Advocacy Campaign - Implementing the Ljubljana Declaration
ECAS has built up partnerships in the Western Balkans and East European neighbouring countries to the EU as a result of the four consecutive phases of the information, training and scholarship programme (ITS programme) supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and which started in 2001. The support has also had a multiplier effect and led to several activities by other organisations and the European Commission. As a result, social capital has been developed among partner organisations with which training sessions and study visits have been organised, and more then 35 people have spent a month as “scholars” in Brussels from 2005 till 2008. The scholarship programme forged excellent working relations with CSOs from the region. An informal network of CSOs has thus been created whose members are all committed to developing a sustainable CSO environment in their countries.
Building on the organisational and personal links created, ECAS has managed to develop under the 4th phase of the ITS programme, a stronger than expected advocacy campaign, because the objective coincided with the partners’ interests and a new phase in their own development. Under the programme, it was realised that information and training were not enough. Unlike the 2004 preparations for the enlargement followed by the accession of Bulgaria and Romania in January 2007, EU deadlines for accession became less clear. As a result it became more necessary to consider how to influence policies towards civil society in a more uncertain political climate, and assist NGOs in taking advantage of the ambiguities of the pre-accession and neighbouring policies. In the original ITS campaign, a roadmap for an advocacy campaign was sketched out, starting with a preparatory meeting in Brussels in October 2007 and leading to conferences in Ljubljana in April 2008 and Zadar (Croatia) at the end of September 2008. However, the actual achievements and contacts went well beyond what was planned with just the events themselves, and created a solid platform on which the advocacy campaign proposed here can be built. As described later, the first event led to a 10 point declaration based on 14 national reports and recommendations and the second to guidelines for implementation.
The advocacy aspect of the programme will be further developed in the future.
The advocacy campaign (download here )
''Congress in Ljubljana", 16-18 April 2009
Programme of the conference (download here )
Paper: Civil Society and Politics - Turning the Challenge into Opportunity (download here )
Press Release: Conference Conclusions - Civil Society Organisations Challenge Public Authority (download here )
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