Welcome to the homepage for the MRG programme:
Promoting Development in Europe: Towards a Critical Mass and Beyond
International development assistance aims to ensure that poorer people have access to a decent standard of living, good education and adequate healthcare. In addition to being development goals these are also human rights. Human rights based approaches to development are conceptual frameworks and methodological tools that emphasise the importance of ensuring the reflection of human rights in development policies and practices in order to make these policies and practices more effective and sustainable. The human rights based approaches are rooted in the standards and principles of the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other legally binding human rights conventions. The European Union is the largest provider of development assistance.
The EU committed itself to provide 0.7 % of its gross national income (GNI) to official development assistance (ODA) by 2015. By virtue of being members of the EU, the countries that joined after 2004 have taken on this and other commitments contributing to international development. However, many people are unaware of the problems faced by poorer countries in other parts of the world, therefore public support in the new member states for development assistance to Africa and Asia remains limited. Improved public understanding of development issues is needed in order to build public support for government spending in this area and to be able to hold the EU and its member states to account on their performance in relation to their commitments and targets. Therefore, development education is indispensable if we are to see real action in development.
Minority Rights Group's development education programme "Promoting Development in Europe: Towards a Critical Mass and Beyond" was a two-year programme started in 2008 to increase public support in the new EU member states for their governments' international development assistance by raising public awareness of development issues in the South and by promoting the adoption of rights based approaches to development. The project was implemented through local national partners in Hungary, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia and supported by contributions from MRGs partners in Africa.
Objectives
The specific objective of the project was to build the capacity of development NGOs and other stakeholders such as media representatives, teacher training institutes, teacher associations, social science, history or geography teachers, communication departments, coordinators of youth groups or grassroots organisations who have an interest in or link with development issues in the new EU member states in order to:
- Raise public awareness in their countries about development issues in developing countries and the benefit of adopting rights-based approaches to tackle these issues.
- Incorporate and/or campaign for the implementation of rights-based approaches in development work.
Activities
The first activity carried out within the framework of this project was a 3-day capacity building workshop for NGOs held in Budapest in April 2008 in conjunction with a one-day seminar for media practitioners on the fourth day. The workshop addressed the need to increase greater knowledge amongst development NGOs in the new member states of the substance and practical implications of the rights-based approaches to development. It also aimed to increase the skills and ability of the NGOs to engage in effective public awareness raising activities. Participating media practitioners were acquainted with development issues in the countries in the South and also the role and responsibilities of the European Union and its member states towards international development. The aim of the media seminar was to raise interest within the media to cover these issues adequately, thus contributing to the promotion of the national and EU development policies amongst the general public. Project partners from the South participated in this event in an expert capacity, providing first-hand accounts of development issues affecting their communities and discussing how these can be alleviated with the application of rights-based approaches.
Following the completion of the workshop, the participants were invited to submit proposals for follow-up in-country campaigns . As a result, eight one-year long in-country campaigns were implemented in Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Latvia and Malta in 2008 and in 2009.
The strengthened capacity of development NGOs in the new member states and the sustainability of the project are ensured by a toolkit for NGOs on HRBA to development and development education. To facilitate maximum dissemination, the toolkit is web based, and in addition to the English language version, it will be translated into the languages of 5 new member states.
After the in-country development awareness campaigns are completed, a concluding conference will be held on 19-20 November 2009, in Budapest, Hungary to bring together representatives of target groups and all project partners and to share the lessons learned and best practices, assess project outcomes and plan future action.