External Action

EEAS, DG INTPA, DG ENEST, DG MENA, EU Delegations

Do

Conduct context-specific risk assessments before applying visibility, communication, or branding requirements. Support to media should prioritise safety and credibility, with the presumption that visibility waivers are justified where risk exists.

Provide a balanced mix of funding types — combining long-term institutional support with flexible emergency and relocation funds. Delegations should be able to rapidly disburse small-scale grants to address urgent threats without undermining longer-term commitments.

Allow flexible reallocation of budgets so that grantees can adjust to rapidly changing contexts, including shifting political restrictions or new safety threats.

Strengthen donor coordination at field level by convening regular exchanges with Member States, like-minded donors, and international partners. Coordination should cover pipelines, visibility decisions, and burden-sharing on reporting.

Commission joint landscape and needs assessments with local experts, and ensure that these findings inform programme design. Attention should be paid to underserved audiences, regional outlets, and marginalised groups.

Promote local leadership and ownership by budgeting for consultation processes, covering partner coordination time, and enabling local organisations to lead consortia where appropriate.

Don’t

Don’t expose partners through public diplomacy activities such as photo opportunities, social media amplification, or participation in sensitive political events without adequate protection.

Don’t apply one-size-fits-all models across different regions or political contexts. Templates and programming must reflect the realities of local media ecosystems.

Don’t insist on rigid or politically driven workplans when inaction, delay, or flexibility may better serve a “do no harm” approach.

Don’t consistently channel funds to large international NGOs at the expense of smaller, independent, and local organisations.

Don’t duplicate landscape assessments or evaluation studies already conducted by other donors — this both wastes resources and burdens local actors.

Best practice

Maintain “harm logs” within Delegations to document when visibility waivers or other protective measures have been granted, and share anonymised lessons to encourage consistent practice.

Establish rapid-response mechanisms at EEAS and DG INTPA level, with simplified procedures enabling Delegations to disburse emergency funds within days.

Convene monthly donor coordination huddles at Delegation level, using them to share sensitive cases and ensure coherent donor messaging.

Set up advisory groups of local media actors to feed into programme design and monitoring, with discretion to protect their safety and independence.

Host restricted-access repositories of local assessments, evaluations, and risk analyses to support learning while protecting sensitive information.

Encourage Delegations to report annually on how EU support has contributed to local ownership, safety improvements, and ecosystem resilience, not only on output indicators.

Case studies/examples:

Investigative journalismLegal support

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