The New Member States Tea Party for FDR

As a regular support and preparation activity prior to each meeting of the CONCORD Working Group FDR (Funding for Development and Relief), TRIALOG created the “Tea Party” for new member states (NMS) representatives in FDR. It is a follow-up of the first preparation meeting, that TRIALOG organised last September to motivate and empower NMS platforms to participate actively in this working group.

The FDR Working Group deals with:
- the EC financing instruments that NGOs have or 'should have' access to;
- the deconcentration process of the EC from Brussels to the partner countries;
- the financial regulations and the modalities of their implementation;
- the overall EC-NGO relationship;
- and a lot of related topics.

The second NMS Tea Party took place on March 17, 2008, prior to the 2days FDR-meeting in Brussels. The meeting focused on the question, whether the NMS representatives feel the need to create a new subgroup in FDR, but the very clear statement of the participants from Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Poland and Slovenia was to join as new members the already existing subgroups in FDR, instead of creating an additional group. As second important issue, the Annual Action Plan (AAP) 2008, has been discussed, with the goal to come to a common idea on the aspects relevant for NMS. The AAP was then also high on the agenda of the main FDR meeting and the FDR subgroup DCI (Development Co-operation Instrument).

What is the AAP?
The Annual Action Plan AAP is a yearly document adopted by the EC on the basis of the “Non-State Actors and Local Authorities in development (NSA-LA) Thematic Strategy Paper 2007 – 2010". It is the basic document for the EC to detail the specific actions that will be funded under each NSA-LA objective and the countries in which support will be concentrated (incl. the conditions of the different calls for proposals). For more information see the CONCORD Update Note on the Non State Actors-Local authorities programme (published in Dec. 2007) at: http://www.concordeurope.org/Public/Page.php?ID=2314&language=eng. The AAP 2008 is expected to be approved by the EC by summer.

What are the next steps regarding the AAP 2008?
The subgroup DCI decided to continue with lobby activities also this year. The most important aspects to be tackled are:
- the right of initiative;
- the consultation process between the EC, the delegations and the local NGOs;
- the country list of only 68 prioritised countries;
- and smoother criteria for organisations from NMS.

Observations, comments and proposals regarding the AAP 2008 are collected by to the chair of the DCI Subgroup Belén Marin. By April 10, the FDR group will send a lobby letter to all Member State Representatives in the EC who will decide on the AAP. Parallel to that process, all national NGDO platforms are invited to do lobby work on the national level with MfAs and MS representatives.

For more information on the AAP 2008, possibilities for related lobby work or information regarding the NMS Tea Party, please contact your national FDR representative/your NGDO platform or TRIALOG Capacity Building Officer Petra Kreinecker at p.kreinecker@trialog.or.at