Round Table to conclude the Presidency Fund project in Bulgaria

On October 30, 2009, the Bulgarian Platform for International Development (BPID) organised a Round Table on the “Participation of Bulgarian Civil Society in EU Development Cooperation”. The Round Table was the closing event of a Presidency Fund supported project which aimed at building the capacity of the Bulgarian National NGDO Platform BPID and its member organisations to engage in policy work.

While the opening remarks of Mr. Kostov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, showed a picture of Bulgaria as engaged member of the European Union in the field of international development cooperation, the following speaker, Mr. Belev, Head of the Department “Development Policy” in the MFA, brought the audience back down to earth and the poor reality of Bulgarian Official Development Assistance (ODA). Despite the years of preparation of his unit for becoming an important donor country of ODA and many efforts to create a strategy for Bulgarian ODA, Mr. Belev had to commit that the quantity of ODA is very poor and perspectives for 2010 are even worse. In the draft national budget the amount foreseen for ODA was zero (version end of October). This limits not only the governmental bilateral development cooperation but also any attempts for supporting civil society engagement in this field.

The Bulgarian NGDO platform BPID was legally established in January 2009 and is not yet member of the European confederation of NGDOs – CONCORD. Annamaria Kekesi, board member of CONCORD participated in the Round Table and presented the confederation and its role on European level. TRIALOG supported the creation and establishment of the Bulgarian platform since the very beginning in 2005 with seminars, conferences, trainings, study visits, advocacy, advice and other support. Christine Bedoya, director of TRIALOG, explained the role of TRIALOG in establishing partnerships between the 15 old EU member states, the 12 new member states and the Global South.

The second part of the Round Table was dedicated to presentations of examples of national ODA systems of other countries, explained by the Ambassadors or Deputy Head of Missions from the Netherlands, Hungary, Japan, Czech Republic and Great Britain. All these presentations showed not only a profound knowledge of the speakers on their national ODA but confirmed also the importance of the active participation of Civil Society Organisations in development cooperation.

Links:
Information on the Presidency Fund supported project: http://www.presidencyfund.org/wcm/projects-supported-by-the-presidency-fund/call-5/103-ecip-foundation.html
Bulgaria country information on the TRIALOG website: http://www.trialog.or.at/start.asp?ID=75

Photos: BPID

Information provided by Christine Bedoya, TRIALOG