Evaluation conference of the Regional Partnership Programme in Budapest

The Regional Partnership Programme (RPP) was a unique initiative of the Austrian platform (now called "Global responsibility") focusing on development cooperation among 5 European countries: Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria. The aim of the RPP, that started in 2005 and is finishing at the end of 2008, was to strengthen the capacities and the visibility of development cooperation in the participating Central European countries as well as to improve cooperation between them at the regional level.


A pilot project fund with the amount of EUR 1.100.000 was made available, financed jointly by the Austrian Development Cooperation (70%) and by the governments (20%) and NGDOs (10%) of all participating countries. Through these calls for proposals for pilot projects, some of the "newcomer" NGDOs were for the first time able to gain applicable knowledge in proposal writing, reporting and implementation of development projects.


The RPP evaluation conference, held in Budapest on 25-26 September 2008, proved that the programme was a great success for the participating new member states and their platforms. The conference was a good opportunity for exchanging experiences made during the RPP among pilot project holders as well as their respective platforms and the official governmental representatives. Many of the pilot project holders stressed that the partnership with an Austrian NGDO, that was a precondition when applying for a project, allowed a mutual learning experience and facilitated networking that can be used for future cooperation. On the whole, 58 projects – 35 on development awareness and 23 on development cooperation were funded, with 53 different organisations participating from 5 countries.

In the framework of the RPP also a number of workshops and trainings has been organised to increase the capacities of platforms, eg. on "understanding EU development cooperation" and workshops on advocacy, lobbying and networking. Experience sharing among platforms proved to be very helpful, since many participants were facing similar problems with establishing a sustainable dialogue with the official side. The RPP proved to be a useful bridge between old and new member states. The programme contributed to cross border networking among platforms and opened up a forum for dialogue between MFAs and platforms. Therefore, a concept for continuing the cooperation will be developed among platforms and governments.


Find out more about the Budapest conference and RPP activities under http://www.eu-platform.at/english/start.asp?b=872
Download the brochure "Learning by doing" which summarises RPP activities from 2005-2008: http://doku.cac.at/rpp_broschure_a5_druckfertig_ansicht.pdf

Information provided by Danijela Janosevic, RPP