Reserve the November Date: Conference Right to Development/Role of CSOs in Nicaragua

For some time, a central debate within the CONCORD family and their partners worldwide has focused on various aspects affecting the future work of civil society development organisations (CSOs). Several events have challenged current development approaches and the role of CSOs in development in times of crisis and changed paradigms (see for example the Prague Conference 2008). Furthermore, CONCORD is currently in a consultation process between the European Union institutions and member states and civil society to define the future role of CSOs in shaping, monitoring and implementing European development policies (the so-called “Structured Dialogue”).

At the same time – as a consequence of the Paris Declaration agreed by donors - the Open Forum for CSO development effectiveness is searching for a vision on development effectiveness through national and international policy dialogue, taking account of the centrality of the concepts of human rights, gender equality, environmental sustainability, and the capacity of development actors to lead the changes they seek, as the foundation for situating CSO effectiveness, as well as the effectiveness of donors and governments. The objectives are to reach an agreement on common principles regarding CSO development effectiveness and an agreement on guidelines on how to apply these principles and documentation of good practices for context-relevant mechanisms appropriate to each country and region.

TRIALOG in continuation of it’s conference on paradigm shift in development cooperation and in coordination with the above mentioned processes is organising a conference on “Right to Development /Role of CSOs” in Nicaragua from 24th to 26th of November, 2010. In the frame of this conference we invite CSO representatives from the 12 new EU member states, from the 15 old EU member states and from the “Global South” (especially from Latin America) to continue the discussions started and to find joint statements on the identity and role of CSOs in development cooperation in the “North” and in the “South”. The invitation and background information is available at: http://www.trialog.or.at/images/doku/invitationmanagua.pdf

From Nov. 29th to Dec. 3rd, TRIALOG is organising field visits to development projects in Nicaragua for participants from the 12 NMS. The visits will include meetings with local stakeholders, CSOs, the local target group and beneficiaries, as well as official representatives of the EC-delegations and regional offices of the European national representations.

CSO representatives from the 12 NMS who would like to participate in the conference and the field visits please contact: office@trialog.or.at. Travel support for some NMS participants will be available.

Information provided by Christine Bedoya, TRIALOG

June 7-8, 2010: TRIALOG Central Training, Krakow

The ashes of the Icelandic Volcano crossed TRIALOG's plans to hold this year’s Central Training for New Member States' NGDO platforms in April in Poland. A number of participants and resource persons were not able to travel due to the Europe-wide closure of airports.

The good news: the training is postponed and will be held on 7th and 8th of June 2010 in Krakow, Poland. The training which is co-organised with the Polish NGDO Platfrom Grupa Zagranica deals with “The Lisbon Treaty and Its Implications For Civil Society”. Apart from a general introduction into the Lisbon Treaty participants will have a detailed look into the opportunities and challenges of this new European constitution for development NGOs and discuss mechanisms for dialogue between EU institutions and civil society organisations, look into how civil society organisations can benefit from an increased role of the European Parliament and National Parliaments and explore Lobby Strategies towards the policy making bodies.

For more information please contact your national platforms or our Capacity Building Officer Andra Tanase a.tanase@trialog.or.at.

Information provided by Ulrike Bey, TRIALOG

TRIALOG is recruiting a Policy Officer

The TRIALOG team is currently looking for a Policy and Advocacy Officer for the Brussels office, to cover maternity leave from September 1, 2010. Full details are available at the following link:
http://www.trialog.or.at/images/doku/policy_officer_trialog_2010_maternitycover.pdf
The deadline for applications is May 31, 2010. We strongly encourage applicants from the 12 new EU member states.

2010: The year of change - A new team in TRIALOG

The year 2010 brings a lot of challenges and changes for the TRIALOG team. Our Information Officer Anita Bister, who has been working with us for the last six years, decided to leave TRIALOG for personal reasons. We are very sorry to lose her as a highly professional and reliable colleague and wish her all the best for the future. In May, Anita will be replaced by Ulrike Bey who has been doing already an internship with TRIALOG in the last two months. Ulrike is German and holds a masters degree in social anthropology, sociology and politics of economics from the University of Münster. Between 2001 and 2009 she co-ordinated the Burma-Initiative and a project on Asian Development in the German Asia Foundation.

Brigitte Quehenberger, TRIALOG Administrative Assistant, will have a baby in the beginning of August and will go on maternity leave in June, for probably 15 months. Her maternity leave replacement is Elisa Romero who will start her work with TRIALOG in the beginning of September. Elisa finished her “Languages, Economics and Cultural Area Studies” in Germany and is currently working as Assistant to the Director of HORIZONT3000, TRIALOG's lead agency.

And last but not least "we" will also have a baby in our Brussels office: our Policy Officer Rebecca Steel-Jasińska is expecting a baby in September. Due to the different regulations for maternity leave in Belgium, Rebecca will only go on maternity leave in the middle of September till probably end of March 2011. Her maternity leave replacement will be recruted in June and start in the beginning of September (see Job advertisement).

Together with our Capacity Building Officer Andra Tanase we will ensure a smooth handover to our new colleagues and do our best to maintain the same quality and quantity of TRIALOG work also in future.

Information provided by Christine Bedoya

European External Action Service Takes Shape

Since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty at the beginning of the year, the European institutions have been adjusting to the new framework and taking steps to make the necessary changes. One of the new elements to have been introduced by the Treaty is the establishment of the European External Action Service (EEAS), which is under the control of the High Representative Catherine Ashton.

Mrs Ashton submitted a proposal for the EEAS on the 25th March 2010 and since then, Brussels has been full of discussion about what the proposal means in practice. The main points of the proposal that are interesting to the development community are the suggestions that the EEAS should contribute to the programming and management of external cooperation programmes that fall under development policy.

A challenge has come from CONCORD and some of its members however based on legal grounds. They assert that the proposal actually breaches the Lisbon Treaty and goes against the interests of both the EU and the world’s poorest.

First of all the lawyers say that the role of EEAS is restricted to the common foreign and security policy (CFSP), which is just a part of the EU’s external action. This does not extend to development policy, which is the ‘sole competence’ of the European Commission, as defined by the treaties.

Secondly, poverty reduction is the main objective of development policy and this is being threatened if it is put under the EEAS, which risks pursuing purely European interests.
Despite these objections, Ashton’s proposal was accepted by the Council at the end of April. It now has to pass through the European Parliament.

The TRIALOG central training, which was postponed due to the Icelandic volcano eruption in April and moved to 7-8 June, will look at how our work as CSOs has been affected by the institutional changes that result from the Lisbon Treaty (see Events).

Related links: The Ashton Proposal for a Council Decision on the EEAS: http://eeas.europa.eu/docs/eeas_draft_decision_250310_en.pdf
CONCORD and partners’ media statement on the illegality of the Ashton proposal: http://www.concordeurope.org/Files/media/0_internetdocumentsENG/5_Press/1_Press_releases/5_Press_releases_2010/MEDIA-STATEMENT-on-EEAS--26-04-2010---EN.pdf

Information provided by Rebecca Steel-Jasińska, TRIALOG

Training for Multipliers: First Module Completed

With the Training of Multipliers TRIALOG has started a new element in its activities on capacity building. 23 people from 11 New Member States will undergo three 3-day training sessions during 2010 with the final goal of them serving as multipliers and resource people in their respective countries.

The first module from 22st to 24th of March 2010 in Vienna focused on the basics of development cooperation, EU development policies and instruments and EC application. The training consisted of an intensive mixture of input combined with interactive methodology on how to train other people about these sometimes dry issues. Participants debated about ongoing issues in development using the debate as a tool for presenting contradicting positions, conducted expert interviews in order to conduct a needs assessment for an imagined project, and went through the project application steps.

The 23 participants from 11 new member states represented a variety of professional experience and expectations. In the course of the training the need appeared to have more room for discussing current issues of development cooperation as well as for a more intensive sharing of best practices and experiences with regard to projects and applications. The next modules are currently planned including the feedback and input of the participants in order to meet these needs better. The second module will take place from 19 to 21st of May in Vienna, the third module is scheduled for 20-22 September.

Information provided by Ulrike Bey, TRIALOG

Polish NGOs improve their skills on Management of EC Projects and Standard Contracts

Operational management of EC Projects and Standard Contracts was the theme covered by the recent national training organized by TRIALOG in April 2010 in Poland.

During the training the participants engaged in practical and theoretical workshops addressing monitoring, evaluation and financial reporting of EC contracts. Andra Tanase, Capacity Building Officer at TRIALOG, introduced the audience to the process of implementing a standard contract from the EC. The participants had opportunity to analyse in details EC administrative and financial rules, work on the management plans of their projects, exchange experience and to ask concrete questions regarding the implementation phase of development cooperation projects. “Polish NGDOs which are relatively new in this sector are still dealing with lack of sufficient knowledge and experience in the implementation of projects financed by the European Commission. This workshop was a great opportunity to learn, clarify our doubts and exchange experience” said Monika from the ZAGRANICA GROUP.

The event was organized on April 12-13, 2010 in Warsaw in cooperation with the ZAGRANICA GROUP, the Polish NGDO Platform. In total, during the two-days training, around 20 participants from various polish NGOs working in the development field were trained.

Information provided by Monika Kuśmierczyk, Grupa Zagranica

AidWatch puts pressure on EU governments to push towards achieving the MDGs

The annual OECD DAC aid figures released in April 2010 show that EU countries reduced their levels of development aid in 2009, making these states unlikely to meet the targets set for 2015 and putting a large question mark over their commitment to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The release of the aid figures was swiftly followed by the European Commission publishing the ‘April Package’, a cluster of documents released each spring that comprises a communication and staff working documents relative to European aid levels. This year, the staff working documents focus specifically on the MDGs, outlining the key challenges for the road ahead; aid for trade; financing for development; policy coherence for development (PCD) and aid effectiveness.

As part of capacity development events aimed to strengthen the work of CSOs working on aid, a workshop has been organised by CONCORD, the French national platform Coordination Sud and TRIALOG, with other partners, at the end of May in Paris. It will gather together representatives from across Europe to look at parliamentary scrutiny in development policy and aid budgets.

The AidWatch annual report will be launched in June, with a public awareness-raising stunt in Brussels and across European capitals.

Links:
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) aid figures: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/12/44981982.pdf
April package: http://ec.europa.eu/development/services/dev-policy-proposals_en.cfm
The CONCORD press release on the OECD figures and an AidWatch position paper on European aid in 2010 are available from the CONCORD website: http://www.concordeurope.org/Public/Page.php?ID=4&language=eng

Information provided by Rebecca Steel-Jasińska, TRIALOG

European Development Education Conference in Cyprus

Future Worlds Center, in collaboration with its project partners Scotdec, Youth Career & Advising Centre, C.E.G.A. Foundation and KADE, hosted the first European Development Education Conference "Making Global Connections – Development Education in Schools" in Limassol, Cyprus, from 8 to 10 April 2010.

The conference was opened by the Head of European and International Affairs of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Cyprus and brought together NGO representatives, teachers, students, educational authorities, Development Education experts, and active citizens from across Europe. The conference was organized as concluding event of the EuropeAid funded project ‘Accessing Development Education’, which has been coordinated by Future Worlds Center since January 2008.

Throughout the 2,5 days of the conference, participants engaged in sharing good practices in introducing a global perspective into the educational system. They also had a critical look at persisting challenges faced by educators across Europe, as well as opportunities and success stories.

During the interactive parallel workshops the participants could learn more about Development Education resources and classroom activities, experience new methodologies and network with their peers from other European countries. In addition to the working sessions, participating schools and teachers had prepared an exhibition to portray and celebrate their efforts of including Development Education into the school realities.

The project ‘Accessing Development Education’ engages educators and schools in Development Education activities and equips them with relevant training and materials, thus making them promoters and multipliers of national campaigns and initiatives that aim to create awareness about development issues and global interdependencies.

For more information please contact Kerstin Wittig kerstinwittig@gmail.com, http://www.developmenteducation.info/, http://fwcis.blogspot.com/

Information provided by Kerstin Wittig, Future Worlds Center

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

EPAN Working Group meets in Vienna

The CONCORD working group on Enlargement, Pre-Accession and Neighbourhood (EPAN), which is convened by TRIALOG, met in Vienna for one of its twice-yearly full working group meetings at the beginning of March 2010. The group shared information about initiatives undertaken at the national and European level related to EPAN focus countries as well as plans related to current and upcoming EU presidencies and CONCORD priorities for this year. The group divided into subgroups in order to plan in more detail upcoming events related to the Eastern neighbourhood, Southern neighbourhood and pre-accession area of the Western Balkans and Turkey.

As well as representatives from old and new member states, the group was happy to welcome representatives from candidate countries Croatia and Turkey, who were able to bring their expertise of their own countries to the discussions.

The meeting was planned to take place right before the regional workshop of the open Forum on CSO Development Effectiveness that focused on non-EU European countries, largely overlapping with the EPAN countries of interest. A handful of members attended both meetings. EPAN meeting minutes are available on the CONCORD extranet. For more information please contact Rebecca Steel at trialog@concordeurope.org.

Information provided by Rebecca Steel-Jasińska, TRIALOG

Fifth Euro - Latin American and Caribbean Civil Society Forum

On 15 and 16 March 2010, the Mesa de Articulación (the coalition of Latin American platforms and networks) and CONCORD held the Fifth Euro - Latin American and Caribbean Civil Society Forum in Madrid. Over 40 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) organisations and around 15 organisations from Europe participated in this event to prepare for the official heads of states and governments Summit in May. The topics of the Forum were: crisis and the development model; innovation, technology and media; democracy, human rights, migrants and indigenous peoples; association agreements and regional integration; and development financing and cooperation. The final declaration puts emphasis on the global crisis but also on the ways forward, here an extract:

“The current international crisis has made clear the limits of an economic model based on market deregulations, unlimited growth and the reduction of the State to its minimum functions. The consequences of these policies are being felt in the lives of everyday people, particularly among the poorest and most excluded. This is a deep systemic crisis, with economic, alimentary, energetic, environmental and social dimensions. […] We believe that the current crisis is an opportunity to advance more decisively with respect to alternatives for change that comprise the complexity and integrity of the political, social, environmental, cultural and economic processes on our continents.”

Thirteen “proposals and observations” have been sent to the EU and LAC governments that aim at establishing a relationship model between the EU and LAC that is based on political dialogue, cooperation, the promotion of social justice and human, economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, taking into account a thoroughgoing analysis of and respect for the development models of their countries, their weaknesses and their strengths. Civil society in the LAC and EU countries is vital for safeguarding, promoting and developing rights and democratic spaces on their continents and should continue their advocacy and solidarity work, strengthening their links and alliances on the basis of their shared values.

The full declaration is available in English (Spanish and Portuguese) on the CONCORD website, see: http://www.concordeurope.org/Public/Page.php?ID=33285&language=eng

Information provided by Christine Bedoya, TRIALOG

Conference in Slovenia: Development Cooperation - Quo Vadis?

How to increase development aid and make it more effective? What is the future of Slovenian development aid? These were some of the key issues raised at the Slovenian international conference "Development Cooperation – Quo vadis" that took place on 26th March 2010. It was organized by the Slovenian NGDO Platform SLOGA together with Ekvilib Institute and its goal was to highlight the basic challenges faced by the international and Slovenian donor community.

In 2009 Slovenia has allocated 51 million EUR for development aid, was stated at the beginning of the conference by the representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and progress has also been made in increasing its effectiveness. The following panels of the conference focused on the civil society and the NGO representatives presented their ideas on aid effectiveness, new practices and approaches to development, and concrete project examples. Slovenian and international NGO representatives focused on the Paris declaration and Accra agenda and emphasized the importance of unity in understanding what aid effectiveness is. Some of the panelists also focused on new donors such as China and analysed the EU approach in the light of the new donors in the Sub Saharan Africa. In this light recommendations for the Slovenian strategy on development cooperation in the region were given. The panel was followed by a discussion that critically reflected on the role of civil society organisations in development cooperation. The conference concluded with a workshop on the human rights based approach to development cooperation.

For more information please contact Barbara Vodopivec from SLOGA at barbara.vodopivec@sloga-platform.org.

Information provided by Barbara Vodopivec, SLOGA

Training session Working with EuropeAid in Prague

The two-day fruitful training session delivered by the Italian organization punto.sud in cooperation with the Czech Forum for Development Co-operation, FoRS, was held in Prague, 23-24 March 2010. The participants were comprised of 24 Czech civil society organizations involved in the planning and management of EC funded development programs. The training was followed by hands-on support to interested organisations on specific issues pertaining to their Europe-Aid funded projects. The next training session will be held in another new member state (NMS) country in 2010 (see http://www.puntosud.org/helpdesk-europeaid/doku.php/training/sessions_2010).

The training is part 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 as lead organization; FoRS (Czech Republic), People in Peril Association (Slovakia), Hungarian Baptist Aid (Hungary) and APEL Service (Romania) as implementing partners; Caritas Poland (Poland) and Support to Life (Turkey) as Associates. The project’s main purpose is to improve the access to information, methods and best practices on EuropeAid-grant contractual obligations of Non State Actors and Local Authorities of the EU NMS.

Information provided by Tereza Ambrozova, FoRS intern,info@fors.cz