NGOs from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, Romania and other EU member states active in the Black Sea Region are invited to participate to the Forum “TIME TO MEET” organized by the Federation of the Romanian Development Nongovernmental Organizations (FOND Romania) in Bucharest on October 30 – November 2, 2008. The partner organizations of the event are the Civil Society Development Foundation (FDSC) Romania, World Vision Romania, ADO SAH ROM, CONTACT Center Moldova, VOICE Russia and the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, TRIALOG. The event is organized with the support of the the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UNDP Romania and the Black Sea Trust.
The Forum aims to increase the number and quality of regional partnerships and projects to create a pool of concrete projects and to propose concrete recommendations for regional NGOs and donors. The programme will include:
- Presentations of the state of affairs of regional policies and programmes for NGOs in the region and donors’ presentations on programmes and financial support for civil society initiatives in the Black Sea area;
- Partnerships and projects’ fair;
- Three panels focused on a cross-cutting issue “Challenges and opportunities for NGO cooperation in the Black Sea area”, within three panels with presentations of the state of affairs in three broad fields:
- Social Justice and Human Rights;
- Democratization, Civil Rights and Good Governance;
- Environment. The presentations in each of the panels will try to provide answers to the following questions:
- What are the needs, challenges and expertise of NGOs in the region?
- What are the main obstacles that affect projects of NGO regional cooperation?
- What are the solutions that have yielded positive results so far?
- What are the lessons learnt that can contribute to the success of regional NGO projects?
- What is the donor perspective? What is the NGO perspective?
By using the open space methodology, enough time for work in working groups and networking will be secured, to identify commonalities and joint projects. Over 100 participants will come together to exchange experiences, to find partners for their project ideas and to elaborate project concepts in the field of social justice, human rights, democratization and good governance, sustainable development. A portfolio of concept proposals will be presented to the donors in the region.