Training in Riga

Towards the end of a long winter, and with floods still affecting day-to-day life in Riga, TRIALOG organized in cooperation with the Latvian NGDO Platform LAPAS the national training in Latvia on the 29th of March 2010. The topic, chosen according to the needs assessment done at the platform level was "Development Cooperation 101", which means the basic issues in development cooperation. Basic issues, but not so basic discussions and insights into the current state of affairs with a wide participation and insights from a varied and very interesting group, ranging from civil society organizations, governmental employees, EC workers, teachers and academia.

The workshop aimed at introducing participants to the EU development cooperation policy creating a solid base for understanding its rationale, main challenges and structural blocks. Having had this overview, and sharing also the realities of their own work, the participants did seek and genuinely hoped for the opportunities among the many challenges present in the current context (strong financial crisis in Latvia, low public interest in development issues, low interest in enlarging the partner countries’ horizons to African and Latin American countries). LAPAS’ presentation towards the end of the day contributed to the concretization of the reality of development cooperation activities in the Latvian context, and most agreed that the road to development cooperation has quite a few thorns at the moment, but that they are willing to take the axes to clear up this road.

Information provided by Andra Tanase, TRIALOG