Hungarian NGOs lobby for SDGs in the national development strategy

Along the adoption of Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development Goals, HAND Association targets – through a mini-project financed by the Beyond 2015 campaign – the implementation process in Hungary to ensure that these goals are built in the national framework. Our aim appears essential as there seems to be no clear plan for dealing with the issue on government level.

While during the summer we aimed at the public by raising awareness on international development issues at festivals that attracted hundreds of people, in September we try to draw the attention of both government and parliamentary decision makers to the need of adopting the SDGs into the national strategy and implementation plans and to communicate the recommendations of Hungarian NGOs how to best do it. Therefore, a proposal package about the most important steps for national implementation has been elaborated. It also formulates suggestions for the revision of the national sustainable development strategy. The proposals will be discussed not only among our member organisations, but at a wider scale of NGOs before having it published and presented for decision makers.

In the past months we have managed to reach a higher appearance in several media, as well we used social media extensively (Facebook and Twitter). We intent to put more emphasis on our media activities in regard to build political leadership. Hopefully after the UN General Assembly there will be much more supporters of the implementation process both on the side of decision-makers and in society.

Information provided by Timea Gedeon, HAND

News from FoRS-Czech Forum for Development Cooperation

FoRS present at and preparing for the Addis Ababa, New York and Paris summits
As a preparation for the Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa, FoRS-Czech Forum for Development Cooperation together with its member organisation Glopolis, launched a media brief at a breakfast for journalists on July 8th, presenting the main issues and putting them in the national context. The brief criticises the lack of the participation of a Czech government´s representative (especially the absence of a representative of Ministry of Finance in the delegation) in Addis Ababa, as well as the insufficient amount of Czech ODA (0,11 % GDP, i. e. one third of its commitments). FoRS was represented in the official national delegation to Addis by its Executive Board President from Glopolis, who contributed to the final Czech position, which recognised importance of domestic resource mobilisation for sustainable development and encouraged the international community to elaborate more on the international tax reforms at the global level. FoRS also supported the participation of a journalist writing for a national renowned weekly magazine contributing thus to raise awareness of the Czech public on global development issues. FoRS is now preparing for the UN summit in New York. Here, the platform will be represented in the official national delegation led by the vice-prime minister and will send another participant in side-events. FoRS will also provide an input for the Czech vision on SDGs to the Czech government, especially on the topics related to the development cooperation. In addition, since last year, FoRS has been engaged in a dialogue of development, environmental, social, educational, NGOs working with migrants and other Czech NGOs about a joint vision and requirements for the Czech Republic implementation of the Agenda 2030. As to the December climate summit in Paris, FoRS cooperates with the association of environmental NGOs, Green Circle.

FoRS discussed the refugee crisis 
Current critical refugee crisis and its insufficient and inadequate attention at the national level woken up a huge interest from FoRS members to discuss the situation and to search for ways of joint action. This debate took place on August 26th and the participants –members of FoRS-Czech Forum for Development Cooperation as well as NGOs specialised on migration in the Czech Republic- shared their experiences, opinions and good practices. They identified several concrete topics of concern and of interest in cooperating, e. g. to work on proposals for more system solutions addressed to national policy and decision-makers, to improve ways of communication with haters and the media, to exchange experiences with the discussion about migration in schools, to include foreigners living in the Czech Republic in policy and decision-making processes and to make proposals on how to address migration in the framework of development cooperation.

Photo by Michaela Lenc, FoRS: debate on refugee crisis

Information provided by Marie Zázvorková, FoRS Liaison Officer

Latvian Development Platform LAPAS looks back at the country’s EU Presidency

The first half of year 2015 marked the time of the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the EU. It gave opportunities to Latvian Platform for Development Cooperation (LAPAS) to cooperate actively with other European platforms and civil society organisations working in the field of global development, to accumulate knowledge and experience, talk to wider audiences about the challenges and opportunities of development and to advocate for aid quality and effectiveness in the Parliament and ministries in Latvia.

Priorities of LAPAS within the Presidency project were divided into four parts: developing and applying the approach of glocalization to sustainable development; choosing responsible food consumption as a topic to improve the understanding of interconnectedness of global and local dimensions; promoting the non-financial means of implementation for post-2015 agenda and highlighting the important role that the new donors can play in global sustainable development.

The full text of the Manifesto of LAPAS is available here.
In a report, all materials that have been produced within the EU presidency project by LAPAS are made available. Download the report here.


Information provided by LAPAS

DEEEP Grand Finale event – Learn and celebrate

How best can we employ development education and awareness raising as a tool to address systemic transformation challenges? The last big conference under the DEEEP project will be the perfect opportunity to take stock of “The Best of Global Learning” from 28-29 October in Brussels.

Based on the ‘Art of Hosting’ methods and highly participatory appreciative enquiry, the Grand Finale event, organised jointly with EUCIS-LLL, will harvest 12 years of DEAR experiences from all around Europe. It will allow participants to positively inquire their experiences and learn from each other’s as they have probably never done it before.

At the end of this learning journey, you will be invited in the evening to celebrate collectively the biggest achievements of the DEEEP projects and let these key moments revival in a convivial and festive atmosphere. Join the event to learn and celebrate!

Full programme available here.

Registration is open until October 14th.

Information provided by DEEEP

CONCORD Spotlight Report 2015: #ForfairEurope

This year’s Spotlight Report „Investing for Development?“ takes a close look at the impacts of the EU’s investment regime on food security, the right to food and land governance in developing countries. The peport reveals that the dominance of the corporate private sector-led approach in both the European Union’s (EU) investment regime and development cooperation framework adversely impacts the food security and the livelihoods of small-scale food producers, women in particular, in developing countries.

Download the report here.






Source: CONCORD

Global Synthesis Report 2015: The State of Development Cooperation, CSO Enabling Environment and CSO Development Effectiveness

Published by the CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness (CPDE), this report is a global synthesis drawing on contributions from 23 selected country CSOs (incl. 4 European ones: Albania, Czech Republic, Germany and Spain) on the current state of development cooperation, CSO enabling environment, and CSO development effectiveness at a country level. The outcomes will feed into the work of the CPDE platform, as well as on the work of its member CSOs around the world, galvanising future policy engagement initiatives at global and country level.

Download the report here.


Source: CSO Partnership

Development Co-operation Report 2015. Making Partnerships Effective Coalitions for Action

The OECD Development Co-operation Report 2015 explores the potential of networks and partnerships to create incentives for responsible action, as well as innovative, fit-for-purpose ways of co-ordinating the activities of diverse stakeholders. The report – Making Partnerships Effective Coalitions for Action – looks at a number of existing partnerships working in diverse sectors, countries and regions to draw lessons and provide practical guidance, proposing ten success factors for post-2015 partnerships. A number of leading policy makers and politicians share their insights and views.

Download the report here.











Source: OECD

TRIALOG at the European Development Days in Brussels

This year’s European Development Days (EDDs) took place in Brussels on 3-4 June and focused on the themes of the European Year for Development. Thousands of participants engaged in discussions around the following topics during the panel and working group events:
• Our world – Creating sustainable growth within the limits of our planet. 
• Our dignity – Developing a shared vision of universal and fundamental rights.
• Our future – Each of our policies can make a difference & we are all actors in development.

Civils Society representatives from around the world were engaged as active speakers and contributors in many of the events. CONCORD together with the European Year for Development Civil Society Alliance and Action 2015 had a Lounge space at the event where numerous discussions and interactive activities took place. For example, the Latvian development CSO platform LAPAS introduced their research on the role of new donors in development and the glocalization board game there. TRIALOG organized an interactive quiz “How well do you know Central and Eastern European development CSOs?” and shared the experiences form TRIALOG Systematization process.

In case you are curious how well you know civil society organisation from the EU13 countries, take this fun quiz with 10 questions!

In case you missed this year’s EDDs, take the opportunity to watch some of the videos from the discussions or listen to the podcasts.


In the photo: Participants during the TRIALOG session with Rebecca Steel-Jasinska and Mirjam Sutrop at the EDDs.

Information provided by Mirjam Sutrop, TRIALOG

Organisation of the Month: Documenta from Croatia

Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past was founded in 2006 by Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights Osijek, Centre for Peace Studies, Civic Committee for Human Rights and Croatian Helsinki Committee with an attempt to encourage the process of dealing with the past and establishing factual truth about the war and to contribute to shifting of the discussion from the level of dispute over facts towards a dialogue on interpretations. The key reason for making this attempt was the silence and falsification of war crimes and other war-related events in the period from 1941 to 2000, which has influenced the recent past of Yugoslavia, as well as post-Yugoslav societies.

Since its establishment, Documenta contributes to the development process of dealing with the past on individual, social and institutional level, with a mission to build sustainable peace in Croatia and the region. This tasks is being conducted by deepening the dialogue and initiating a public debate on public policies that encourage dealing with the past, collecting data, publishing research on war events, war crimes and violations of human rights, and monitoring war crimes trials at the local and regional level as a contribution to the improvement of court standards and practices in the war crimes trials.

In order to achieve its goals, Documenta cooperates with its founding organizations, associations of families of the missing people, other civic initiatives, governmental institutions, international institutions and organizations, institutions of state and local government, academic institutions, religious groups, the media and other interested individuals. Structure of Documenta’s programs consists of three units: Public dialogue and public policies, Documenting, Improvement of court practices and standards.

In April 2015, Documenta published data they gathered as part of the research "Human loses in Croatia 1991 - 1995" (Ljudski gubici u RH 1991 - 1995. godine). They started this research in 2009, focusing on Western Slavonia region in Croatia, they interviewed 6150 people, gathered 25 000 documents and made a digital database. The data they presented had a great public response, and they will continue with this research which is important for the process of reconciliation in Croatia.

For more information please visit the website www.documenta.hr

In the photo: Vesna Teršelič and Slaven Rašković during their presentation of the research, taken at Human Rights House in Zagreb.

Information provided by CROSOL

Eventful Spring of European Year for Development in Slovakia

During the months of April and May, messages of the European Year for Development (EYD 2015) – “Our world, our dignity, our future” – have been spread by the Slovak NGDO Platform and its member organisations also throughout Slovak regions.

Among huge variety of topics, the issues of poverty and decent life were discussed with the Slovak public during an urban event called “Good Market”, which took place on one of the historic squares in Bratislava. In cooperation with the EC Representation in Slovakia, the Platform organised a public discussion CAFÉ EUROPA hosted by the ambassador of the EYD, an internationally acknowledged writer Michal Hvorecký. The Millenium development Goals were thoroughly discussed by the representatives of academia, government and NGOs. Bratislava also celebrated the annual Day of Europe, where the goodwill ambassadors of the EYD and 9 member organisations of the Platform presented their activities. The audience had an opportunity to see the television spots and also to participate in the debates with EYD ambassadors, together with two journalists who visited Kenya with the aim to report on the coherence betw
een non-development policies and development goals.

At the end of April, the Minister of the Foreign and European Affairs Miroslav Lajčák officially met the goodwill ambassadors Adela Banášová (TV show host, ambassador for the campaign ŽI FÉR), Marián Čaučík (director of the Good News Campaign of eRko, ambassador for SlovakAid) and Michal Hvorecký (writer, ambassador for EuropeAid). One of the most visible outcomes of the meeting was a joint statement of the ambassadors, namely Marián Čaučík, who presented the plea to increase funding for bilateral development cooperation in order to come closer to the Slovak commitment of reaching 0,33% ODA/GNI by 2015. The EYD 2015 was present also in Banská Bystrica and Košice during the Africa Day celebrations organised by Partners for Democratic Change Slovakia, in cooperation with other NGO partners.

More information on the activities of the EYD in Slovakia can be found at www.err2015.zifer.sk.


In the picture: TV spot of Adela Banášová and its young spectators during the Day of Europe in Bratislava. Photo: Slovak NGDO Platform, May 2015 

Information provided by Andrea Girmanova, Slovak NGDO Platform

Seminar on “Global Education and the European Year of Development 2015” in Slovenia

On 2 May, the Slovenian Development NGO Platform SLOGA held a seminar titled “Global Education and the European Year of Development 2015”. Participants were discussing about the meaning of global education and its essence in their personal context. This was followed by an exchange of good and bad practices and evaluation of the performed activities.
The second part of the first seminar was dedicated to activities in the field of global education in the context of European Year for Development 2015, finding synergies and preferably greater participation and cooperation of NGOs in the field and a group evaluation and reflection of the seminar.

For more information, please contact Adriana Aralica at SLOGA.


Information provided by Adriana Aralica, SLOGA

SLOGA and CROSOL started a joint project as a part of EYD

In June 2015, the CSO platforms of Croatia - CROSOL, and Slovenia - SLOGA started activities as part of the ARSICRO project, financed by CONCORD, to mark the EYD - European Year for Development 2015.

In the Croatian city of Rijeka a whole day showkitchen event took place on 17th of June including an art show and a cook book promotion. Asylum seekers together with volunteers were cooking the meals from their home countries – Nigeria, Algeria and Senegal. In the evening, citizens of Rijeka could try their meals and hear their life stories.

The second showkitchen event happened in Zagreb on 20th of June. The chefs this time were from Ethiopia, Iran, Senegal, Algeria, USA and BIH, some of them were just visiting Croatia, some of them are living here with their family, and some are asylum seekers. In the evening meals were presented in the center of Zagreb together with the cookbook. The citizens could taste hummus, falafel, baba ganush, two types of rice, Ethiopian shirou and fir fir and Croatian traditional cake.

 In the photo: showkitchen group in Rijeka. 

 Information provided by Ela Narandja, CROSOL

News from the Maltese Development NGO platform SKOP

Social Justice in the Streets of Valletta 
The Development Education and Awareness Raising Working Group (DEAR WG) within SKOP worked in an awareness raising campaign that produced a series of informational banners that helped promoting messages of social justice within the general public. 2015 is a crucial year for global social justice as it is the target year where the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) should be met. The international community is gearing itself for this process to culminate in an evaluation of the results achieved and adopting a new strategy for the next 10 years: the SDGs Sustainable Development Goals. Moreover as 2015 is the European Year for Development, this campaign provides the unique opportunity for a broad public discussion to take place about meaningful civic engagement on human rights, environmental sustainability and social cohesion.
The banners were set up along Republic Street, a strategic point and one of the busiest streets of Valletta for a whole week in May. The messages on the banners addressed three main target groups: youth, professionals and families while tacking important topics such us, water, gender, health, youths, fair trade, climate change, migration and food security. The project has been funded with support from the VO Fund managed by the Malta Council for the Voluntary Sector (MCVS). 

Training Programme for Educators on Development 
With its seminar programme, the Maltese Development NGO platform SKOP, aimed at raising awareness among a group of educators and train them to become multipliers on development education in non-formal settings. The programme was delivered in 15 sessions of two hours each, including face to face training and personal jour
nal writing. Through this exercise the participants had the opportunity to reflect on their own awareness about global issues. The format of the seminar included lecturing, whole group discussion, small group workshops and journal writing. The training seminar tackled significant issues such us: Sustainable Development, Consumption, Development and Migration, Climate change, Ethical approaches to development and Children's’ Rights in the Broader Context of Human Rights.
This seminar enhanced the skills of a group of educators to be able to work on a global education campaign with children in a non-formal setting, thus stimulating a more active participation of the Maltese society in global social justice. Moreover it also contributed in creating synergies and reinforces links among different groups in society that will be working together for systematic change and global justice.

In the picture: Street banners of the awareness raising campaign, photo: SKOP.

Information provide by Paola Prinzis Liaison Officer at SKOP.

News from the Slovenian Development NGO Platform SLOGA

Many events took place around the topics of cultural diversity, volunteerism and a new development agenda post-2015 over the past two months in Slovenia. The “Week of Africa” offered many occasions for intercultural dialogue, SLOGA promoted its work and visions at the “Happy Day of Volunteerism” in Ljubljana and organised a panel on »Post-2015 Development Agenda as a New Reality – Opportunities for Small States« before the official start of European Development Days in Brussels.

Week of Africa 
SLOGA organized in cooperation with various Slovenian NGOs and other institutions the Week of Africa, commemorating the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development and the Africa Day. Various activities have taken place between 20 and 31 May. The Week of Africa started with a show called Diaspora*, that took place in the cultural center in Velenje. This show has taken the audience into the world of multiculturalism, in which we are witnessing both the beauties of diversity as well as intolerance and discrimination.
A panel titled “To live intercultural, a challenge or a problem?” was organized on 21 May, the day of intercultural dialogue, at Ljubljana Exhibition and Convention Centre. The panel was composed of Eyachew Tefera, president of the SLOGA Board, and Faila Pašić Bišić, ambassador of intercultural dialogue. Workshops on intercultural dialogue and the role and importance of human rights were conducted by the volunteers of the United Nations Association of Slovenia at the primary schools in Videm and Ptuj.
An intercultural evening was held by Slovene Philanthropy, spiced up by the a-capella gospel choir Bee Geesus, ambassador of the project of Humanitarian association ADRA Slovenia. The role of youth in intercultural environments was also tackled during the Week of Africa. So called ‘young global neighbors’ - young people originating from other countries but currently living in Slovenia – have presented their experiences in meeting with a new culture and their perception of multiculturalism.
Another colorful event contributed to the overall image of Week of Africa. A football tournament for peace and unity was organized on 24 May in Ljubljana. Aims of this traditional event are to strengthen the body and mind to overcome diversity, and the promotion of integration and social inclusion of vulnerable groups in society. The Week of Africa ended with international ‘global picnic’, which was escorted by a rich program and various workshops that were intended for individuals, families and particularly children.
The Week of Africa was coordinated by SLOGA platform in cooperation with Slovenian national commission for UNESCO and with financial contribution of European Commission.

Round table on partnerships and implementation of new development agenda 
SLOGA platform, in cooperation with the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in Brussels, organized a panel titled »Post-2015 Development Agenda as a New Reality – Opportunities for Small States« before the official start of European Development days. Panel was composed of H. E. Mr. Matjaž Šinkovec, Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia to Kingdom of Belgium, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Cabo Verde, the African Union and Ambassador Designate to Ethiopia; assistant professor Dr. Draško Veselinovič, President of the Board of Slovenian Business and Research Association; and Mr. Eyacehew Tefera, President of SLOGA Board. Panel was moderated by Dr. Sabina Lange, lecturer at the European Institute of Public Administration – EIPA. Panelists talked about challenges and opportunities arising from new development agenda, priorities of Slovenia in the field of development cooperation and negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals, the opportunities for the private sector in the new development agenda and also the role of civil society in both implementation of the agenda as well as design of country’s priorities.

Happy Day of Volunteerism 
The Happy Day of Volunteerism took place in the centre of Ljubljana at Prešeren square on 9 June. Overarching slogan of the National Week of Volunteerism, organized by Slovene Philanthropy within which the Happy Day of Volunteerism took place, was “All generations, all colors, all knowledge. With love.” SLOGA took part in this event and promoted its work and vision, the work of its member organizations, and also launched the campaigns within two of its projects, Challenging the Crisis and You Too are a Global Neighbour.

Meeting with NGOs on the topic of human rights in Slovenian foreign policy 
On 4 June, SLOGA attended a meeting organized by the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with NGOs on the topic of human rights in Slovenian foreign policy. The aim of the meeting was to include NGOs in the process of preparation for the 29th session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations.


In the photo: SLOGA stand at the Happy Day of Volunteerism.

Information provided by Adriana Aralica, SLOGA