TRIALOG Exchange: Rural Development a Window to Sustainable Development Cooperation

As part of the exchange activity in our project, TRIALOG invited participants from the New Member States to the Conference Rural Development – Natural Resource Management from20th to 22nd June in Vienna, organised by TRIALOG’s lead agency HORIZONT3000. The aim of this conference was to present, share and discuss experiences, good practices and methods in the sector 'Rural Development – Natural Resource Management' with HORIZONT3000 project partners from 8 different countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia as well as key stakeholders from Europe.

Key note speakers presented their experiences and the participants discussed on their inputs in working groups. The knowledge transfer and exchange continued in market places of organizations from the global South and was rounded up by field visits to an organic farm and to the Centre for Development Research at the BOKU University of Vienna.

TRIALOG supported the conference logistically and Capacity Building Officer Andra Tanase moderated the panel sessions. Among the 80 participants were 12 project partners from the Global South, representatives from 30 European organisations (among them three from the New Member States), universities and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

The New Member States participants appreciated the opportunity to meet partners and to get an insight to the projects of HORIZONT3000. This knowledge can be used for development education work and awareness raising for ongoing discussions around the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) in the New Member States. The participants from the NMS also discovered parallels in challenges rural development faces in some of their countries and in the Global South.

Linda Jakobsone from LAPAS (Latvia) underlines the importance of exchange: “The examples provided will be useful in our global education work, cooperation work with partners in other parts of the world and lobby work we do in Latvia and on EU level. The contacts made will be used for future cooperation.” Ruta Pels from Eesti People to People (Estonia) commented: “I found out that many problems in Africa, Latin America and Asia are very similar to those we have in Baltic countries.[…] The study visit to BOKU university gave the opportunity to learn about cooperation between HORIZONT3000 and the university, to meet professors and to interact with students”.

TRIALOG saw this conference as an outstanding opportunity to meet with partners from the South and many European organisations to share knowledge and to make new or deepen existing contacts and regretted the fact that only three representatives took advantage of it. But they did enjoy and appreciate the days of the conference highly!

For further documentation please also see http://www.horizont3000.at/

Information provided by Elisa Romero, TRIALOG