FoRS Presidency Conference: Civil Society Organisations Development Effectiveness

The Czech NGDO platform FoRS in close cooperation with the European confederation CONCORD organised an international conference “Civil Society Organisations Development Effectiveness” in Prague on June 23 – 24, 2009, as the final and closing event of the FoRS program and official accompanying event of the Czech EU Presidency.

The conference gathered over 170 representatives of civil society organisations (CSOs), donors and governments from nearly 50 countries from Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, Latin and North America. They discussed the key topic – the principles of development effectiveness and the specific role of CSOs in development with respect to the external conditions that best contribute to their full performance.

The program combined different ways of exchange: An overview on the global process of CSO development effectiveness was given in a talk show between members of the Open Forum on CSO Development Effectiveness (http://www.cso-effectiveness.org/). Later, participants split into workshops on different topics: Sustainable Technologies for Sustainable Development, Migration and Development, Inclusive Development, Gender and Development, Democratic Governance and Development, Agriculture and Food Security. The Czech participants shared their experience in these areas with partners from different parts of the world.

The second day was devoted to multi-stakeholders debates – a panel of donors (EC, Czech MFA and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) was moderated by Olivier Consolo from CONCORD. Later, a panel of CSOs was moderated by Johanna Mang from the Austrian Development Agency.

At the end of the event, participants vividly discussed the wording of the final conference statement. Coming from very diverse backgrounds and continents, they agreed on development effectiveness principles which they committed to discuss and explore further within the Open Forum. FoRS was happy to have achieved its rather ambitious goal to contribute to the global CSO efforts in increasing development effectiveness.

Download the conference statement from http://www.trialog.or.at/images/doku/statement.pdf. Further information and the final conference report will be published on the FoRS web page
http://www.fors.cz/en/eu_presidency/seminars_conferences. Use the same link to download the final report of the May presidency conference on effectiveness in development education.

Information provided by Marie Zázvorková, FoRS