European Multi-stakeholder group on Development Education

This page offers wide information on the ongoing process linked to the European Multi-stakeholder group on development Education's activities

EDDs 2009: European Citizens as Catalysts for Change"

Step by step, the MSH process in 2008

News from the Launch on November 9 2007, EU Development Days, Lisbon

How does it contribute to the European Consensus on Development?

What does the DE/AR strategy framework offer?

Who is involved

What is next? next step to implement...

Background to the process

Further information and contact

European Citizens as Catalysts for Change

Stockholm, Sweden, October 23 2009

In the frame of the European Development Days 2009, hosted by Sweden in October 2009, the European Multi-stakeholder Group on Development Education organised the side event "European Citizens as Catalysts for Change".

High profile speakers, such as Justin Kilcullen (President of CONCORD), Denis Huber (Executive Director of the North- South Centre of the Council of Europe), Koos Richelle (Director General EuropeAid, European Commission), Margot Wallstrom (EC Commissioner), Eva Joly (MEP, Chair of teh Committee on Development of the European Parliament), Benjamin Mkapa (former President of Tanzania) and many more, debated on the role of citizens for the eradtication of global poverty.

"Citizens should be at the heart of the global poverty debate, as they are the ones to ask for change and be the change. However, they need to be empowered to fulfil their democratic potential as change actors. Development education, moving form awareness on global challenges, through understanding of causes and consequences of global inter-dependencies to informed action and critical involvement of each citizen is the tool to empower citizens to be “catalysts of change”.

All speakers made strong statements on the importance of development education. So emphasised Justin Kilcullen, CONCORD president, the central role of citizen’s engagement and development education in the new CONCORD strategy. Eva Joly, MEP and Chair of the European Parliament (EP) Development Committee, committed to support a EP report on the status of Development Education in Europe.

Another aspect explored during the talk show was the need for national strategies on Development Education, still missing in many EU member states. Manuel Correio highlighted the example of Portugal, that has recently endorsed the national strategy, and underlined that political advocacy and campaigning is explicitly included in the strategy as a four pillar, taking development education beyond a purely pedagogic agenda. This strategy was elaborated in an inclusive, multi stakeholder approach, an aspect also underlined by involved other speakers. As Anja Frings put it: “Change can only be achieved if we work together”.

Step by step, the MSH process in 2008

March 2008, the European Parliament resolution “Challenges of European Development Policy in the New Member States”.

Some months after the unveiling of the Consensus by Commissioner Louis Michel, the document gained important political recognition by the European Parliament. In March 2008 the plenary adopted a resolution on “the challenge of European Development Policy in the New Member States”, based on a report by the Lithuanian MEP Danute Budreikaite. The text refers in large parts to the importance of development education and awareness raising and “welcomes the European Consensus on Development: The contribution of Development Education and Awareness raising and stresses that Parliament has an important role to play in highlighting the actual and potential role of development education and awareness in both formal and informal education in the new Member states”. Furthermore, the text recommends to the European Parliament to initiate a dedicated report on DE in Europe.

May 2008: the translation of the Consensus

The European Commission translated in all EU languages the DE Consensus, and made it available on its webiste

June 2008: the Ljubljana Conference

The participants of the Conference “Intercultural dialogue in DE ” held in Ljubljana made a clear recommendation to continue the work on European coordination in development education through the constitution of a new multi-stakeholder steering group. At the constitutive meeting of this new group in October 2008, hosted by the Belgium Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rilli Lappalainen (CONCORD) and Sergio Guimaraes (Portugese MFA) have been named co-chairs of the multi-stakeholder group, who has been joined by a broader range of institutional stake-holders and non state actors, among which political foundations, trade unions and research institutes. The group will focus on the monitoring national DE strategies, establishing criteria for DE quality and effectiveness, elaborating a multi-stakeholder position on the evolution of the EC NSA-LA funding line.

As its predecessor, the group is composed of the major DE actors in Europe (GENE, CONCORD DEF, the North South Center, the European Commission…).

November 2008, the European Development Days

The third edition of the European Development Days took place in Strasbourg in November 2008. The Multi stakeholder group was present with a stand “DE in Europe” and a side event on the role of local authorities and the implementation of the DE Consensus.

Launch of the DE Consensus

Lisbon, Portugal, November 9, 2007

The European Consensus on Development the Contribution of Development Education and Awareness Raising was unveiled at the EU Development Days, by Louis Michel, EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid on November 9 2007. Commissioner Michel announced that this "Consensus on development education is as important as the European Consensus on development. Young people are unaware of poor people suffering. Raising awareness amongst young people is a day to day effort. Development education is a long term process to prepare young people for the debates of tomorrow".

This joint statement provides the first strategy framework on European development education and awareness raising at local, regional, national and European levels. It is offered as a contribution to the implementation of the European Consensus on Development (2005), with particular reference to the declaration that "...the EU will pay particular attention to development education and raising awareness among EU citizens" (Part I, section 4.3, paragraph 18).

It has been drawn up by the representatives from the current, past and future EU Presidencies; other Member States Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Development, the European Institutions, local authorities and municipalities, NGOs, Youth organisations, The Global Education Network Europe (GENE), the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe and the OECD.

Rilli Lappalainen, Chair of the CONCORD Development Education Forum, explained that this strategy framework has been elaborated with the contributions from the stake-holders of the civil society, Members of the European Parliment, national governments and the European Institutions. "A lot of development Education activities already exist, but each running separately. This strategy is a tool to encourage cross cutting activities", added Rilli Lappalainen who co-chaired the process.

"This strategy is the beginning of future actions. Annexes will provide details for each stake-holder's group on how to implement the strategy's principles and policy. In one year, we will assess what has been done. A reference manual of best practices and lessons learned will complement the framework", said Anita Reddy, co-chair of the process, from InWent (Capacity Building International, Germany).

How does it contribute to the European Consensus on Development?

The European Consensus recognizes the importance of development education and awareness raising among EU citizens in addressing such concerns and commitments, and that there should be particular attention given to it. This European Development and Awareness Raising Strategy contributes to the European Consensus on Development by:

enabling people to be aware of and understand global development concerns.
enabling people to enact their rights and responsibilities as inhabitants of a changing and interdependent world in their own localities.

Just as the European Consensus has set out some common objectives and principles of bst practice for development cooperation, this strategy framework has similarly laid out shared principles and objectives to meet the development challenges for the 21st century. This includes developing economic, political, social and cultural relations that meet these global challenges, as well as maintaining sustainable environments and addressing the issue of climate change.

What does the DE/AR strategy framework offers?

It provides a framework for the development of strategy at local, regional, national and European level that seeks to address the challenges and opportunities for public awareness raising and education for development, It also complements and strengthens, and not replace existing national and European initiatives to create increased public awareness, interest and involvement in development.

It includes a number of significant policy recommendations towards the Member State governments, European Commission, European Parliament, media and civil society actors, in particular that there should be support:

to creat emore dialogue between European, state, media and civil society actors who are, or who could be, engaged in pronoting development awareness and education,
for stronger mutual support in learning to improve existing practice and in developing new ventures,
to encourage cross European programmes and activities, including between different and new actors in Development Education, Awareness Raising and development cooperation,
to highlight the relevance of global development to European, national, local and public concerns,
to improve practice and impact.

Who is involved

This statement has been the result of joint work of staff and representatives of a wide range of institutions and organisations with an interest in international development and in development education and awareness raising, including from:

The Multi-stakeholder group is co-chaired by:

Rilli Lappalainen, KEHYS, and CONCORD Board Member
Sergio Guimaraes, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Portugal

This is not and exclusive group, and other stakeholder group snot represented are invited to join the Steering Group (e.g. The media, Ministries of education, Justice, etc..).

The Multi-stakeholder Plenary

The wider plenary group contains all the people who have been involved so far in the multi-stakeholder process, and they will be kept regularly informed of progress, and will be invited to also sign on to the final document as individuals/organisations.

Facilitators/Secretariat support

DEEEP is guaranting Secretariat support to both the multi-stakeholder process, and its steering group.

Background to the process

The importance of development education/awareness raising (DE/AR) within Europe to ensure greater public understanding of development issues, has been increasingly politically recognized. political commitments to promoting DE/AR in Europe include the EU Council of Development Ministers Resolution on development Education (2001), the Maastricht Declaration (2002), the Palermo process (2003), the Brussels Conference on DE/AR for North-South Solidarity (2005), the European Consensus on Development (2005), the Helsinki Conference on Development Education (July 2006), the 18 months (2007-08) programme on development policy of the EU Presidencies of Germany, Portugal and Slovenia.

Most recently, at the Helsinki Conference (July 2006) organised by the Finnish NGDO Platform to the EU in cooperation with CONCORD and with support of the Finish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the European Commission, the need for a specific long term European strategy framework and vision for development education, common at both national and EU levels were reaffirmed. So too was the principle that sucha framework should only be developed though a multi-actor proces to make best use of the shared expertise and experiences. in the Multi-stakeholder plenary meeting (16/11/2006) it was agreed that a balanced steering Group accross the stakholders sectors would be formed to work more in-depth on this issue. Through 2007, the european Development Education Multistakeholder group, facilitade by the Development in Europe Exchange in Europe Project (DEEEP), worked to develop te strategy framework, and succesfully unveiled it at the EU Development Days in Lisbon, on NOvember 9, 2007.

Timeline of the process so far

9 November 2007: final unveiling of joint statement, EU Development Days, Lisbon, Portugal

21 September 2007: third multi-stakeholder steering group meeting, European Commission, Brussels, Belgium

Conclusions: discussion and agreement on final principles and policy recommendations. Sign off.

June 2007: DEEEP and InWent hire Harm-Jan Fricke, external consultant

22 may 2007: Second Multi-stakeholder Steering Group Meeting, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Luxembourg

Conclusions: hire an external consultant to write first draft of "The European Consensus on Development: the contribution of development education and awareness raising", based on inputs from all stakeholders.

22 February 2007: First Multi-stakeholder Steering Group Meeting

Conclusions: draft action proposals and plan

16 November 2006: "European Development Education Multi-stakeholder Task-force Meeting", organised by the Finnish Ministry of foreign Affairs and CONCORD DE Forum

Conclusions: it was agreed that a representative steering group across the stakeholder groups would be formed, and would be given the mandate to develop proposals to take the European Strategy Framework forward

3-4 July 2006: Conference on European development Education, Helsinki, Finland. The Conference was organised by the Finnish NGDO Platform to the EU in cooperation with CONCORD and with the support of the Finnish Ministry of foreign Affairs, as well as of the European Commission.

Conclusions: the need for a specific long term European Strategy framework for development eduction, common at both national and EU levels, was reaffirmed. It should be developed through a multi-actor process.

Helsinki DE Conference conclusions (wit annexes, the programmes, the presentations and the list of participants).

Final report of the DE Conference

March 2006: European Commission DG DEV/ CONCORD joint meeting on how to proceed with the DE Strategy.

Conclusions: decision to set up a multi-stakeholder group involving European institutions, committee of regions, council of European municipalities and regions, EU Member states, North-South Centre, OECD and CONCORD.

19 May 2006: Brussels European Conference on DE/AR for North-South Solidarity- Jointly organised by the Belgian development co-operation DG and the European Commission.

Conclusions: comprehensive and coherent DE/AR strategies should be designed, or if already existing, renewed and strengthened, at both local and European level, in an inclusive fashion with key stakeholders.

Download the full report

Further information and contact

If your interested in getting involved in this multistakeholder process, please contact

Tobias Troll

Advocacy Officer

DEEEP- Deelopment Education exchnage in Europe Project

10 square Ambiorix 1000 Brussels

Tel: +32 2 743 8788 Fax: +32 2 215 1870

t.troll[at]no-spam.deeep.org

DEEEP is currently offering the Secretariat support for the multi-stakholder taskforce and process.