October 18-21, 2009: IVCO conference in Budapest

The International FORUM on Development Service (http://www.forum-ids.org/) and the Hungarian Volunteer Sending Foundation HVSF (http://www.hvsf.hu/) would like to invite you to take part in the IVCO 2009 conference "Volunteers as catalysts for social engagement". This annual meeting of International Volunteer Co-operation Organisations will take place in Budapest, Hungary on October 18-21, 2009.

Topics will include:
- Reviews of researches regarding gender and volunteerism and other issues
- Involving young volunteers in development programmes
- Encouraging local development education
- The road to 2011 - International year of the Volunteer + 10
- Sharing new initiatives
- Involving the 12 new EU members in international volunteering programmes

Find the provisional programme at: http://www.hvsf.hu/userfiles/file/IVCO-2009-programme-10_9_09(1).pdf For more information and the booking form, please go to http://www.hvsf.hu/ivco.html or contact Gabriella Revesz, HVSF coordinator, at hvsf@hvsf.hu
For reports on previous IVCO conferences, please visit: http://www.forum-ids.org/conferences/ivco/

Information provided by Gabriella Revesz, HVSF

October 19-20, 2009: Strengthening the triangle CSOs-National Governments-EC, Zadar

European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) and National Foundation for Civil Society Development (NFCSD) are glad to announce the international conference entitled “Strengthening the triangle CSOs-National Governments-European Commission”. This event will take place in Zadar, Croatia on the 19 and 20 October 2009.

The main themes of the conference will concern the impact of financial crisis and the economic downturn on CSOs, institutional answers to financial and structural challenges and EC programmes in the region focusing on CSO development. Also, you will have the opportunity to get to know about the new EC programme “Capacity building of Civil Society in IPA countries” and to hear about opening of Regional CSO representation office. This event will gather representatives of civil society from the EU and neighbouring countries, donors active in the region as well as high officials from the EU institutions and national governments.

For more information about the event, conference programme, registration and latest updates please, visit the ECAS website at: http://www.ecas-citizens.eu/component/option,com_alphacontent/section,20/cat,909/task,view/id,250/Itemid,113/

Source: BCSDN Weekly e-mail alerts #190 (24.08. - 04.09.2009)

October 22-24, 2009: European Development Days, Sweden

The European Development Days 2009 (EDD), organised by the European Commission, will take place 22-24 October in Stockholm, Sweden, during the Swedish Presidency of the European Union.

The development days will come at an interesting time for Europe – after the European Parliament elections, around the time the new European Commission will be formed and close to the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which started the chain of events that led to the latest rounds of EU enlargement.

Find more information on the website of the European Development Days 2009 at: http://www.eudevdays.eu/index_en.htm.

For information on the roundtable "East meets South" which the Slovenian NGDO platform SLOGA will organise during the EDD on Friday 23, please refer to the related TIS article.

On the same day, the Multi-stakeholder Group on Development Education will hold the event "European citizens as catalysts for change". Find more information in the following document. Download the agenda.

Information provided by European Development Days team, SLOGA and DEEEP

October 29-30, 2009: EU position on Policy Coherence for Development, Warsaw

On 29-30 October, CASE – Center for Social and Economic Research (PL) and Overseas Development Institute (UK) with the participation of the NGDO platforms from the Visegrad countries organise the round table “The position of the EU towards Policy Coherence for Development (PCD)” in Warsaw as a part of the project ‘Fostering Global Responsibility: Building a Development Policy Knowledge Network to Enhance NGO Public Outreach Initiatives in EU New Member States’.

The primary topic of the first day will be Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) in order to strengthen the knowledge of NGOs in this field. Among invited lecturers are Marc Levy, senior advisor of institutional and capacity development in ECDPM, Romain Phillipe, Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) Officer, responsible for the report CONCORD perspective and advocacy work on PCD. Based on the information around PCD and its impact on developing countries, NGOs should outline a regional policy brief that can be further used in their own advocacy work and media engagement.

The topic of the second day will be focusing on lobbying. In five sessions followed by group exercises, participants learn in an interesting way how to use lobbying and advocacy; experiences with PCD advocacy at national level will be shared. Training will be conducted by Huub Sloot from BBO.

The project aims to promote a greater understanding of the development challenges, to facilitate greater public support in New Member States for poverty reduction efforts and to contribute to more strategic and evidence-informed policy dialogue and engagement for international development issues.

To learn more about the project and the round table (registration by 10th October 2009), please consult the following website: http://www.development-network.eu/ This project is co-financed by the International Visegrad Fund.

Information provided by Monika Kusmierczyk, CASE

October 29-31: Black Sea NGO Forum 2009

Time to meet again has come for NGOs in the Black Sea Region, which are invited to attend the second edition of the Black Sea NGO Forum in Bucharest, Romania.

The event was launched in 2008 by the Federation of Romanian Development NGOs (FOND) in co-operation with organisations from the wider Black Sea Region with the support of the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation and the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This year’s edition of the forum is entitled ‘NGOs in Times of Crisis’ and will be held on October 29 – 31, 2009.

The Forum aims at increasing the level of dialogue and coordination among NGOs, as well as strengthening the advocacy capacity for NGOs in order to influence development strategies in the region. It gathers NGOs from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, other EU member states and important actors in the wider Black Sea Region.

The first edition of the Forum acknowledged that within this region, which is extremely complex from a political point of view, cooperation among NGOs from the civil society represents a real potential for stability and prosperity in the wider Black Sea area.

NGOs from the Black Sea region are invited to propose themes for the discussions of this year’s Forum. More information on the Forum, a draft agenda, updated list of workshop topics and the last year’s report are available on the website http://www.blackseango.org/.

Download the latest issue of the Black Sea NGO Newsletter (e.g. with information on funding opportunities in the region) from: http://www.blackseango.org/pagini/black-sea-ngo-newsletter.php

Information provided by Iuliana Rada, FOND

Oct-Nov. 2009: Training for NMS on EuropeAid funding and management modalities

In the ambit of the project “Helpdesk platform and support to New Member States (NMS) Non State Actors/Local Authorities in the Development sector” implemented by punto.sud (Italy) with key partners and associates from the New EU Member States and Accession countries (see related article in this TIS), training sessions on EuropeAid funding modalities and project management methods will be carried out in some major Eastern Europe capitals. Trainings aim at enhancing the existing capacity of Non-State Actors and Local Authorities involved of New EU Member States in EC development cooperation.

Trainings address key staff of development actors (i.e. NGOs, civil society organisations, youth organisations, academic institutions, and the like) and local authorities involved in the planning and management of EC-funded development programmes. The number of participants is limited to 25 per training. Applicants must fill in an application form and a questionnaire on EuropeAid’s funding requirements and return them completed to training-europeaid@puntosud.org. Participation to the training is free of charge. Travel and accommodation are at the expense of participants. The training calendar and application package are published on the helpdesk website.

During the application process, candidates have the possibility to request ad hoc support on specific issues pertaining to their organisation’s EuropeAid-funded projects (to be submitted, implemented or concluded by the organisations). This hands-on support is tailored to the particularities of each organisation and is free of charge. Interested organisations must provide for minimum information regarding the project(s) to be screened together with the application form.

In the last quarter of 2009 training sessions will be delivered in the following NMS:

Bucharest, Romania: October 21-22, 2009
Budapest, Hungary: November 19-20, 2009
Bratislava, Slovakia: November 23-24, 2009

The calendar for 2010 will be published soon on the helpdesk website.

For further information please write to helpdesk-europeaid@puntosud.org or visit the training section of the helpdesk website http://www.puntosud.org/helpdesk-europeaid/doku.php/training/start

Information provided by Sara Baroud, punto.sud

September 8-9, 2009: TRIALOG Future Factory

The EC co-financing for TRIALOG IV (Sept. 09 – Sept. 12) has been recently approved (see related article in this TIS). Therefore, we would like to invite our key-stakeholders (new EU member states platform directors/coordinators, board representatives, Advisory Group) to participate in the TRIALOG “future factory” which will take place on September 8-9, 2009 in Vienna.

In the beginning of the event, we will present the project frame, which is the outcome of a one-year planning process with the TRIALOG Advisory Group and was now selected by the EC for further funding. As a next step, we would like to vitalize this framework and invite our stakeholders to bring in their input, wishes, comments, ideas and visions. This is also the opportunity to find out about other regional or bilateral projects and programmes and how to link them with TRIALOG in order to reach best synergies. We are inviting all platform coordinators/directors and one board representative of each new member state platform, as well as the TRIALOG Advisory Group to this collective workshop.

The draft agenda, further details and preparation documents will be sent to NMS platforms and the Advisory Group during summer. We will report about the outcomes of the Future Factory in the next TIS.

Foto: TRIALOG Central Training 2009

Information provided by Christine Bedoya, TRIALOG

TRIALOG IV approved

TRIALOG is almost at the end of it’s third project phase and we are happy to inform you that the European Commission recently approved the co-funding of the next phase within the Coordination and Networking budget of the Non-State Actors and Local Authorities (NSA-LA) programme. TRIALOG IV will start on September 23, 2009, with a project duration of 3 years.

The approval process was different from how it used to be before - for the first time, TRIALOG was pushed to compete with others and to apply within the call for proposals procedure. Since the first financing for TRIALOG in 1998, TRIALOG has always received direct granting as a so-called "targeted project" due to its de-facto monopoly (like CONCORD, DEEEP and the presidency projects). This time, the EC decided that we can’t prove this de-facto monopoly any more as now not only NGOs, but also other NSA are eligible in the NSA/LA programme.

This reasoning is questioned by TRIALOG and our partners. Especially our stakeholders from the 12 new EU member states initiated an intensive lobby action in support of TRIALOG towards their national representatives in the DCI (Development Cooperation Instrument) member state committee. The DCI committee in its meeting rejected to approve the Annual Action Plan (AAP) from the EC on the NSA/LA programme and 11 Member States sent a joint statement to the EC asking for further direct financing for TRIALOG (and DEEEP) as there is still an urgent need for TRIALOG's engagement.

In a letter to the Commissioners Louis Michel and Benita Ferrero-Waldner and the Directors-General Stefano Manservisi and Koos Richelle, Josep Borrell, Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Development expressed his concern about the EC’s intention to stop the direct granting to TRIALOG (and DEEEP). He mentioned that “TRIALOG and DEEEP projects have received universal praise for their quality and usefulness. They are also unique projects, in the sense that they are highly specialised and targeted, and … have built up a unique expertise”.

Despite this overall support, the EC insisted on not including us as a "targeted project" in part II of the AAP, and we had to go through the call for proposals procedure. This was the reason for the European Parliament not to approve part II of the AAP and to adopt a resolution that requests from the EC to clarify the criteria for a “de-facto monopoly” which in their opinion still exists for TRIALOG and DEEEP. It’s now up to the EC to draft a new part II of the AAP and present it for approval again.

For TRIALOG the process turned out to be a success story because we experienced such a huge amount of support from our partners and their national governments in the new EU member states but also from several old member states, the European Parliament and CONCORD. We would like to thank all of you for your support and see it as a mandate to continue our TRIALOG work with full energy.

Information provided by Christine Bedoya, TRIALOG

Information on open reimbursements and summer break

We would like to inform you that the TRIALOG office in Vienna is closed from August 13 - 31, 2009 and the Brussels office from August 6 - 25, 2009.

Please note that in July and August, travel expense claims will only be reimbursed every second week till August 7, 2009 and then again from September onwards weekly. Please be aware to post us all reimbursements for the current project phase of TRIALOG III until August 31, 2009 (exceptions are events in September 2009). As the project ends in September we can not process any claims afterwards. Thank you for your understanding.

Information provided by Brigitte Quehenberger, TRIALOG

The world stretches beyond Europe: Swedish challenges during the EU presidency 2009

Sweden took over the EU presidency from the Czech Republic on 1 July 2009.

The Swedish platform of CONCORD, CONCORD Sweden, will focus on four priority areas during the presidency period. Policy coherence for development (PCD) is the overarching issue and aid effectiveness, climate & development and democracy & human rights will be spotlighted during the presidency. The CONCORD process of the Spotlight on Coherence Report will be a vital contribution to our input on the PCD agenda and the seminar linked to the European Development days in October. There will also be a parliamentary hearing in Sweden on the report and other activities to follow.

Aid effectiveness will be highlighted during the political week in Sweden in June/July when the presidency project is also launched and the board of CONCORD Europe is represented in the panel on a seminar on European aid in a time of crises. The Aid Watch report and the content of it will be in focus for several seminars during the presidency period, one example is during the International Book Fair in September when CONCORD Sweden will organize several events.

Climate and development will be on top of the agenda during the presidency and the UNFCCC meeting (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) in Copenhagen will be one of the most important high level meetings during the period. CONCORD Sweden will organize events on climate change during the European Development Days, and the Human Rights Days in November for example.

The Democracy and Human rights aspect of development aid and democracy building in development is on the official agenda and will be highlighted during the European Development Days in October and at the Human Rights Days in November.

Read about the launch of the Swedish presidency project at: http://www.concord.se/page.asp?id=100&lang=EN
Download the Presidency Manifesto from: http://www.concord.se/page.asp?id=297&lang=EN
View the event calendar at: http://www.concord.se/page.asp?id=27&lang=EN
For further information, please visit: http://www.concord.se/
Find the governmental presidency website at: http://www.se2009.eu/

Information provided by Malin Parmander, CONCORD Sverige/Sweden

European Transition Compendium

Work is continuing on the European Transition Compendium, an initiative from DG Development of the European Commission to use the transition experiences of new member states (NMS) to feed into European development policy. A technical seminar in the middle of June united member states representatives, the European Commission and the consultant who will be drafting the compendium.

After a preparatory meeting of NMS platforms at the CONCORD General Assembly TRIALOG policy officer Rebecca Steel took the issues that had been raised to the meeting with the EC and member states. The member states are generally supporting the idea, although it is clear that certain issues remain to be resolved. The questions Rebecca brought up focused on why civil society had not been involved to a great extent so far; why the geographical focus is so broad when transition lessons presumably apply to situations in pre-accession countries rather than developing countries generally and most NMS have clear added value in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans; and how it would be ensured that NMS’ other areas of contribution to development policy would be tied in and not overshadowed by this transition experience focus.

The consultant, Adolfo Sanchez, will be visiting the NMS capitals over the next few weeks and months. NMS platforms are encouraged to contact their Ministries in order to actively participate in this process and ensure civil society voices are heard.

For more information, please contact Rebecca: trialog@concordeurope.org

Information provided by Rebecca Steel, TRIALOG

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

June news from Slovenian development cooperation

In June, Slovenian development cooperation made a step forward; a yearly report on Official Development Assistance was adopted, the last national Call for NGO development projects proposals was evaluated together with the NGOs, and last but not least, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is preparing a new foreign policy strategy in consultation with the NGOs.

Following the 2009 call for proposals for Slovenian NGOs working in Western Balkan Countries, Eastern Europe and Subsaharan countries in March this year, the Slovenian Foreign Ministry organised an evaluation meeting to discuss lessons-learned of this call, as well as to define further steps. In the near future the MFA is planning to upgrade the current mechanism of public calls in terms of establishing special development programmes with the governments of Macedonia and Montenegro (being the geographic priorities of Slovenian development cooperation in the Western Balkan area). Another step forward will be the introduction of a multi-year calls for proposals system. According to the representative of the MFA, the next call will be published already during this summer. The Slovenian NGDO platform SLOGA and its NGO members will be part of the procedure when drafting the conditions of the call.

The Slovenian Government adopted the Report on Slovenian development cooperation and humanitarian aid in 2008. According to the report, Slovenian ODA in 2008 was set at 46,87 million EUR (0,13% of GNI). The majority of bilateral ODA was spent in the priority areas of Western Balkans and Eastern Europe (almost 80% of total bilateral ODA). Least developed countries of Sudsaharan Africa received only 3% of Slovenian ODA in 2008 and the percentage is even lower in comparison to the previous years. SLOGA, in cooperation with the ODA Working Group, is preparing a call to all ministries to raise their ODA as a follow up to the report.

The Slovenian Foreign Ministry started the procedure of drafting a new Strategy of Slovenian Foreign Policy for the period of 2010-2015. A special group of experts, nominated by the Slovenian foreign minister will be responsible for drafting main challenges, objectives and goals of the Slovenian foreign policy in the future. As stated, one of the main priorities is international development cooperation and humanitarian aid. SLOGA is currently working on an input to the strategy, which will be submitted to the MFA.

Information provided by Eva Pliberšek, SLOGA, http://www.sloga-platform.org

Bratislava round table: Floods on the road to Copenhagen

What a paradox! A round table in Bratislava (on June 25-26, 2009) which focused on climate changes and its impacts on developing countries started with unexpected problems with floods. The participants who traveled from Poland and Czech Republic by train were stuck in flooded areas of Central Europe. Fortunately finally they reached Bratislava with some delays.

The round table in Bratislava, organised by the Slovak NGDO Platform MVRO, was part of a project led by Polish CASE (Centre for Social and Economic Research) and British ODI (Overseas Development Institute) with the participation of the NGDO platforms from the Visegrad group (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia).

The primary topics of the Bratislava round table were climate change and its impacts on developing countries. The inputs were presented by different experts: Milan Lapin from Slovak Comenius University, Jan Szczycinski from UNDP and Jiri Jerabek from Czech Centre for Transport and Energy. The provided information and arguments around climate changes and its impacts enabled participants from NGOs to develop further ideas how to strengthen their advocacy work before and after the UN conference on climate change which will take place in Copenhagen in December 2009. The second part of the round table was led by Nick Scott from ODI and focused on using online communication tools (emails, websites, blogs, etc.) in order to improve the capacities of NGOs in the area of public campaigning.

The Bratislava round table was the fourth one in a series of round tables (in Warsaw, Prague and Budapest) in the scope of the project ‘Fostering Global Responsibility: Building a Development Policy Knowledge Network to Enhance NGO Public Outreach Initiatives in EU New Member States’. The main objective of the project is to promote a greater understanding of development challenges, to facilitate greater public support in New Member States for poverty reduction efforts and to contribute to a more strategic and evidence-informed policy dialogue and engagement for international development issues.

More information and presentations can be found at: http://www.development-network.eu/

Foto: Discussion with Milan Lapin from Comenius University

Information provided by Daniela Balážová, MVRO