TRIALOG at the European Development Days

The European Development Days were held for the third year running in the middle of November (15-17), this time in Strasbourg, France. The event brought together thousands of development actors, from presidents of developing countries, to individual teachers, including ministries, NGOs, regional authorities, European institutions and interested citizens.

TRIALOG’s director, Christine Bedoya, was part of the official programme, presenting the results of a side event organised in cooperation with HUMANIS, a regional Strasbourg platform of development NGOs. The workshop looked at the ways platforms and individual NGOs from old and new EU member states work together.

Participants heard from representatives of the Latvian, Slovakian, Romanian and Maltese NDGO platforms, as well as a regional platform from France. Main ideas included how new member states should partner up with older member states and developing countries for real cooperation, ensuring the flow of information between all three partners and moving away from the teacher-student model. Speakers gave examples of concrete projects where countries worked together successfully, such as the Regional Partnership Programme, which involved Austria and its four neighbouring new member states the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia. The group also discussed the benefits of new member states’ platforms being full of young enthusiastic people who are very motivated to work in this field and the opportunities offered by ‘new’ subjects such as fair trade and responsible tourism.

The results of the workshop and parallel workshops moderated by Coordination Sud and CONCORD were presented at a well-attended meeting on the second day of the Development Days. The event was also an opportunity to present TRIALOG and its work to a new group of development actors.

Find a summary of the HUMANIS event on the European Development Days' website: http://www.eudevdays.eu/Public/PressRelease.php?ID=2724. The full report will be available from HUMANIS in the near future. Please contact trialog@concordeurope.org for copies. The text of Christine’s presentation can be downloaded from http://www.trialog.or.at/images/doku/EDD-workshop-TRIALOG.pdf.

For more information on the third edition of the European Development Days, please visit http://www.eudevdays.eu/.

Information provided by Rebecca Steel, TRIALOG