Development Education Times - January 2010

Dear Readers,

Ready to take on all challenges brought by the new year? Ready to become a more global citizen?

The editorial of this first 2010 DE Times issue is left to Deepali Sood who has been the chair of the CONCORD Development Education Forum for the last 2 years. Here are some of her thoughts on the situation of Development Education and Awareness Raising in Europe.

"At first as the Vice-Chair and then the Chair of the Development Education Forum of CONCORD (European development NGOs’ platform) I can vouch for the fact that the commitment and the dedication of the European NGOs in promoting development education in Europe has been most inspiring. We have taken huge strides in the right direction: the drafting of and an increasing use of the excellent code of conduct on images and messages; our entire work on mapping school curricula of all the European Union Member States and beyond; involving the migrant communities in Europe in issues concerning them in the host countries in Europe; focusing on young people and children; working with the media; and last but not the least: the annual summer schools on various development education themes. What a success!
On a political level the European Consensus on Development Education and Awareness Raising has been a masterstroke. It is a pioneer multi-stakeholder commitment to promoting and supporting development education throughout Europe, likes of which we have never seen before. One of the main positive effects of this commitment has been the creation and working of the Multi-Stakeholder Taskforce, which is going strength to strength, as we speak. National strategies on development education in various EU MS such as Spain and Poland, which in fact have involved quality consultations with the NGOs, are examples of good practice. These strategies also commit to dedicated funding for different actors, including NGOs, in order to implement development education projects and actions in their respective countries. At the European Commission level there is a talk about a strategy on development education, which is really good news. After 3 decades of funding development education projects with non state actors, the EC is finally talking about a development education strategy. Finally, we expect the European Parliament to formally commit to an own-initiative report on development education soon. So far so good.
Now, let’s talk an honest look within our own houses i.e. within the NGOs sector itself. In our own comprehension too there has been a widely accepted view that in fact development education is an all encompassing topic: it includes human rights education, gender equality, environment education, conflict prevention education and other related issues. This integrated approach and understanding in fact ensures a genuine exchange of ideas and issues within like-minded organizations. Increasingly, NGOs are sifting the wheat from the chaff: what is genuine development education and what is mere fundraising and PR? How much of the total budget of an organisation is being spent on development education? Are we serious about measuring impact of our work or are we just pleasing our funders with donor-friendly reporting, irrespective of real impact? Many of the organisations are asking themselves and more importantly their senior managers these significant though difficult questions. Kudos to them.
Moving on to all that still needs to be achieved… Today close to 76% of EU citizens have never heard of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); we, as an international community, are far from achieving the MDGs by 2015 as originally envisaged; the financial crisis is lurking large and ominous, whilst development cooperation aid is being cut in a number of EU MS. The list goes on. A lot has been done, a lot still needs to be achieved. And yet I think we have reasons to be optimistic. Not convinced? Go on and re-read the article from the beginning!"

Deepali Sood, Plan International (Deepali.sood@plan-international.org)

Read the articles!

1-DEEEP

1.1 Development Education Summer School: registration for participants is open until January 31

1.2 "DE Watch report"

2- TRIALOG

2.1 The partnership Fair: deadline for registration is extended to January 22

2.2 Documentation of Experts Seminar on the Future of CSOs

2.3 Provisional results of last EC development education calls

3- YOUR PROJECTS AND INITIATIVES

3.1 "Southern Voices- Welsh Choices" Cyfancyd latest project

3.2 Mindjeris- Women from Guinea Bissau

3.3 "My dad says..."

3.4 "My idea for Africa- Liberia"

3.5 Nobel Peace Prize for African Women

3.6 Development Education Introduced in the Philipines

3.7 Decent Work for Decent life: think global act global

3.8 Urban Tribes

4- PUBLICATIONS AND RESOURCES

4.1 EU Social Watch

4.2 A World Upside Down

4.3 Portales Globales Lernen

5- TRAININGS

5.1 GLEN Training

5.2 PANGEA training

5.3 Cypriot Teachers make Global Connections

6- CONFERENCES OUTCOMES

6.1 Developing Global Education in Poland

6.2 Images of Africa and Global South in Fundraising Campaigns

6.3 Future of DE/GE in Latvia

Source: TRIALOG Information Service (TIS)

URL: http://trialog-information-service.blogspot.com/2009/12/european-citizens-as-catalysts-for.html

Tuesday, 15 December 2009

European Citizens as Catalysts for Change: the film!

The European Multi-stakeholder group on Development Education organised a side event in the frame of the European Development Days (EDD), which were hosted by Sweden in October 2009.

Citizens should be at the heart of the global poverty debate, as they are the ones to ask for change and be the change. However, they need to be empowered to fulfil their democratic potential as change actors. Development education, moving form awareness on global challenges, through understanding of causes and consequences of global inter-dependencies to informed action and critical involvement of each citizen is the tool to empower citizens to be “catalysts of change”.

All speakers at the EDD side event made strong statements on the importance of development education. So emphasised Justin Kilcullen, CONCORD president, the central role of citizen’s engagement and development education in the new CONCORD strategy. Eva Joly, MEP and Chair of the European Parliament (EP) Development Committee, committed to support a EP report on the status of Development Education in Europe.

Another aspect explored during the talk show was the need for national strategies on Development Education, still missing in many EU member states. Manuel Correio highlighted the example of Portugal, that has recently endorsed the national strategy, and underlined that political advocacy and campaigning is explicitly included in the strategy as a four pillar, taking development education beyond a purely pedagogic agenda. This strategy was elaborated in an inclusive, multi stakeholder approach, an aspect also underlined by involved other speakers. As Anja Frings put it: “Change can only be achieved if we work together”.

A short film, with the main higlights of the side event is now available! Watch it onhttp://blip.tv/file/2942358/

Information provided by Chiara Tripepi, DEEEP

* Please insert this in the Opportunities section

Source: TRIALOG Information Service (TIS)

URL: http://trialog-information-service.blogspot.com/2009/12/february-15-17-2010-2nd-edition-of.html

Thursday, 17 December 2009

February 15-17, 2010: 2nd Edition of the Partnership Fair in Vienna: Apply now!

Due to the significant success of the previous edition of the TRIALOG Partnership Fair held in October 2006, when many of the later EC-funded development education projects under the Non State Actors and Local Authorities (NSA-LA) budget line were conceived, TRIALOG in partnership with DEEEP and CONCORD will host the second edition of this even

t on February 15-17, 2010. Reserve the dates now and apply the latest by January 15, 2010!

The partnership fair is a learning, networking and project-designing event, gathering more than 150 participants mainly from development CSOs from across Europe coming from different sectors (development education, human rights, environment, gender etc). The Partnership Fair facilitates partnerships, cooperation, learning and exchange at an international level for joint projects for development. Many key development actors (representatives of the EC, universities, local authorities, and trade unions) will contribute either as speakers, facilitators or participants.

Find more information (incl. agenda, description and application documents) at:http://www.trialog.or.at/start.asp?ID=209 Send the Application form(http://www.trialog.or.at/images/doku/applicationform_de_partnershipfair.doc) to TRIALOG Capacity Building Officer Andra Tanase a.tanase@trialog.or.at by January 15, 2010 the latest! Note that applications will be processed on a rolling basis.

Important information regarding financial assistance and reimbursements:
Financial Assistance for travel and accommodation in the Partnership Fair is available to successful applicants from New EU Member States only. Applicants needing financial assistance should also fill in the Application Form for Participation in an Event: http://www.trialog.or.at/images/doku/application_for_events.doc (in addition to the Partnership Fair Application Form above) .

Information provided by Andra Tanase, TRIALOG

* Please insert this in the Opportunities section

Source: TRIALOG Information Service (TIS)

URL: http://trialog-information-service.blogspot.com/2009/12/june-6-13-2010-development-education.html

Tuesday, 15 December 2009

June 6-13, 2010: Development Education Summer School - Call for Participants

The Development Education Summer School (DESS) 2010 will be hosted by Hungary, from June 6 to June 13, 2010. Artemisszio and the Hungarian Interchurch Aid, on behalf of the Hungarian NGDO platform HAND and in coordination with DEEEP are finalising the programme. The overall theme for this year is "Schools as Key Actors in Promoting Global Education", and the overall objective is to improve quality and quantity of NGOs and school cooperation in the field of Global Education.

Participants will be divided into 4 working groups, focusing on the following topics: 1) Environmental sustainability, 2) Trade and Consumption, 3) Poverty, 4) Diversity. Participants will also have the opportunity to follow some thematic sessions, according to their personal and professional interest. The following thematic sessions will be made available: a) NGO/School cooperation, b) Quality and evaluation of global education projects, c) Teacher trainings, d) School curricula and whole school approach.

A local Action Day - during which participants will go to a local school, and implement some global education activities - is foreseen on Friday June 11. Organisers have also included - following the success such activities had in previous DESS editions - the "market place", where participants can introduce their work and organisations, the cultural evening, to learn more on each other's cultures and countries, the audiovisual evening, to share movies.

The Summer School can host 54 participants from the EU, 10 from Network NGOs of CONCORD, and up to 16 from Economically Less Developed Countries. Participation fees depend on the country of residence. Travel costs will be reimbursed by DEEEP after the DESS (up to EUR 400).

Participants interested can fill in the application form, and send it to their National Platform for the final selection, before January 24, 2010. To find the list of national representatives visithttp://www.deeep.org/usefullinks.html. If you have further questions, you can contact Cinthia Alaerts (c.alaerts@deeep.org), DEEEP Coordinator. To learn more on the Summer School, and to download the application form, please visit http://www.deeep.org/summerschool2010.html

Information provided by Chiara Tripepi, DEEEP

EC - 2008 DE Call

http://trialog-information-service.blogspot.com/2009/12/provisional-results-of-last-ec.html

Wednesday, 16 December 2009

Provisional Results of last EC development education call

The EC made available the first results of the 2008 call for proposals on “Public Awareness and Education for Development in Europe.” Please note that slight changes could still be possible as these are provisional results and the final ones should be released shortly.

The data shows that compared to the previous call, no single trend can be identified, the picture is complex with some clear advances but also spaces to make some improvement.

If we were to compare the number of concept notes received, only 4 out of the 12 New Member States submitted more concept notes than in the year before, which shows rather low productivity in terms of participation in this call for proposals. Numbers only, the average number of concept notes submitted by Old Member States is 21.13 compared to only 5.25 in New Member States.

However, the success rate shows a different picture. The vast majority of New Member States improved significantly the success rate. If in the 2007 call, 9 out of 12 had 0 next to the success rate, this year it seems like only 4 countries among the 12 New Member States did not manage to secure any projects as main applicants. Development Education projects have this time lead applicants in Bulgaria (2), Cyprus (2), Czech Republic (6), Hungary (2), Latvia (2), Poland (3), Slovakia (1) and Slovenia (2). Numbers are this time favourable, with an average success rate of 29.5% in New Member States compared to ´only´ 15.7% in the Old Member States (Full Applications selected / Concept Notes received). Thus, quality instead of quantity seems to be the way forward. Furthermore, although not visible in this information sheet, the number of successful applications in which New Member States are involved as partners in a consortium is thought to be high.

Download the preliminary results at: http://www.trialog.or.at/images/doku/prov-results-ec-decall2008.pdf
For comparison with the previous 2007 statistics see: http://www.trialog.or.at/images/doku/stakeholders-meeting-25-02-09-final.pdf; http://www.trialog.or.at/images/doku/ed2007-preliminary-results.pdf

But certainly numbers do not tell the entire story, and certainly there is no score to be kept like in a sports competition. Deeper processes need to be investigated. We need to look more on whether receiving easier conditions from the EC (such as the 10% versus the 25% of co-financing) made the New Member States more attractive and thus more likely to be main applicant in the consortium. We also need to look more on whether the EC was influenced by the voices asking for more countries being beneficiaries of development education calls (in the 2007 call only 11 countries received contracts, compared to 21 countries in the 2008 call).These are just some hypothesis inviting further analysis. What seems to hold true is that the results of the capacity building activities are starting to show and now there are more solid applications.

TRIALOG will continue to support the New Member States in finding partners, improving project writing skills and also having a stronger voice vis-à-vis the European Commission. Awaiting the next Call for Proposals, expected to be released in the spring of 2010 TRIALOG organizes the 2nd Edition of the Development Education Partnership Fair to be held in Vienna between the 15th and the 17th of February 2010. To read more about the event and the application process please see the Events section of TIS or visithttp://www.trialog.or.at/

Information provided by Andra Tanase, TRIALOG

Gepostet von TRIALOG... bei 16:00

timesofmalta.com - Aid in the form of expertise

(Tuesday, December 8, 2009)
Aid in the form of expertise

Author: Claudia Calleja

Malta can help developing countries by sharing its expertise on how to manage aid money or tap into the tourism
industry, according to an expert on overseas development assistance.

Simon Maxwell, from Europe's largest think-tank on international development and humanitarian policy, said: "We often
think about development aid as providing famine relief to starving people or helping farmers grow food, which are
perfectly legitimate things to do. But there are other forms of aid.

"Malta has moved from being an aid receiver to a donor and can share its experience on managing aid with the countries
it is out to help," he explained.

Mr Maxwell, a senior research associate of the UK's Overseas Development Institute, was in Malta recently to give a
lecture on development aid as part of the Kapuscinski lecture series during which countries discussed development
cooperation.

According to Malta's humanitarian and development aid policy, the country aims to help the poorest countries,
particularly those of sub-Saharan and East Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

Mr Maxwell said such countries required assistance on two main levels: immediate social assistance that addressed famine
and health issues among others; and longer-term assistance that sought to help countries rebuild their economy.

"Tourism can be a fantastic driver of poverty reduction. Ethiopia, for example, has a long Christian tradition and Malta
could share expertise on how to manage tourist arrivals," explained Mr Maxwell.

Mr Maxwell added that developing countries needed access to markets to grow and European countries had to ensure they
did not build a fortress of trade restrictions that stopped poor countries exporting to them.

The global recession had led to countries becoming more protective of their economy and this would have devastating
repercussions on developing countries.

Europe could help countries like Ethiopia and Kenya by opening up its trade doors to their exported flowers or green
beans, for example. But there are other threatening issues.

"Exporting horticultural products from Kenya to the UK causes about one per cent of our carbon emissions but creates a
million jobs. We must not use climate change as another excuse to become protectionist," he cautioned.

"The world is becoming a complicated place where we have to deal with the repercussions of climate change, rapid
urbanisation, the global recession and security treats... Collective action is the only way to deal with this
multilateral challenge.

"We as Europeans need to make sure we build an effective Europe. With new presidents in the European Commission and
Council the question is: what is the story they're going to tell about the world? The millennium development goals
(MDGs) have to be at the centre," Mr Maxwell said.

The UN goals, agreed to by 189 nations, pledge to halve extreme poverty, halt the spread of AIDS/HIV and provide
universal primary education by 2015.

Mr Maxwell went on to add that, given this global scenario, Europe - which provided 60 per cent of the world's aid - had
to now work on maximising the impact of this aid.

There were two options. The first was channelling a bigger share of aid money through Brussels where it would be better
coordinated. An alternative would be developing a code of conduct on how to work together to better spread out aid
across countries in need.

PRESS RELEASE - For immediate release - SKOP at the European Development Days SKOP (Solidarjetà u Koperazzjoni), The National Platform of Maltese non-governmental organisations working in the fields of development cooperation and development education (NGDOs), has represented its 18 member organisations at the European Development Days 2009, held in Stockholm (Sweden) from 22 to 24 October 2010. The fourth edition of the European Development Days (EDDs), which are a yearly event hosted jointly by the European Commission and the EU Presidency, are a flagship event which showcases the commitment of civil society, the EU and national governments to development and relief. It brought together some 6,000 individuals and 1,500 organisations from the development community. Delegates from 125 countries were represented, including heads of state and leading world figures, Nobel prizewinners among them, and a number of representatives of NGOs and networks such as CONCORD (The European NGO Confederation For Relief and Development) of which SKOP is a founder member. The event aims to make development aid more effective, to build a global coalition against poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Main subjects of the EDDs 2009, which is the EU’s third biggest event, were democracy, global citizenship, adaptation to climate change, energy efficiency and the global recession. During the event, SKOP has showcased its members’ activities on international development cooperation and education in a stall which it had managed together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and SOS Malta. It was SKOP’s third participation in the EDDs since 2007; this year, its participation has been sponsored by the European Commission and Concord. Further information can be found on http://www.eudevdays.eu, or by contacting Dominik Kalweit on (+356) 2131 5562 / 9940 0407. Photographs taken at the European Development Days 2009. They are also available on SKOP's Facebook website. William Grech (Vice-Chairperson, SKOP), Dominik Kalweit (Board Member/Treasurer, SKOP), David Cassar (Maltese Permanent Representation at the EU) Call for Development Projects 2008/0of the Maltese Ministry of Foreign Affairs: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091101/local/maltese-money-gives-life-to-third-world-countries http://www.di-ve.com/Default.aspx?ID=72&Action=1&NewsId=65631 http://www.foreign.gov.mt/Default.aspx?MDIS=21&NWID=664 The STOPoverty! Neqirdu l-Faqar! Campaign events of October 2009: http://trialog-information-service.blogspot.com/2009/10/events-to-mark-international-day-for.html SKOP's new project on Capacity Building (2010/2011): http://trialog-information-service.blogspot.com/2009/10/new-joint-project-of-greek-cypriot-and.html SKOP hosted the October 2009 meeting of the Concord Working Group on Enlargement, Ple-Accession and Neighbourhood (EPAN): http://trialog-information-service.blogspot.com/2009/10/october-epan-meeting-in-malta.html For further information on EPAN, see the TRIALOG website.