On participatory democracy in Eastern Europe

On September 29th and 30th, 2020, a conference was held respectively in Moldova and in Ukraine under the joint partnership of ALDA, the Kettering Foundation and KAS — Konrad Adenauer Stiftung on the topic of «Empowering local authorities and civil society to deliver solutions with participative democracy: implementation in Moldova and Ukraine».

Both online events saw the participation of ALDA Secretary General, Antonella Valmorbida and of Eastern Partnership Coordinator, Alexandru Coica and his colleague Viorica Bulat, as well as of the delegates of the local LDAs and of a selected number of key stakeholders involved in the research project behind the matter at discussion.

«It was a small project, but with great results […] and we invite you to make such projects again in the future» commented the Mayor of Cimislia (Moldova), Mr Sergiu Andronachi; «The report aptly shows the current situation, it is well-prepared and well thought out and we are waiting to have Ms. Antonella as a guest again«. The representative of the Comrat Town Hall, Ms. Irina Cara took the occasion to congratulate the work as well: «Thank you for this project: it was a wonderful workshop in Comrat, we received a lot of information«.

The Deputy of the Dnipro City Council, Mr Artiom Pavlov, similarly expressed his enthusiasm, highlighting that the cooperation with ALDA is extremely important for the Dnipropetrovosk region and remarking that «We appreciate this fruitful cooperation and hope to demonstrate a closer approximation of the local government in Ukraine to the high European standards in the nearest future«.

An eventful ALDA Assembly: statutory changes and relevant decisions, keynote speakers and the election of a new Governing Board

The afternoon was fully aimed at celebrating the 20 years of ALDA, through the launch of the recent Activity Report, the new Strategic Views 2020-2024 and the presentation of ALDA’s flagship initiatives, introduced by Antonella Valmorbida, ALDA Secretary General, with the interventions of the following keynote speakers:

— Mr Paolo Ciccarelli, Head of the European Commission’s DG DEVCO, intervened on the “European Support to Local Democracy”

— Mr Oriano Otočan, ALDA President, presented the “Balkan network for Local Democracy”

— Mr Denis Schrey, Head of the Multinational Development Policy Dialogue of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, for the “Local Democracy solving Local problems”, a very recent output of the project “Empowering Local Authorities & Civil Society to Deliver Solutions with Participatory Democracy”.

Keeping our tradition, the annual General Assembly ended with the presentation of the new members of ALDA, cheered with an ad-hoc “ALDA-member” certificate, which will be sent to each of them as welcome gift and acknowledgement of their presence in the wide network of ALDA!