The TRIALOG seminar “Added Value for new member states (NMS) organizations” in preparation of the next CONCORD FDR meeting (Funding for Development and Relief) took place in Brussels from September 25-26.
“Whenever the government in my country is trying to address some issue, it is setting up a new committee”, stated one of the participants and turned to the EC-representative, asking him with that expression, why the Commission is elaborating so much paper and changing every year important regulations without consulting and without using the lessons learnt from the past.
13 participants from all NMS (except Estonia) had the exceptional opportunity to join the FDR-preparation meeting, organized by TRIALOG with Maria Winnubst, Izabella Toth and Alwin Loeckx as resource persons. It was highly appreciated by the group that spontaneously Pieter Bangma, EC representative and responsible for Civil Society Liaison, was able to join.
Apart from information given on the structure of FDR and its subgroups and a description of the most important activities, the two day seminar in Brussels was dominated by sharing and explaining the current discussions and strategies regarding the new Thematic Programmes and Financial Instruments.
The group made a big step forward towards reaching the ambitious aim of creating an aware, informed, competent and motivated FDR NMS expert group. During the seminar, the main critical points and comments on the Annual Action Plan of the thematic programme “Non State Actors -Local Authorities (NSA-LA)” have been collected and formulated from a NMS perspective. They will now be used as a basic tool in the lobby work on a national level and will help to explain the civil society arguments vis a vis the national representatives in the Member State Committee.
TRIALOG would like to say again a sincere thank you to Maria Winnubst - the main speaker. Thanks to her some participants considered the seminar as the best they ever attended in the development cooperation framework.
Information provided by Petra Kreinecker, TRIALOG Capacity Building Officer
For further information please contact her at p.kreinecker@trialog.or.at
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