TRIALOG Future Factory: mandate for the next three years

TRIALOG is working for a stronger European system of international development cooperation through supporting the integration and active participation of civil society organisations (CSOs) from new EU member states (NMS) and accession/candidate countries (AC/CC) in European and global development structures and processes. The activities comprise coordination, information, networking, policy, advocacy and capacity building.

On September 8 and 9, 2009, TRIALOG organised with it’s key-stakeholders (NMS development NGO platform directors/coordinators, board representatives, Advisory Group) the “Future Factory” to present the framework of the recently approved next 3-year project phase. Especially the new elements of TRIALOG IV (Sept. 2009 – Sept. 2012) were introduced to the participants and each of the main fields of activity discussed with them related to the needs and wishes of the different target countries.

Within the new elements of TRIALOG IV, there are study visits on development policy, a step-by-step guide to Policy & Advocacy, a development conference in the South on the role of CSOs combined with field visits to development projects, the creation of a Pool of Multipliers and support in organisational development for NGDOs and their national platforms.

One part of the Future Factory was also dedicated to present other current regional or bilateral projects and programmes and see how to link them with TRIALOG in order to reach best synergies. At the same time, these projects could serve as an example for further cooperation projects between national NGDO platforms in order to fill the gaps left by the end of projects like the Presidency Fund and the Regional Partnership Programme and to respond to the “cold climate” for CSOs in times of crisis.

To stay informed about TRIALOG activities, please visit our website at http://www.trialog.or.at/.

Information provided by Christine Bedoya, TRIALOG

EPAN working group meets in Malta

The CONCORD working group on enlargement, pre-accession and neighbourhood issues (EPAN) will meet 1-2 October in Valletta, Malta for one of their twice-yearly meetings. The group, convened by TRIALOG, will split the two days into discussions and planning around work on each of the group’s focus points.

The Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, which EPAN applied to join, will be having its first meeting in Brussels in November so this is the time to prepare for that. Members will continue to discuss a position paper based on the EU’s relationship with Israel and the damaging role this is playing in the faltering Union for the Mediterranean.

The group will plan concrete steps to tie in with work being carried out by the Balkan Civil Society Development Network, for example on the Instrument for Pre-Accession’s Civil Society Facility and agree on ways to promote pre-accession priorities through CONCORD’s planned interaction with the new European Parliament.

The consultant charged by the European Commission with drafting the European Transition Compendium will also visit the group and provide updates on the visits to new member state capitals he has undertaken so far.

Minutes will be available on the CONCORD and TRIALOG websites following the meeting.

EPAN on CONCORD website:
http://www.concordeurope.org/Public/Page.php?ID=66&language=eng
EPAN on TRIALOG website:
http://www.trialog.or.at/start.asp?ID=107

Information provided by Rebecca Steel-Jasińska, TRIALOG

November Expert Seminar on the Future of Civil Society Development Organisations

For quite some time, a debate has gone on in the CONCORD family of organisations about various relevant aspects regarding the future work of non-governmental development organisations (NGDOs) or civil society development organisations (CSOs). Several events have challenged current development approaches and the role of CSOs in development, to name just two of these conferences: "Are we on the right track? Paradigm Review by CSOs as Development Actors" in Prague in May 2008, and "CSO Development Effectiveness - Searching New Ways" in Prague in June 2009.

A further conference on the role of CSOs which is planned for November 2010 in Managua/Nicaragua will focus on practical orientations for the CSO community in South, East and North. To make sure that the Managua Conference will have an optimum impact, a prior Expert Seminar will be organised by the TRIALOG Advisory Group incl. CONCORD and partners in November 2009 in Vienna.

The Expert Seminar is supposed to eleborate the first draft of a document on CSO participation in development which will then be shared with organisations accross the globe for comments and afterwards be taken to the Managua conference for a final discussion and adoption. The aim is to achieve a widely shared code of conduct for CSOs. In order to respond to the different global crises and political developments it’s necessary to sharpen the profile of CSOs and actively engage in the definition of the role as development actors.

The Expert Seminar will take place in Vienna on November 10 and 11, 2009. More information and the registration form will soon become available on the TRIALOG website at http://www.trialog.or.at/

Information provided by Christine Bedoya, TRIALOG

DEEEP is back on track!

Discover “Developing Europeans' Engagement for Eradication of global Poverty”, the third phase of DEEEP!

The Development Education Exchange in Europe Project (DEEEP) has finished its 3 years activities on September 14, 2009 and leaves now the floor to the new project “Developing Europeans’ Engagement for Eradication of global Poverty”, also known as DEEEP 3! Its overall aim is to “empower citizens, politicians, media, businesses, social players to actively assume their responsibility towards global development and the Millenium Development Goals (MDG) agenda”.

DEEEP 3 will be run by a consortium of 5 European NGOs, namely PLAN Finland (lead NGO), UCODEP, ITECO, DEA (the 3 NGOs have been involved in both DEEEP 1 and DEEEP 2) and as a new partner the Hungarian NGDO platform HAND. DEEEP 3 activities will officially start on the 1st of October 2009, and last until September 30, 2012. The project was jointly drafted by all the members of CONCORD Development Education Forum.

To learn more on DEEEP 3 activities, you can contact the new co-ordinator Cinthia Alaerts (c.alaerts@deeep.org), the Advocacy Officer Tobias Troll (t.troll@deeep.org), and the Information Officer Chiara Tripepi (c.tripepi@deeep.org). You can also visit http://www.deeep.org/

More on DEEEP 3 in the upcoming DE Times, and in the next TIS issue.

Information provided by Chiara Tripepi, DEEEP

TRIALOG moved to a new office

Please note that with the beginning of the TRIALOG IV project phase on September 23rd, 2009 TRIALOG's head office in Vienna moved to a new location! Our phone numbers and email addresses remain the same. The new office address is: Wilhelminenstraße 91/II f , 1160 Vienna, Austria.

For more information about the new project phase, please refer to the following article in this TIS: "TRIALOG Future Factory: mandate for next three years" or read the article "TRIALOG IV approved" in the July TIS.

Visit us, as before, in the internet at http://www.trialog.or.at/

Information provided by Anita Bister, TRIALOG

SLOGA roundtable "East meets South" at the European development days

Within the scope of European Development Days (EDD), an EU-wide event gathering more than 4000 development actors and taking place in Stockholm from 22nd to 24th October 2009 (see Events section of TIS), The Slovenian NGDO platform SLOGA organises a roundtable "East meets South".

The round table, that will be held on Friday, October 23, is bringing together policy-makers, civil society representatives and academics from developing countries and the new EU Member States to explore issues and share experiences in the fields of democracy building and economic transition. Selected speakers, Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament, Morgan Tsvangirai, Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Roberto Bissio, coordinator of Social Watch, Jože Mencinger, Vice President of first Slovenian government as well as many others will highlight experiences of recently joined new EU member states and exchange best practices about their transition experiences with Southern counterparts. They will discuss the possibilities of transferring and adapting Eastern European experiences to developing countries' local situation and ways to achieve Millennium Development Goals.

For more information please visit: http://www.eudevdays.eu/agenda/events/east_south_en.htm

Information provided by Eva Pliberšek, SLOGA

New Czech platform coordinator

Jana Krczmarova (Milerova), the Czech platform coordinator, is going for maternity leave after 2 years of succesful work for FoRS, the Czech Forum for Development Cooperation. We would like to thank her for the fruitful cooperation and wish her all the best in her new phase of life!

Following Jana´s leave, Inka Pibilova has been appointed as the new FoRS platform coordinator. Inka is coming with organisational development background. Following her work at Mars, Inc, she capitalised on her knowledge in India, where she worked as an Organisational Development Consultant for educational and community development non-profit organisations. Before joining FoRS, Inka conducted monitoring and evaluation studies in rural India. We welcome her in the team!

Contact Inka at: inka.pibilova@fors.cz, visit the FoRS website: http://www.fors.cz/

Information provided by Inka Pibilova, FoRS

Women's life: Call for data gathering tours to the Caucasus and the Balkans

Karat Coalition, the regional network of women's NGOs from Central Asia and Eastern Europe, carries out the project co-financed by the European Commission „Through their eyes, through ours. Raising public awareness about development problems faced by women from developing countries in the EU Eastern Neighbourhood, Balkans and Central Asia."

In the first part of the project, KARAT had announced a photo competition for women from Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The subject of the photos was the socio-economic situation from their perspective. The collected photos now form the photo exhibition “Through their eyes” which has been presented so far in Poland, Slovakia, Germany and will soon be shown in Belgium.

In the second part of the project, Karat is asking citizens of new EU member states (NMS) to express their opinion about women’s lives in the Balkans and the Caucasus. They can chose between producing different awareness raising tools (like photos, movies on YouTube, articles). In order to help applicants to collect data for their material, Karat announced a call for data gathering tours for women from NMS (except for Cyprus and Malta). Successful applicants will travel to countries in the Balkans and the Caucasus.

There are still a lot of stereotypes existing about these regions and there is a lack of reliable and solid information. The awareness raising material which will be produced as a result of the trips should be innovative, attractive and easy to disseminate in Europe. It will be used to draw attention to these countries which still suffer from the consequences of political and economical transformation and need support from developed countries. The aim of the project is to share the knowledge about the socio-economic situation of women in the Balkans and the Caucasus within EU countries and to explain how important it is for the development of the whole region to respect women’s rights, especially those related to the participation in economy. "We hope that in the long term more development projects with a gender focus will target the countries of Central Asia and Eastern Europe", says Ewa Pintera from Karat Coalition.

Applications for data gathering tours are possible by October 15, 2009. The call is available at: http://www.karat.org/karat,6,13,en.html. For more information please contact: ewa.pintera@karat.org.pl

Information provided by Ewa Pintera, Karat Coalition

New European Parliament

The newly elected European Parliament started its work in the middle of July 2009, with a new President and committee members. But not everyone was happy with the new division of power within the parliament’s structure.

Despite starting its term with a Polish president, the first time someone from a new member state has held such a position, there has been dissatisfaction surrounding the committee members. Just one committee chair is from a new member state, Danuta Huebner, a former commissioner who is also Polish.

The EPP-ED (Group of the European People's Party), in the centre right, did well in the elections while the socialists did not do as well as expected. The greens made progress, but so did the far right, and women are still not equally represented despite efforts to secure gender equality.

The European NGO confederation for relief and development CONCORD is organising a mass lobby of MEPs during its General Assembly in November 2009. Participants in the General Assembly are encouraged to make contact with their MEPs in advance of the event. Please contact TRIALOG policy officer Rebecca Steel-Jasińska (trialog@concordeurope.org) for more information and CONCORD’s template letter.

Links:

The European Parliament website: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/public/default_en.htm
Eastern Europe big loser in Parliament horse-trading: http://www.euractiv.com/en/eu-elections/eastern-europe-big-loser-parliament-horsetrading/article-184312
2009-2014: A centre-right parliament: http://www.euractiv.com/en/eu-elections/2009-2014-centre-right-european-parliament/article-183383

Information provided by Rebecca Steel-Jasińska, TRIALOG

Helpdesk platform: Working with EuropeAid in New EU Member States

The project “Helpdesk platform and support to New EU Member States (NMS) Non State Actors/Local Authorities in the Development sector” started on January 1st 2009 and shall run for two years. It is implemented by punto.sud (Italy) as leading organisation; People in Peril Association (Slovakia), Hungarian Baptist Aid (Hungary), APEL Service (Romania), FoRS - Czech Forum for Development Co-operation (Czech Republic) as implementing partners; Caritas Poland and Support to Life (Turkey) as Associates.

The project's purpose is to improve the access to information, methods and best practices on EC-grants contractual obligations of Non-State Actors and Local Authorities of NMS, and help strengthen and enlarge their international development co-operation capacity. The project leading organisation, punto.sud, developed a website dedicated to the management of EuropeAid-funded projects; and a helpdesk “day-to-day” support to organisations working with EC funds for external assistance is now functional. The helpdesk service consists in the remote support by a team of professionals who answers via e-mail all questions related to the management of EuropeAid-funded projects. This service is free of charge.

punto.sud members will deliver training sessions in NMS (see Events' section in this TIS) to the benefit of EuropeAid current and potential development partners. In correspondence with the trainings, the project staff will provide a hands-on service, which consists in an in-depth analysis and follow-up of a project with the purpose of assessing strengths, weaknesses, and possible improvements of the project logic, but also of the managerial capacity of the implementing organisation.

Finally, the project foresees the e-publication and distribution of a detailed practical guide containing all the main elements of the design, management and completion of a EuropeAid-funded project.

To have further information on project activities or contact the helpdesk please write to helpdesk-europeaid@puntosud.org.
To find information on EuropeAid-funded projects please visit the helpdesk website: www.puntosud.org/helpdesk-europeaid
Download the project's leaflet at: http://www.puntosud.org/helpdesk-europeaid/lib/exe/fetch.php/news/nms_project_leaflet.pdf

Information provided by Sara Baroud, punto.sud

LIDEA conference on development education in schools and youth organisations

On the 24th of September 2009, the Lithuanian development education network LIDEA held a conference about „Development education in schools and youth organisations“. It took place in the Kolping house in Kaunas. Representatives from the ministries of foreign affairs and education, from the education department of Kaunas municipality, youth organisations, directors and teachers of different Lithuanian schools participated in the conference.

"Lithuania - being a member of the EU - is a donor country and has the responsibility to help others. Aiming at Lithuania's support to be more efficient, we need to pay more attention to inform our society members, to give them a better understanding what is education about development cooperation", says Lina Kalibataite, co-founder of LIDEA. "It is very important to help young people to understand the priorities of global development and to raise awareness for cooperation and communication with people from developing countries. After five years being a member of EU, Lithuanian citizens still know very little about what it means to be a donor country."

After some welcome speeches by NGO and governmental representatives, the participants of the conference were introduced to the concept of development cooperation, aims of development education and millenium development goals. They also shared practical development education (DE) experiences in schools and youth organisations and within programmes like GLEN (http://www.glen-europe.org/) or the annual DE summer school, and talked a lot about possibilities of cooperation between schools and youth organisations and NGOs working in DE.

There were interesting discussions about the cooperation between NGOs and schools and between NGOs and ministries linked to the DE field. It was agreed that LIDEA will be sharing information about DE with schools, issue a monthly newsletter about DE and education about development cooperation and provide schools with methodological material for teachers which will help them to integrate the topic into their lessons.

For further information about the conference, please contact Lina Kalibataite at Lina.Kalibataite@kolping.lt

Information provided by Lina Kalibataite, Lithuanian Kolping Society

Development Education as part of formal education: from vision to reality

Development education (DE) has become an important part of development cooperation in new EU member states (NMS). During the last years, DE in formal as well as informal education has been mainly perceived as an area of activity for NGDOs. Now the vision that DE would be an integral part of the formal education system seems to become real in Czech Republic.

The Varianty Educational Programme of the biggest Czech NGDO People in Need started a one-year pilot project "Our Common World". The overall objective of the project is to integrate issues of DE into the formal education system at Czech schools. The project reacts to Czech educational reform which has allowed schools to change their curriculum and opened space for missing issues, such as global poverty, climate change, human rights or the world economic interdependency.

The target group is Czech high school teachers in various regions who would enhance their students’ global citizenship in future. Teachers are trained in interactive educational methods and global issues through so called "blended learning courses". The combination of e-learning and direct contact with teachers (workshops, trainings, meetings) presents a unique and innovative approach of distant learning in Czech reality. Apart from the teachers' trainings, the project implies an intensive cooperation with the Varianty's partner schools’ directorates in order to build up sufficient background to implement new methods and issues and include them in long-term teaching plans.

At the same time, the project assists to promote active global citizenship in practice and helps teachers and students to take an action and participate in various development campaigns, school projects and join social networks to support human rights or humanitarian activities etc.

For more information on the project, please contact Lenka Sobotová at lenka.sobotova@clovekvtisni.cz or visit http://www.varianty.cz/ and http://www.peopleinneed.cz/.

Photo: Petra Skalická

Information provided by Lenka Sobotová, People in Need

Second Romanian Development Camp

The 2nd edition of the Romanian Development Camp took place in the Black Sea Resort Venus in Romania, during 16th -19th of September 2009. The general objective of the yearly event is for national authorities and their partners to develop their capacities to implement the National Strategy for Official Development Assistance – a shared competency of Romania with the European Union. The Romanian Development Camp provides for a platform for national ODA stakeholders to reflect on global development issues, European trends and commitments, to debate on the ODA priorities and challenges at the national, regional and international level and to ensure interaction between national and international counterparts.

This year’s edition had guest participants and speakers from the ODA departments of foreign affairs ministries in the new EU member states (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), donor states with experience in the ODA domain (Sweden and Germany), as well as representatives from the European Commission (DG Dev) and from UNDP country offices and the civil society sector in the Romanian ODA partner countries (Moldova, Georgia, Serbia).

Plenary discussions reflected on topics of innovative and traditional financing mechanisms for development assistance, as well as effects of the financial crisis on the developing world. Workshops centered on the role of media in reporting to the public on ODA matters and consolidating peace and development during transition. The participants engaged in interesting debates on the comparative advantages of New Member States as emerging donors, based on the Romanian and Slovak experiences.

The official site for Romanian assistance for development was launched: http://www.aod.ro/, set up by the MFA and UNDP Romania. Access the site to keep updated with Romanian development initiatives and to read more about the 1st and 2nd edition of the Romanian Development Camp. Organizing the Romanian Development Camp is a component of the programme „Strenghtening the National Institutional and Educational Capacity for Developing Programmes and Development Assistance Projects” financed by the MFA in 2007 and implemented by UNDP Romania during 2008-2009.

Information provided by Denisa Jacobsen, UNDP Romania

Balkan Civil Society Network demands the right to be heard in Brussels

Members of the Balkan Civil Society Development Network (BCSDN) were in Brussels in early September 2009 to meet representatives of the European Commission, members of the European Parliament, CSO networks and government officials. The aim was to use the workshop to discuss current challenges faced by the Western Balkans and Turkey and how civil society might be instrumental in tackling them.

The main focus of the workshop was on the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) Civil Society Facility and partnership principle that underpins civil society involvement in IPA programming, implementation and evaluation.

This is one step in a continuous effort to engage civil society actors from the countries concerned in the pre-accession process. The network will be working with the EPAN working group (see related article "EPAN working group meets in Malta" in this TIS) to follow up on issues raised in this workshop.

A full report of the workshop is available on the BCSDN website: http://www.balkancsd.net/?ItemID=93BCA6CF1DDE4B41A4FAB26DAAFEE565 Find also the BCSDN Policy Paper: “The Successes and Failures of the EU-Pre-Accession Policy in the Balkans: Support to Civil Society" at the following link: http://www.balkancsd.net/WBStorage/Files/BCSDN%20policy%20paper_IPA%20Civil%20Society%20Facility_draft_1009090.pdf

Information provided by Rebecca Steel-Jasińska, TRIALOG