The Civic Space Scan of Finland was prepared by the OECD Public Governance Directorate (GOV), headed by Elsa Pilichowski. It was developed under the strategic direction of Alessandro Bellantoni, Head of the Open Government and Civic Space Unit. Claire Mc Evoy led the drafting of the report, supported by Marie Whelan, who also co-authored two chapters. Sophie Le Corre and Joshua Yeremiyew prepared the manuscript for publication, which also benefitted from inputs from Andrea Uhrhammer, Jennifer Stein and Marina Mon.
The OECD Secretariat wishes to express its gratitude to all those who made this report possible and to recognise the excellent collaboration with the Government of Finland and Finnish civil society organisations for the duration of the Scan process.
We would like to extend special thanks to Katju Holkeri, the Chair of the OECD Working Party on Open Government and Head of the Governance Policy Unit in the Ministry of Finance. She and her entire team generously offered their time to co-ordinate the public officials involved in the Scan and provided indispensable insights on the status of civic space in Finland. Tuomas Parkkari, Johanna Nurmi and Onni Pekonen deserve a special mention for their dedicated engagement, as do the many public officials who followed up their interviews to provide additional information to the Scan team.
We are also grateful to the wide range of civil society actors in Finland who shared their views during the virtual fact-finding mission and provided information and substantive inputs throughout the process, including comments on the draft report. Their considerable insights and recommendations are integrated into every chapter of the Scan.
The OECD would also like to enthusiastically thank the public officials from the governments of Canada, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands who generously took part in the process as peer reviewers. Their contributions regarding good practices and lessons learned from their own countries are also integrated throughout the report.
Sections of the Scan analysing Finland’s legal frameworks summarise material provided by the Library of Congress to the OECD Observatory of Civic Space. Please see the OECD Civic Space website for the full Library of Congress “Finland: Civic Space Legal Framework” background report.
The report benefitted from the comments of Richard Alcorn, Laura Galindo, Karine Perset, Ieva Česnulaitytė, Cibele Cesca, Arturo Rivera Perez, Felipe González-Zapata, Benjamin Welby, Cecilia Emilsson, and Mariane Barbieri Piccinin. Carmen Malena and Michael Jelenic also provided invaluable support.
Claudia Chwalisz, Ieva Cesnulaityte and Claire Mc Evoy provided guidance on the development of the Citizens’ Panel with the Åbo Akademi University, whose recommendations on tackling hate speech are included in the Scan.
Finally, the OECD Secretariat wishes to express its gratitude to the OECD Working Party on Open Government for reviewing the report.