Position Papers on the New ACP-EU Agreement
Report
on Workshop on Enhancing Civil Society Involvement in the
Implementation of the New ACP-EU Agreement
Geneva, 28 + 29 June, 2000
Organised by Eurostep in collaboration with INZET and the Liaison Committee of EU NGDOs
In general one can say that the Geneva
workshop exposed the need for a lot more of these kinds of
exchange of views. We need to facilitate a space for that.
The eradication of poverty being the central
goal as agreed on by all parties, there were a few advocacy
subjects that were given priority.
Other subjects mentioned that needed
attention in advocacy-work were the issue of the debt burden,
conflict resolution and the advancement of education, health and
gender equality.
The strong impression was that neither the
Commission nor ACP governments will do very much to get CSOs
involved in the process of dialogue. The new Agreement has
created some space for CSO involvement, but no clear mechanisms
have been put in place to assure its successful implementation.
CSOs should claim this space for themselves and not wait
compliantly for anything to come about.
The additional reference text with operational guidelines will be reviewed annually by the Joint Council of Ministers. Specific operational guidelines and strategies can be reviewed, not the entire text of the Agreement. The review-stages planned during the 2002-2008 transitional period don’t explicitly mention the consultation of CSOs. CSOs should stress the importance of CSO consultation to be incorporated into this reviewing process.
One of the most crucial immediate tasks of
CSOs is the programming process, which consists of consultation
between the EU and the ACP on individual aid programmes for ACP
countries. In the past the process was mostly restricted to
governments. Now there is a stronger expectation that CSOs should
be involved in both the discussions on programme priorities and
implementation. CSOs should seize this opportunity to get engaged
into the process of dialogue.
A plan of action for promoting and monitoring CSO involvement should be developed, primarily by ACP CSOs, taking into account both general and region/country specific aspects (local politico-cultural sensitivities). However this flexibility should not prevent the mechanisms of dialogue from being institutionalised, since at present too much depends on the personal attitude and good will of the ACP government / EU official involved.
If the Commission is serious about getting
CSOs involved in the programming process, the availability of
information, capacity building and funding should substantially
be improved and be made more transparent. At present too much
time and capacity of ACP CSOs, trying to get involved in the
process of dialogue, is being spent on the acquisition of these
resources, preventing them from entering fully into this process.
At present on the European side, mainly the
policy people from NGO-networks and advocacy organisations are
actively involved in the Cotonou process. Until now, the
programme or country-related desk officers from European NGDOs
stayed largely outside of this process. By not involving them a
rich source of information and capacity remains untapped. A
bigger effort should be made to get these national development
NGOs on board, providing them with information and advise and ask
them to support their local ACP partner organisations when they
wish to participate in the programming process. The same could be
considered with regard to other Civil Society Organisations
(churches, trade unions, etc.)
Between certain ACP and EU organisations a
good working relationship on civil society involvement already
exists. But, while it is true that they feed into each
other’s working programmes, they generally remain separate
programmes with different agendas and priorities that reflect
local conditions. While this co-operation continues, it would be
good if some gradual streamlining would take place resulting in a
few key projects that are based on true co-operation and shared
objectives that have been formulated collectively. The
co-operation between ECSIEP and PCRC is a good example in this
respect.
· INZET and Eurostep have distributed a questionnaire with questions to ACP CSOs on:
1.
their knowledge of the new Agreement and the provisions for CS
participation
2.
the way in which they are already or wish to be engaged in the
process of dialogue
3.
their experiences with other actors and the frequency of contact
between them
4.
the issues that were discussed or which they would like to
discuss
5.
the main stumbling blocks for participation.
It’s hoped
that this questionnaire will provide some insight in the present
state of the process and expose which areas and issues need
special attention in future co-operation.
·
Proposals that were put forward during the workshop included
developing a strategy that allows for proactive monitoring of the
implementation of the Cotonou Agreement. This would not only
involve surveillance of the implementation of the Agreement as it
stands, but also entail surveillance of the implementation of the
goals that civil society advocates on the remaining malleable
aspects of the Agreement. Following the Geneva Workshop, some
participants have proposed that ACP and EU civil society actors
develop a common programme/system incorporating such a strategy
for advocacy and monitoring of the implementation of the Cotonou
Agreement at, primarily, country level in the ACP.
Taking in account
the issues that were raised during the Workshop, this programme
could focus on, inter alia:
The
programme/system could have the overall objective of aiming to
ensure and demonstrate that the implementation of the new
Agreement does actually contribute to poverty eradication in the
ACP. In other words, the programme/system would try to be
continuously bringing the actors of the ACP-EU partnership to
book on the new Agreement.
·
Another suggestion is to start Internet closed discussions with
the participants from Geneva on specific issues that came up
during the meeting. Every two weeks or every month this will
result in a series of propositions. An ACP moderator should
control the process. In the course of this process, new people
from other countries could be identified and join the
discussions. Out of these ongoing discussions, issues can be
selected on which new meetings like the one in Geneva are based.
Gordon Deuchars:
The Lomé Convention grew out of old
linkages between the 15 European member-states and their former
colonies. It has become in many ways the flagship of EU
development policy. Although some call the Lomé framework
neo-colonialist, it has some interesting and positive features:
·
It’s holistic approach of looking at aid and trade together
(possibly undermined by the introduction of EPAs in 2008)
·
The agreement has been set out as a contractual agreement between
equal partners. Where in the real world one of the partners has
the money and the political power, the principle of equal
partners working out development strategies together, remains.
A problem from the point of view of Civil
Society Organisations (CSOs) was the strong
government-to-government relationship of the Lomé framework.
National Indicative Programmes were negotiated between the ACP
governments and the European Commission (Local delegation and
Commission services in Brussels) with little or no room for input
from CSOs. What is more, in many cases even basic information on
the process was not available. In the latest Lomé agreement
there was a strong attempt to make CSOs partners in co-operation,
but still Civil Society involvement largely seemed to be limited
to implementation, rather than participation in drawing up
development strategies.
Nevertheless, the new Agreement has
created some space for meaningful participation by CSOs. An
obvious new place for CSOs to enter into the process is the
annual review: the disbursement of the EDF will no longer be done
on basis of set amounts, but indicative amounts, which will be
reviewed annually on basis of performance.
For CSOs it is crucial to identify the
places in the programming process and the annual reviews, where
Civil Society could come in. If it proves to be difficult to
claim these places, a next step might be to try to get CSO
involvement on the list of performance criteria.
Guggi Laryea:
The Cotonou Agreement establishes broad
lines of co-operation between the EU and the ACP for the next
five years. The objective of the ACP-EU partnership under the new
Agreement is reducing and eventually eradicating poverty. In
order to achieve this the Agreement adopted a three-pillar
approach: Social Development, Financial and Economic
Co-operation, and integration into the world economy.
It is supposed to be a flexible Agreement
that is complemented by the regular production of annexes and
compendia of reference texts, providing details concerning policy
orientation and operational guidelines. The wording of the
new Agreement does create a space for the involvement of CSOs,
but proper safeguards for its implementation are lacking. The
mechanisms of Civil Society involvement in particular are
unclear. It is perhaps more appropriate that CSOs themselves lead
the way in the process of formulating mechanisms and strategies
for CSO participation.
One of the most crucial immediate tasks of
CSOs is the programming process, which consists of consultation
between the EU and the ACP on individual aid programmes for ACP
countries. It determines priorities, sectors, the type of
assistance to be provided and the most appropriate agencies for
implementation. In the past the process was mostly restricted to
governments. Now there is a stronger expectation that CSOs should
be involved in both the discussions on programme priorities and
implementation, as exemplified by the more than 20 references to
CSO involvement throughout the formal text of the Agreement.
There are three issues that need to be addressed:
·
One CSO from each ACP country will be invited to participate in a
regional seminar (please find attached the list of dates). It
remains to be seen which organisation is invited and how the
process of preparation with and reporting back to the other CSOs
will take shape.
·
It is yet unclear how much time is reserved for Civil Society
consultation in the programming process. It is feared that the
time reserved for this process will be too limited to make it a
truly meaningful exercise.
·
It is very difficult for CSOs to engage in the programming
process when safeguarding the continuity of operations due to
lack of funds is a constant concern. The disbursement of funds
for CSOs should be speeded up and become more transparent.
Discussion:
The floor discussion centred around three main issues: firstly, the context within which the new Agreement should be regarded, secondly, the changes in the new Agreement and the avenues for CSO participation and thirdly the content of the issues CSOs should become involved in.
Context
The Commission recently released a new document on European development policy, which stated poverty eradication as its central principle. The internal structural reform of the Commission itself seems to become more determining, however. Much depends on the direction which DG External Relations and DG Trade will take. It is most likely that DG Development will become less powerful in the years to come. Development Co-operation will probably only loose in importance as a policy-field, being replaced by trade-related measures. In comparison with Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, the ACP is the weakest group with little real power as a trade-partner. This is why the ACP countries and its CSOs should act now, while the momentum is still there. From a negative perspective one could say that, given the uncertainties on the direction development co-operation will take in Europe in the years to come, the money agreed on now is the only security. In this view the idea of the North helping the South to develop is merely rhetoric. CSOs should concentrate on what they want to achieve in the coming 7 years and how to best utilise the money available (and use it all).
Avenues for Civil Society participation
The new Agreement is more flexible than the previous one and it creates avenues for Civil Society participation. There is however a big pressure to get started soon and keep going fast. The EU doesn’t want the process to be blocked or slowed down in any serious way. But where co-operation with CSOs and non-state actors has been brought into the mainstream of the general text of the Agreement, the mechanisms haven’t really changed. This means that CSOs have to decide well, at which stages they want to participate and they should push hard to get a sufficiently long period of time reserved at those stages for meaningful consultation with them.
If needed, the compendium of reference text will be reviewed annually by the Joint Council of Ministers. Specific operational guidelines and strategies can be reviewed, but within the unchangeable entire text of the Agreement. The review-stages planned during the 2002-2008 transitional period don’t explicitly mention the consultation of CSOs. CSOs should stress the importance of CSO consultation to be incorporated into the reviewing process.
One participant argued that one could distinguish between the different levels of CSO involvement and its importance. The first level CSOs should be involved in is the drawing up of the National Indicative Programme (NIP). The NIP can focus on only one or two sectors in each country, where it was much broader in the past. CSOs should give their views on which sector their country’s NIP should focus on. The next stage is getting involved in the drawing up of the entire Country Support Strategy (CSS). This is a new and demanding process for which most CSOs still lack the necessary capacity. Eventually CSOs should acquire sufficient capacity to participate in the trade negotiations on EPAs with their national and regional implications.
Content
Most ACP CSOs found this latter stage of trade policy / EPAs in fact the main goal of the whole participation process. Considering trade and general economic policy the most important subject on which CSO consultation was required, most ACP CSOs present perceived the whole participation process within the ACP-EU framework as a stepping stone towards reaching this goal.
Other subjects mentioned that needed
attention in advocacy-work were the issue of the debt burden,
conflict resolution and the advancement of education, health and
gender equality.
Thursday, 29
June 2000; 10:00 – 17: 30
The Agreement acknowledges the complementary
roles and contributions of State and non-State actors in the
development process. It contains innovative provisions with
regard to information, dialogue, consultation, involvement and
capacity building of non-State actors in the various areas of the
partnership. The fact that poverty reduction is considered a
central objective of co-operation and development strategies,
makes it essential to ensure the widest possible participation of
all sectors of society in order to provide the conditions for
greater equity and inclusion of the poor in the benefits of
economic growth.
Specific guidelines for all aspects of the
association of non-state actors to the partnership will be
incorporated in the “Compendium on co-operation
strategies”, and as regards programming in the
“Guidelines for programming under the 9th EDF”. This
approach will allow for as much flexibility as possible in this
area, in order firstly to learn from experience, and secondly to
be able to adapt to the evolutionary nature of “civil
society” and to the diversity of organisations and
representative bodies potentially concerned. The expectations
about this compendium are high, but it should be remembered that
the compendium is not meant to alter already agreed principles of
the new Convention.
Mechanisms of dialogue shouldn’t be
institutionalised. NGOs are non-governmental organisations, not
new-governmental organisations. CSOs should remain independent
and keep their freedom. CSOs can accelerate the political process
through participation. Government officials are responsible
however and have to decide in the end; CSOs are, in a natural
division of labour, the vitamins in the programming process.
In the area of consultation, distinction
should be made between:
·
consultation in respect of democratic principles (to be addressed
through the institutional procedures set out in the Agreement
i.e. through the political dialogue within the Council of
Ministers and the Joint Parliamentary Assembly); and
·
consultation within the framework of the country development
strategies, to be addressed through the review mechanism foreseen
in the programming process defined in the Agreement (Country
Support Strategies) and through reports of ACP representatives to
members of the ACP/EU Follow-up Committee.
Capacity building is certainly a key issue
in the ACP countries. ACP-EU co-operation must therefore
encourage and facilitate efforts of non-State actors at both
national and regional level in assessing their needs and
elaborating proposals for capacity building programmes. The aim
should be to help them develop their capacity to organise and
structure themselves as well as to develop specific competencies
in order to be able to analyse economic and social issues and to
participate in the dialogue on policy priorities and guidelines.
A step to consider is holding information
seminars, briefings, support for training, contacts with European
counterpart organisations, with a view to facilitating the
dialogue between non-state partners themselves and to encouraging
the dialogue between non-state actors and the government. This
process will be facilitated by the designation of a contact point
in each
EU delegation, which is responsible for the
relations with non-state actors including access to information,
technical advice and dialogue facilitation.
In response to questions from the floor, Mr.
Nielson denied that DG Development and the status of development
policies would be downscaled. The Commissioner admitted that some
staff from DG Development would indeed move to DG Trade, but he
considered this a positive adjustment since these people would
bring in their development orientation and make the general
attitude of DG Trade more development-friendly.
On criticism that DG Development was too
compliant towards the policies and strategies of the IMF and the
World Bank, Mr. Nielson argued that it was in fact the other way
round. IMF and World Bank are incorporating a lot of EU-positions
at present. “CSOs should update their enemy pictures!”
Mr.
Segaar presented some of the key-findings from the Desk Study on
“Experiences of Dialogue between Civil Society and National
Governments in The EU-ACP Partnership”, done by INZET in
1999. The study was carried out to identify some of the factors
that contributed to the success or failure of participation
processes in ACP countries. Mr. Segaar stressed the following
issues:
It is absolutely crucial that information is
available in-country, in the form of basic policy documents
(proposals and decisions), without the reliance on the goodwill
of colleagues in Europe or the ACP and EU institutions. There are
great differences between ACP regions and countries regarding the
level of expertise of CSOs and the attitudes of authorities (ACP
and EU) towards genuine CSO consultation.
EU Development NGOs should be encouraged in
getting involved in the participation process. After all, the
success of the projects they are supporting depends to some
extent on macro-policy making in the context of the ACP-EU
partnership, they have the experience on the ground and they have
the money to support their local partner-organisations in
engaging in the process of dialogue.
It is important to keep the ACP-EU
authorities to their word and make sure the participation of CSOs
in the programming process does become common practise. To this
end, a half-year participation monitoring-system on the basis of
certain benchmarks should be put in place. The outcomes of this
monitoring exercise could be used as a reminder, every time the
ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly comes together.
The Lomé framework is a helpful instrument
to get CSOs involved in dialogue with national governments,
primarily in a non-confrontational way and on non-confrontational
issues. As soon as the avenue of dialogue is there, you can start
talking about more general sensitive issues like governance, some
of which have no longer to do with the Cotonou Agreement alone.
The main issue to come is: trade-policy and
the EPA negotiations. CSOs should start doing research now, which
can feed into CSO positions during the trade negotiations later.
Chris Sinkler
The Lomé process presented an opportunity
for local CSOs to build partnerships with colleagues within the
region and to start dialogue with governments. This is different
from civil society projects of for example the World Bank, which
are more on an abstract and global policy level.
CPDC has been doing research, public
education, advocacy and networking within the Lomé framework,
but has now also extended this kind of work to a broader number
of subjects.
The Regional Focal Points of the ACP Civil
Society Forum may very well work with specialised organisations
and on subjects that have no immediate or exclusive relation to
the Lomé Framework, like environment and gender. These
organisations can feed the Regional Focal Points with their
specialised knowledge and experiences where the Regional Focal
Points can explain them where the Cotonou Convention is of
relevance to them.
MWENGO is a regional network that deals with
a broad range of issues. On each issue MWENGO has knowledgeable
NGOs co-operating with them. The ACP-EU framework is equally
broad. It is very useful as an advocacy network where one can
meet all kinds of ACP and EU officials, even on subjects that do
not directly concern Lomé as such. Besides ACP-EU matters, the
Lomé framework is an entry point for civil society participation
on issues concerning the Social Summit, Beijing, WTO, IMF et
cetera. We can not accept them entirely as good or reject them as
bad, but should study their consequences and opportunities
regarding jobs, income etc.
To start with, there is a need for
“Lomé for beginners” material, so as to encourage
those that are new on the subject.
And since there is a structure in place now,
we should focus on content more. Much research is needed. We
should develop clear indicators on the effects of certain
measures, especially in the trade area. We have to be more
pro-active: instead of reacting on certain proposed strategies,
we should be able to put forward a proposal of our own on what
should be in the new CSS, prior to entering into the
negotiations.
But there is a lack of human resources among
CSOs. If you want to make a real difference, you need to become a
true specialist. But if your staff is too small and the work load
too big, as is the case with many of us, you’ll never become
one.
Fortunately, there is a good working
relationship between certain ACP and EU CSOs. But, while it is
true that we feed into each others working programmes, they
remain separate programmes.
CSOs should own the dialogue process.
They should invite umbrella NGOs, line Ministries (not only the
Ministries of Economics and Finance), the National Authorising
Officer and the EU Delegation. Start with increasing basic
knowledge on the Cotonou Agreement (even government officials
often don’t have the necessary knowledge of the Agreement).
But to do this successfully it is essential to establish
credibility.
Another key factor to success is a
meaningful co-operation (established over time) between an ACP
and an EU CSO, pushing the same issue from both sides. An ACP CSO
should inform the Delegation and the ACP officials; a European
CSO should bring across the same message to the European
Commission. PCRC has successfully promoted government-CSO
dialogue in the Pacific, which resulted in strengthening CSO
consultation in the negotiations on the new Cotonou framework.
In order to join the trade negotiations, you
should be an expert and understand the consequences. Two years is
not enough to build that expertise, especially if you want to
support your views with some basic research. Development
Co-operation is here to stay, but only if we deal with it in a
meaningful way.
It’s not always easy to find a national
focal point that is capable of mobilising the CSO community and
does represent their views in an accountable way.
Besides, too much information on development
issues is kept classified, which makes it difficult to get
involved.
It is essential to start doing some basic
research into certain issues. After some time, governments will
realise that the CSO community has certain information that they
don’t have and that they have something to win in engaging
in dialogue with CSOs.
Social Watch is a global network of CSOs
monitoring and stimulating their governments to keep their
Copenhagen commitments. Each year revised indicators for
monitoring are being used. It’s a compendium of national
monitors and a vehicle for mobilisation at a national level. The
Annual Report of Social Watch presents a vehicle for mobilisation
at the international level. But it is not simply a project of
monitoring from outside alone: organisations are willing and able
to monitor activities in which they themselves are directly
involved as stakeholders. They will also translate their
experiences and findings into advocacy.
CSOs shouldn’t just try to hold
governments to what they agreed to. Sometimes it can even be
disastrous if governments live up to the letter of the Agreement.
CSOs should try to identify these matters that might be
detrimental to the national development process.
ACP countries should be empowered so that
they can negotiate a form of EPA that is beneficial to them. This
means:
1. Improvement of their national research
capacity.
2. Training/capacity building for ACP and
EU CSOs and ACP government officials and a better dialogue
between them. But be aware that training is not biased towards
certain policy alternatives only, favoured by IMF, World Bank
etc.
3. Advocacy at the national and
international level.
Discussion:
The co-operation (in terms of agenda setting
and projects in general) between ACP and EU NGOs should be
improved. The actions of both groups of organisations are too
much conditioned by their own institutional environment.
Fine-tuning is needed so that goals can be set jointly and one
group of organisations is not forced to jump on the moving train
of the other group.
As far as European NGDOs are concerned:
Southern CSOs get a lot of support from them, locally, on the
ground. However, headquarters of EU NGDOs should be sensitised
and be made more flexible to the needs of local organisations on
advocacy work.
Besides increasing the involvement of
Northern Development NGOs in general we should try to involve
more sections within those NGDOs. Involving desk officers and
local representatives who have expertise from direct partnerships
with ACP CSOs would help to provide such input, as we now deal
mainly with national platforms and policy officers at NGDO
headquarters who have less experience with what happens on the
ground.
Regional offices and field staff of European
NGDOs should, apart from their work in ACP-countries, be more
active in Europe as well. It’s difficult to change this
attitude however. Nevertheless, this was one of the reasons why
Eurostep got involved in the organisation of this workshop: to
get some of the Eurostep members to move in that direction. After
all, strategies should be changed at the policy level in Europe,
not just at the financing-level. And to be successful in that
respect, we need the experience from the ground.
On the EU level, there is a role for
northern CSOs to draw up recommendations and to do advocacy work,
directly with the European Commission and through national
governments, on how the Commission deals with CSP and NIP
drafting + implementation and the involvement of local and
regional ACP CSOs in these processes.
The Commission is quite eager to set up
structures for dialogue. CSOs could do some advocacy work on how
they should prepare the regional seminars and the national
programming. However, we should be careful in our approach: it is
probably better to push for certain structures than for exact
content.
CSOs should make sure that they are credible
when they engage in a process of policy dialogue with their
national authorities. It will backfire on us if we approach them
in an unstructured way. The best thing to do is to build on
existing structures like the ACP Civil Society Forum.
Until now we have worked too much on a
small-scale basis, with little projects that demand a big effort
to get them off the ground, generating little impact. It’s
important that the ACP Civil Society Forum and other ACP CSOs are
provided with more substantial financial resources; at present,
the time consuming process of survival is too much part of their
work on a day-to-day basis.
The whole process of getting CSOs involved in political dialogue is long and very vulnerable. The basic capacity at the national level is largely there: Churches, labour organisations, the private sector, universities, they just need to be mobilised, though differently in each country or region. But, there is also the risk of ’fake involvement’ used by governments as an alibi. At present, too much depends on the personal attitude and good will of the government official involved. This is the reason why the mechanisms of dialogue should be institutionalised.
We should try to be more pro-active in our
lobbying. We should take a close look at the ambiguities of the
trade-chapter (as was done in the “Africa Agenda”).
The compendium of texts that will be finalised in August 2000
should be seen as a tool. Since it will be reviewed every year,
it provides us with a good opportunity for monitoring and
advocacy.
We should try to agree on some sort of
minimum monitoring system: e.g. a half-year monitoring on very
basic questions / benchmarks for progress, alongside with a
similar exercise by the Joint Parliamentary Assembly. We have to
be careful not to set up a monitoring system that is too labour
intensive, however. ACP CSOs tend to have a rather limited
capacity that should be devoted to the actual work on the ground,
rather than to monitoring.
Euforic is an independent information
platform. To several CSOs it proved an important source of
information during the negotiations for a new ACP-EU Agreement.
Although Euforic promotes a multi-actor approach, until now 95%
of its contributors were from the north. Euforic will try to
encourage ACP CSOs to join the network too and bring them into
contact with appropriate partner-organisations in the EU. Euforic
might play a role in the monitoring-process, but its role still
needs to be defined.
Derk Segaar - INZET, 31 August, 2000
ANNEX 1
Dates of the regional seminars in autumn
2000, as know to the organisers late August
Eastern Africa (Mauritius):
19 to 21 September
Southern Africa (Swaziland or Botswana):
4 to 6 October (to be confirmed)
West Africa (Burkina Faso):
11 to 13 October
Pacific (Tonga):
24 to 26 October
Carribean (Domenican Republic):
6 to 8 November (to be confirmed).
Central Africa (Gabon):
27 to 29 November
AGENDA: Workshop on enhancing
civil society involvement in the implementation
of the new ACP-EU Agreement
BRIEFING MEETING
ON ACP-EU CO-OPERATION
Chair: Simon
Stocker (Eurostep)
Presentation of
objectives and purpose of the meeting - Simon Stocker
Brief presentation
on ACP-EU co-operation
- Presentation by
Gordon Deuchars (Liaison Committee of EU NGDOs)
Key features of the
new ACP-EU Agreement including provisions on:
§
Social development
§
Civil society participation
§
The process for the programming of aid
- Presentation by
Guggi Laryea (Eurostep)
Discussion on the role of social
development in European Community development policy and the
implications for social development of the ongoing review of EC
aid and the restructuring of the Commission’s external
services
– Presentation by Simon
Stocker
Thursday, 29
June 2000; 10:00 – 11: 45 AM
Chair: Greetje
Lubbi (Novib)
Presentation of objectives and purpose of
the meeting - Greetje Lubbi
- Presentation by
Poul Nielson (European Commissioner for Development and
Humanitarian Aid)
-
Presentation by Derk Segaar (INZET)
Presentations by
Muthoni Muriu (ENDA -West Africa), Fei Tevi (PCRC* -
Pacific), Nancy Kachingwe (MWENGO - Southern Africa),
Oduor Ongwen, (ECONEWS - East Africa), Chris Sinkler (CPDC
- Caribbean)
14: 00 –
17: 30 PM
- Presentation by
Tetteh Hormeku (Third World Network)
§
The establishment of a civil society monitoring group for the
monitoring of the implementation of the new Agreement at the
national level;
§
The identification of ACP countries for the monitoring exercise;
§
The role of EU civil society organisations in the monitoring
exercise
§
The identification of common indicators and goals that may be
used in monitoring
§
The potential role of tools and for web-based discussions and
communication such as EUFORIC, Lomé Talk and the Social Watch
website.
The meeting will draw conclusions on the discussion on the development of mechanisms that allow civil society to better engage in and monitor, at the national level, the ACP-EU Agreements efforts to achieve social development. This discussion will draw from the reports of experiences of civil society participation provided in previous presentations.
* Currently works
with The World Council of Churches.
Updated on 6 October 2000
Please address comments to [email protected]
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