Last November, the European Development Education (DE) Consensus (see link below), was officially unveiled during the European Development Days in Lisbon. Since then, this framework on objectives, principles and challenges for development education got growing recognition: Commissioner Louis Michel stated that “this Consensus on development education is as important as the European Consensus on Development.” The European Parliament “welcomed” the DE consensus in its 13 March plenary session (see also article "NMS report adopted in the European Parliament") and adopted a resolution highlighting the “importance of a report on development education [..] and its role in the implementation of the European Consensus on Development”. The European Commission will provide translations into all 22 official EU languages and publish the document on the website of DG Development.
The initial purpose of the multi stakeholder process seemed to be fulfilled: The EU now has a reference document for DE, which receives growing ownership from different actors. Thus, the expectations to the forth meeting of the multi stakeholder steering group in the European Parliament end of February (after meetings at CONCORD, the Luxembourg MFA and the European Commission throughout 2007) where rather low: The work was done, after all.
However, the members of the steering group, coming from European Parliament, European Commission, member states, international organisations and civil society, decided differently: “The real work starts now”, insisted Robert Zimmerman from the OECD-DAC. If the DE Consensus shall become a real political strategy for DE in Europe, the group would need a new mandate for the implementation of the Consensus, with precise political objectives, indicators and action plan. As host Hannu Takkula (MEP, Vice-president of the Culture and Education Committee) said in his opening speech: “Now the challenge is to put [the Consensus] into practice, on local, national and European level!”.
At the international conference “Development Education and Intercultural Dialogue” on 9 and 10 June in Slovenia (see "Events") the multi stakeholder steering group will seek for this new mandate until after the European Elections in June 2009 to transform the DE Consensus into real politics. This second multi stakeholder steering group will be open to newcomers and meet the first time before the summer holidays. One more reason to come to Ljubljana and to join the European Multi Stakeholder Process on Development Education, Version 2.0!
For further information, contact: Tobias Troll (DEEEP Advocacy officer), at t.troll@deeep.org
Link:
The European Consensus on Development: The Contribution of Development Education and Awareness Raising; http://www.deeep.org/fileadmin/user_upload/downloads/Consensus_on_DE/Final_Euro_DEAR_statement_with_annexes_301007.pdf
Information provided by Tobias Troll, DEEEP, http://www.deeep.org
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment