Czech NGDOs learning on policy from their Irish and British colleagues

In September, the Czech NGDO platform FoRS organised two key capacity building activities within the project “Starting Up Policy Activities of the Czech NGDOs Platform” supported by the Presidency Fund (http://www.presidencyfund.org/). The partners in the project are the Irish platform Dóchas and the British platform BOND.

The first event was a study trip of the FoRS extended policy team to the Irish platform Dóchas. The Irish colleagues prepared intensive five days with an extensive programme in a very professional way. The FoRS policy team could get a solid overview on the activities of Dóchas, its relations with member organisations and institutional partners, as well as good tips and tricks on how to develop network. The FoRS policy team could also get into more in-depth discussions on organisational structures within Dóchas member organisations (Concern, Trócaire, World Vision, Comhlámh), and on various models of internal coordination between policy and other departments. The meetings arranged for FoRS covered a wide range of Dóchas partners – among the key ones Irish Aid (Civil Society Unit, DE Unit, EU Unit), Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Friends of the Earth or Gender Based Violence Consortium. The FoRS team also spent informal evenings with the Irish minister for Development and the participants of the CONCORD Board meeting.

In the following week, the FoRS Policy Officer went for an internship to the British platform BOND where she could learn more about the EU development policy from the perspective of the national platform and engage in the work of the BOND Advocacy team. She also worked together with the BOND EU Policy Officer in London and Brussels.

Overall, these events were a remarkable impetus for FoRS. The project enables FoRS to develop more structured and institutionalised policy work with the engagement of its member organisations, which is the crucial basement not only for the coming Czech EU Presidency, but much beyond.

Information provided by Jana Krczmarova, FoRS Secretariat Director, sekretariat@fors.cz