Civil Society Organisations challenge public authorities: from political commitment to active dialogue

Following the success of the Congress of Ljubljana, the European Movement International (EMI), in cooperation with the Third Sector Foundation of Türkiye (TUSEV), will organise a second congress on civil society dialogue in candidate and potential candidate countries.
The congress on the theme “CSOs challenge public authorities: From political commitment to active dialogue” will take place in Istanbul on 11th -12th of February 2011.

Mrs Antonella Valmorbida, director of ALDA, and as Chair of the Committee on Civil Society and Democracy of the Conference of the INGOs of the Council of Europe, will participate at the Congress, and will present the Code of Good Practices for Civil Participation in the Decision Making Process (http://www.coe.int/T/NGO/code_good_prac_en.asp).
The aim of this Congress will be to examine how the triangle – civil society development, European perspective, and national reforms – can be made to work more effectively. The emphasis will be on
comparing experiences from candidate countries in 6 corresponding workshops.

The Istanbul Congress is a follow-up to the Ljubljana Congress of 16-18 April 2009 which produced a political challenge chart. It was decided on that occasion that the next event involving civil society activities, representatives of the European Institutions and national politicians and civil servants from the candidate countries should be held in Türkiye.
It is expected that there will be some 300 participants from the host country, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina Montenegro, Kosovo and Albania.
The Congress in Istanbul will intend to determine the most effective means of ensuring a conducive framework and environment to the sustainable development of CSOs in candidate and potential candidate countries.
The conference will bring together Civil Society Organisations from Candidates Countries,
Members from National Governments and Parliaments and European institutions’ representatives.
“ALDA is very much involved in the dissemination and the promotion of the Code as an instrument to strengthen the dialogue and cooperation between local authorities and civil society”. Stated Mrs Valmorbida.
“The instrument has been widely used by the ALDA network and the LDAs in 2010 and will be also assessed in 2011. A call for proposal engaged many municipalities and partner which adopted the methodologies indicated in the Code for enhancing the fruitful problem solving engaging multilayers approach in the community“