Friday 29 February 2008

Conference on Challenges of EU 27 Development Policy

The conference "Challenges of EU 27 Development Policy with a Technical Seminar on the European Development Fund" took place on 18th February 2008 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The aim of the conference was to discuss present and future challenges the EU development policy is facing. The technical seminar brought together relevant actors from EU member states with the purpose of exchanging information on the role, challenges and contributions of the new member states (NMS) in the European Development Fund (EDF). There has been participation of NGOs and business communities in EDF financed projects.

At the technical seminar, NGOs have pointed out that the EDF should give special attention to assuring:
- broader ownership (including civil society from the South) to Strategic development documents,
- democratic governance,
- broader civil society organisation's participation in the creation of Strategic documents.

Some members of NMS NGOs have pointed out the need of opening EDF more to NMS, which used to be the domain of old member states in the past.

Find further information on the event at:
http://www.eu2008.si/en/Meetings_Calendar/Dates/February/0217_GAERC.html

Information provided by Marjan Huc, Slovenian NGDO platform SLOGA, info@sloga-platform.org

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