Black Sea NGO Forum 2008 in Bucharest

The Romanian Development NGOs Platform (FOND) organised between the 31st of October and 2nd November 2008, the Black Sea NGO Forum - “Time to Meet” in Bucharest, Romania.

The Forum gathered more than 220 participants representing over 100 NGOs from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia, Georgia, Greece, Republic of Moldova, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania and other EU member states active in the wider Black Sea region. The event was organised in partnership with the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation and UNDP Romania in the framework of the Black Sea Synergy.

The aim of this event was to increase the level of dialogue and coordination among NGOs in the wider Black Sea region as well as to strengthen the advocacy capacity of NGOs in the Black Sea region in order to influence development strategies in the region. The organisers envisioned this forum as an opportunity for creating a pool of concrete projects and proposing concrete recommendations for regional NGOs and donors in order to increase the number and quality of regional partnerships and projects.

The programme included:

• Presentations of the state of affairs of the NGO sector in the region; perspectives of NGO regional cooperation; programmes and financial support for civil society initiatives in the Black Sea region;
• Three panels focused on a cross-cutting issue “Challenges and opportunities for NGO cooperation in the Black Sea region”, with presentations and discussions of the state of affairs in three broad fields: Social Justice and Human Rights, Democracy and Good Governance, Environment.
• Partnership fair to exchange experiences, to find partners for their project ideas and to elaborate project concepts in the field of social justice, human rights, democratisation and good governance, sustainable development. A portfolio of concept proposals will be presented to the donors in the region.

TRIALOG Director Christine Bedoya introduced the TRIALOG project as an example of good practice in creating capacity for NGO cooperation and exchange in the EU new member states and accession countries.

For more details on the Black Sea NGO Forum please visit: http://www.blackseango.org/

Fotos: Civil Society Development Foundation

Information provided by Adela Rusu, Romanian NGDO Platform FOND