coordinated by the Erasmus Expertise network, proposes a shift in perspective on the role of civil society in the contemporary world. Instead of viewing non-governmental organizations, civic networks, local associations or informal groups merely as actors that support institutions, the initiative starts from the idea that these structures produce, in their day-to-day work, skills, knowledge and forms of expertise that deserve to be identified, documented, recognized and connected to public policies and to mechanisms of international cooperation.
The Civil Society and Multilateral Dynamics initiative, known by the abbreviation CSMD, is being developed in dialogue with current multilateral dynamics and in connection with international reflections on the future of cooperation, the relationship between institutions and society, and the ways in which local resources can be integrated into global responses to crises. The initiative is supported by Erasmus Expertise, an international network concerned with valuing the knowledge and skills acquired in non-formal and informal learning environments.
The Invisible Skills of Civil Society
The central idea of the initiative is simple, yet important: all over the world, millions of people are active in non-governmental organizations, associations, volunteer groups, professional networks, citizens’ initiatives or community structures. Through their work, they learn to analyze complex situations, mediate conflicts, negotiate with authorities, mobilize resources, communicate with vulnerable groups, manage projects, cooperate across cultures, produce useful information and respond rapidly where institutions are slow, insufficiently prepared or overwhelmed. These skills exist and are used every day, but they often remain invisible because they are not documented, are not certified and do not reach the spaces where public policies are developed.
Jacqueline Bergeron, president of the Erasmus Expertise network and a researcher in educational sciences, describes this problem as a gap between institutional expertise and expertise built in the field. In her analysis, published on the initiative’s website, civil society is frequently called upon to implement programs, intervene in communities, support education, health, peace, the environment or social cohesion, but is much less often recognized as an actor capable of contributing to the definition of public policies. In other words, field organizations are accepted as implementers, but not always as producers of knowledge.
This observation is particularly important in contexts affected by instability, war, poverty, humanitarian crises or institutional weaknesses. In such situations, local actors rapidly develop forms of adaptation, organization and mediation. They know communities directly, along with social tensions, the real needs of beneficiaries and the limits of institutional intervention. In many cases, these very organizations are the first to notice problems and the first to try to solve them. Yet their experience often remains at the margins of official decision-making mechanisms.
Jacqueline Bergeron shows that this distance produces serious political and social effects. When knowledge gained in the field does not reach institutional spaces, public policies risk moving away from the realities they aim to transform. Civil society participation may then become symbolic rather than real: NGOs are consulted, accredited or invited into various formats, but their influence on decisions remains limited. From this perspective, recognizing the skills of civil society is not merely a technical matter, but a democratic issue: who is considered legitimate to speak, to propose solutions and to participate in public life?
From Field Experience to Public Recognition
CSMD seeks to respond precisely to this question. The initiative proposes a four-stage process: identifying field actors and initiatives; documenting the skills developed through action; recognizing them through instruments such as micro-credentials and Open Badges; and connecting these skills to institutions, public programs and mechanisms of international cooperation. It is an approach that seeks to transform local experiences into visible, transferable knowledge that can be useful in other contexts.
Micro-credentials occupy an important place in this architecture. They are not traditional diplomas and do not replace formal training. Their role is to attest to specific skills acquired in formal, non-formal or informal contexts, on the basis of clear criteria and documented evidence. For civil society actors, such an instrument can become a form of recognition for the experience accumulated in the field: coordinating a volunteer network, managing a humanitarian emergency, organizing an educational project, mediating between communities and authorities, combating disinformation or supporting vulnerable groups.
To be recognized means being able to enter into dialogue with institutions, to be treated as a legitimate interlocutor, to contribute to policy-making and to turn local experience into a resource for international cooperation. For this reason, CSMD is not limited to presenting civil society; it proposes a working method: observation, mapping, analysis, certification and connection.
Romania and Ukraine, a Pilot Ground for Civic Solidarity
The Romania–Ukraine dimension gives the initiative particular relevance. In his analytical text, political scientist, journalist and university lecturer Dr. Marin Gherman shows that Romania and Ukraine represent two different institutional contexts, yet they have become deeply interdependent since the launch of the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Romania is a member state of the EU and NATO, with a stable institutional framework and European norms in the field of non-governmental organizations. Ukraine is a state at war, where civil society operates under the pressure of military urgency, massive population displacement, funding difficulties, organizational exhaustion and the permanent need to support the country’s defensive effort.
Nevertheless, the two civil societies meet around a common problem: how can the real skills developed by organizations in crisis situations be identified, mapped and recognized? In Romania, this question became visible immediately after 2022, when civic organizations, volunteer networks, local associations and informal groups mobilized rapidly to support Ukrainian refugees. In the first weeks of the war, while institutional mechanisms were still adapting, civic actors organized reception, accommodation, transport, food, administrative guidance and first-line assistance.
This mobilization showed that civil society in Romania is not merely a sector complementary to the state, but a space in which operational, logistical, social and intercultural skills are formed. Field organizations reduced response times, simplified access to aid, connected refugees with local resources and functioned as an interface between people’s immediate needs and institutional response capacity. Later, the state consolidated its response, but this does not diminish the initial role of civic actors. On the contrary, it makes that role even more important for analysis: what skills were activated, how were they built and how can they be recognized?
In Ukraine, civil society operates in an even more complicated context. Civic organizations, foundations, volunteer networks and local initiatives are affected by a lack of resources, the pressure of war, security risks and accumulated fatigue. At the same time, they have become indispensable actors of social resistance. Volunteers raise funds and obtain clothing, food, generators, medicines, equipment for hospitals, resources for internally displaced persons and support for Ukrainian soldiers defending the country. In many regions, civil society has helped cities left without electricity, supported hospitals affected by power outages and intervened where needs exceeded the state’s immediate capacity.
But the role of Ukrainian civil society is not limited to humanitarian aid. Organizations work in education, media literacy, combating disinformation, health, psychological support, documenting local needs, cooperation with public administrations and support for displaced communities. In a war in which propaganda and disinformation are used as political weapons, the capacity to explain, verify and dismantle false narratives becomes a strategic civic skill. In the field of health, NGOs often work together with hospitals, local authorities and international partners, filling areas where public institutions cannot respond on their own.
From this perspective, Romania and Ukraine can become a highly relevant pilot ground for CSMD. The geographical proximity of the war has created a zone of regional insecurity that directly affects Romania, its institutions, its border communities and its civic organizations. At the same time, Ukrainian organizations bring direct experience of intervention under wartime conditions, while Romanian organizations can function as a European interface, connecting local initiatives to resources, networks and institutions in the EU space.
At the same time, the initiative is not limited to the Romanian-Ukrainian space: the experiences of states such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with forms of civic organization specific to an African context marked by social challenges, will also be analyzed, as will those of France, where the associative and democratic tradition provides an important comparative framework; as the initiative develops, CSMD aims to expand to other states, other regions and other civil society actors.
A Common Platform for Knowledge, Cooperation and Public Policy
This is where the value of a common platform becomes visible. Many civic initiatives remain fragmented, poorly documented and insufficiently connected to one another. One small organization may have an effective solution for supporting refugees, another may have experience in media literacy, another may know mechanisms for cooperation with local authorities or hospitals, but these experiences often remain isolated. CSMD proposes precisely to overcome this fragmentation: the intelligent centralization of information, the identification of skills, the documentation of practices and the connection of actors who can learn from one another.
In this sense, mapping does not mean merely creating a database. It involves analyzing the way initiatives emerge, the way actors organize themselves, the skills they mobilize and the conditions under which these skills can be transferred to other contexts. A local practice from a Ukrainian community affected by war may become useful for other societies facing displacement, energy crises, information pressure or humanitarian emergencies. Similarly, the experience of Romanian organizations working with refugees can be transformed into a model of cross-border and European cooperation.
The initiative also has a broader dimension linked to multilateralism. CSMD proposes a more attentive relationship between local dynamics and international frameworks of cooperation. Instead of international policies being designed almost exclusively from the top down, the initiative advocates integrating field experiences into processes of analysis, negotiation and decision-making. In today’s world, marked by wars, migration, health crises, climate change, food insecurity and information polarization, institutions cannot respond effectively without a better understanding of the skills of those who act directly within communities.
This approach does not idealize civil society. Field organizations face real limits: insufficient resources, fatigue, lack of personnel, dependence on funding, fragmentation, coordination difficulties and sometimes a lack of visibility. Precisely for this reason, the recognition of skills must be accompanied by documentation, criteria, analysis and verification. Not every initiative automatically becomes a model of good practice. But where results, experience and the capacity to adapt exist, they must be made visible and brought into circulation.
Jacqueline Bergeron formulates this stake in a democratic key: societies need to recognize field actors who contribute to collective life, produce useful knowledge and participate concretely in social stability. Marin Gherman brings this reflection into the Romanian-Ukrainian space, showing that the war has made visible civic skills that already existed, but had not been sufficiently analyzed. Together, the two perspectives show that civil society is not merely a beneficiary of public policies, nor only an instrument of implementation. It is a space of learning, adaptation, solidarity and knowledge production.
For audiences in Romania, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova, this initiative may have concrete significance. In our region, civil society has often had to intervene in situations where institutions were slow, politicized, overstretched or lacking resources. The war in Ukraine has accentuated this reality. From supporting refugees to combating disinformation, from educational projects to medical aid, from community mobilization to cross-border cooperation, civic actors have built skills that deserve to be analyzed and recognized.
At a time when crises overlap and trust in institutions is often tested, recognizing the skills of civil society becomes a matter of public interest. This is not just about NGOs, certificates or digital platforms. It is about the capacity of societies to learn from their own experiences, to value the practical intelligence of communities and to build policies that are closer to social realities. In this sense, the Civil Society and Multilateral Dynamics initiative opens a field of reflection and action that may become relevant not only for Romania and Ukraine, but also for other regions affected by war, humanitarian crises or profound social transformations.
CSMD website – https://fieldpolicy.org/