Promoting global development education in the new EU Member States

On basis of the 2008 Joint Management Agreement between the European Commission and the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe (NSC), the NSC has this year started a new project for promoting global development education in the new EU Member States.

The action focuses on the member states which have joined the EU in 2004 and 2007, using the preceding Visegrad programme which was implemented by the NSC during 2004-2005 in Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia as a model to develop and strengthen global education in Central and Eastern Europe. The Centre intends to collaborate with the already existing initiatives in the regions, such as the DEEEP and TRIALOG projects and to build upon these experiences and accumulated competences, and thus avoiding duplication or overlapping actions. Special attention is given to continue the collaboration with the Visegrad countries and to initiate the work in the Baltic Sea States and the South East Europe/Mediterranean region.

In March 2009, a kick off seminar was held in Budapest (see article in April TIS: http://trialog-information-service.blogspot.com/2009/04/global-education-kick-off-event-in.html) with representatives from all regions, taking stock of past results and experiences from the Visegrad programme. Following the kick off seminar, a national seminar already took place in Bulgaria in September. 4 more national seminars in the prioritised regions will be held in 2009 (in Latvia on Nov. 6, Estonia Nov. 6-7, Slovenia Nov. 17 and Poland tbc) and another 7 national seminars in 2010 - in total, 12 national seminars (one in each new member state) over a two year period. In addition, three sub-regional seminars are foreseen in 2010-11, respectively in the Baltic Sea Region, South East Europe/Mediterranean region and the Visegrad countries following the national seminars. All seminars will produce national and sub-regional reports on the state of global/development education and their results will contribute to the foreseen pan-European conference in 2011. The activity is organised in very close collaboration with main civil society platforms and networks for global/development education.

For more information, eg. seminar presentations and programmes of the 2009 seminars, please visit: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/nscentre/GE/UE-NSC_JMA_en.asp

For any further questions or information on how to get involved, please contact Nicolas Verneret at: nicolas.verneret@coe.int

Photo: seminar in Bulgaria in September 2009

Information provided by Nicolas Verneret, NSC