House of Europe Activity Update

Photo competition

 
In mid-June House of Europe and Lithuanian NGDO Platform launched a national photo competition The World as You See It to foster interest and raise awareness of Lithuanian citizens about developing countries. Professional and amateur photographers, travelers and volunteers can take part in the competition. The participants are requested to submit photos reflecting the life of citizens in developing countries along with a short story on relevant development aspects grasped in their pictures. The theme of the competition includes human rights, security, peace and conflicts, migration, equal rights of men and women, civil society, education, food security, clean and healthy environment, climate change, urbanisation, working and living conditions. 

The evaluation commission comprised of development cooperation experts, journalists and photographers will select the winner, who will be awarded the main prize – a trip to a developing country in Asia or Africa. The winners will be publicly awarded and their photos will be exhibited in Lithuanian cities and towns this autumn.

The informational partner of the competition is the second largest news portal in Lithuania – 15 min (www.15min.lt). In cooperation with them the news about photo competition is being publisized for the general public. Additionally invitations were widely disseminated to relevant organisations.

Article competition

In mid-July House of Europe in cooperation with Media4Change and Lithuanian NGDO Platform launched a national article competition to give development issues a wider visibility and to promote interest of professional journalists, students and amateur writers. Multimedia approach is encouraged there. The theme of the competition includes the same topics as those of the photo competition.

The evaluation commission comprised of development experts and journalists will select the winner, who will be awarded the a trip to a developing country in Asia or Africa. The winners will be publicly awarded and their articles will be publicized.

Cooperation with national media

Partnership agreements were signed with major national media companies, in particular the second largest news portal 15 min, dailies Lietuvos žinios and Verslo žinios to cooperate in raising public awareness on topical development issues. Also, agreement with Lithuanian TV and Radio company has been developed to produce video and audio documentaries on topical development issues. Meetings with journalists were held to introduce the project, familiarize them with the code of conduct on images and texts as well as identify their interestsand needs related to developing countries.

Public discussion on elections in Africa

On the occasion of International Day of Africa, African Research and Consulting Centre “Afri | Ko“ together with House of Europe and Lithuanian NGDO Platform held the international discussion 2015 Elections in Africa. Hopes and reality. This year many elections are taking place in different countries of Africa: Nigeria, Ethiopia, Burundi, Egypt, Sudan and Ivory Coast, to name just a few. However, not all of the elections are expected to bring positive changes – there are countries with little hope for change.The discussions in Vilnius revolved aroundthe following topics: whether these elections aredemocratic, do they bring real changes as well as why there is often the post-election wave of violence.  The discussions were led the foreign and Lithuanian speakers: University of Oxford doctoral student Daniel E. Agbiboa, University of Copenhagen Professor Amanda J. Hammar, the lecturer of Vilnius University Centre of Oriental Studies Dr. Giedre Šabasevičiūtė, and RūtaAvulyte, election observer in a number of African countries, former UN officer.

Riga Conference

11-12 June, Lithuanian delegation consisting of journalist, government, NGO and business representatives participated in the Riga International Roundtable on Financing for Development: Role of EU Member States. Mr Gediminas Danisas from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mr Rimantas Žylius, managing director of Norway Registers Development AS, ex-minister of economics, were speakers at round table discussions. A briefing on the Riga discussions was included in the e-bulletin.

E-bulletin

A global agreement on financing for development cooperation will be reached this year and it will replace the Millennium Development Goals. On this occasion House of Europe and Lithuanian NGDO Platform developed a newsletter, which included the overviews on international negotiations on Financing for Development (FFD), latest information and data on Lithuania’s Official Development Assistance, innovative methods of FFD, benefits of Lithuania’s membership in OECD and the discussion of importance of international tax system. The newsletter was sent out to almost 400 subscribers: politicians, officials and civil servants,academics, journalists, NGOs and other stakeholders.   

Helsinki seminar

At the end of April, four Lithuanian journalists together with their colleagues from other countries deepened their knowledge about development affairs in an intensive seminar in Helsinki. The seminar, organized by the Finnish partner VIKES, was a great success with the participants not only because of its interesting presentations, discussions and workshops, but also because of its good organization and atmosphere. The seminar inspired some of the Lithuanian journalists to share their stories with their audiences: two radio programs featuring interviews with the seminar’s lecturers were broadcast on the Lithuanian national radio and one interview published in the daily Lietuvos Zinios.

 

Tallinn seminar

In March, two representatives of the National Lithuanian Television took part in a seminar dedicated to creation of documentaries. The participants discussed various forms and modes of documentary films that could be made after visiting developing countries. They also agreed to share their ideas for the films as well as the final products for distribution in their respective countries.

EC Inception Seminar

At the end of April,a representative of House of Europe participated in the Inception Seminar, organized by European Commission. The event was aimed to discuss challenges and ideas for managing relatively large projects (like DEAR), involving multiple partners and multiple implementation locations, and to identify learning points and good practice principles from that discussion. Participants were also informed of EC financial and activity/results reporting requirements, as well as improved visibility of the EU standards and communication on the EYD 2015.Seminar was a great learning and networking possibility, which helped to establish and strengthen international partnerships.

Social Media

Several channels were used to increase the visibility of the project: all information, including the profiles of the participants – the journalists – can be found on NGDO platform website: http://www.pagalba.org/lt/media_4_development.

In addition: three Facebook pages are used for the communication on social media:

https://www.facebook.com/NGDOPlatform.LT?fref=ts (in Lithuanian)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/93706358359/ (the public group in Lithuanian)
https://www.facebook.com/pagalba.org?fref=ts (in English)

#M4Dproject hashtag can help to track the information flow about the project on Facebook.

PMVRO Activity Update

Monthly themes
We have been continuing in publishing stories/articles by our member organizations that reflect the EYD 2015 monthly themes.
May: Peace and Security
The May story brings an authentic view on the life of people living in Slavjansk, Ukraine who were affected by war conflict.

Imprisoned in their own houses

June: Sustainable Growth, Decent Jobs and Business
This article on decent work gives possibility to a few of real sewers and embroiderers from Salvador to tell their experience with working in the textile and clothing sectors. They work long hours without regulars contracts and get low wages that hardly cover needs of their families. Their attempt to join the organization that provides the legal, social and health assistance and consulting resulted in losing jobs.

Decent job: paradigm of development

Sweet Taxes Bring Poor Life
The Slovak weekly Katolicke noviny publishes in its 25th issue an article Sweet Taxes Bring Poor Life. It tells a story of Caroline from Zambia, a small businesswoman, who pays more taxes then a big company whose products she sells. The article explains how multinational companies avoid paying taxes in countries where they operate and how states like Zambia misses taxes to being able to support education and health care of their inhabitants. Circulation of the weekly is 80 000 and is available also online.

Bulletin 3/2015: From Addis Ababa to New York
The 3rd issue of the bulletin on development cooperation was called From Addis Ababa to New York. It summarises activities accomplished under EYD 2015, introduces 2015 as the year of three important summits, highlights the July conference in Addis Ababa, analyzes possible sources for sustainable development, explains how lost taxes unable less developed countries to increase domestic resource mobilization, brings a case study on the tax avoidance of a multinational corporation in Ghana and explains that EU contributes to problems that make people from developing countries leave their homes and become migrants.  Ambassador František Ružička, Permanent Representative of Slovakia to the UN takes a think on what is needed that the envisaged “future we want” come true.

Photo/story competition launched in Slovakia
The photo/story competition Decent life for all was launched in Slovakia on July 1, 2015. It can be joined by professional photographers or journalists by submitting a photo or an article/a story that was created during/on the basis of the visit of a country that is eligible to receive official development assistance (ODA), in interaction with people from these countries and in case of written entries on base study of available information. The competition gives the competitors an opportunity to enhance public understanding of development issues and to promote achievements made in the field of the development cooperation. Submissions will be accepted until September 20, 2015.
The author of the best story/article will be awarded by grant of 1 500 EUR from the M4D project budget for making a trip to a country with lower income and getting inspired  to write new interesting articles/stories. The author of the best photo will receive a 550 € air ticket from the travel agency TUCAN. Prices for another four winners were donated by: the travel agency TUCAN, the civic association Človek v ohrození (free tickets to the film festival One World), traveller’s festival Cestou necestou (free tickets), the company Ten Senses s.r.o. (fair trade coffee), civic association CEEV Živica (relaxation stays), the company CeWeColor -FOTOLAB (free service vouchers), the SlovakAid (set of gifts) and the Representation of EC in Slovakia (set of gifts).

Good news – SlovakAid to co-finance the Media4Development project
We are happy to inform that the Slovak Agency for International Development Cooperation approved our project proposal to co-finance the ERR2015:Media4Develpment project from the budget of the Slovak ODA SlovakAid.

Participation in the informal Media briefing: Tax evasion - why Europe does not play fair?
Informal breakfast meeting with journalists organised by PMVRO was held on 17th June where the invitation to the photo and story/article competition was presented. The meeting was an excellent occasion to have an informal talk with media representatives and to build the relationship with the media community.

Preparation phase of the Development Day 2015
The communication has started with SlovakAid about collaboration and the support of the event where the winners of the photo and story/article competition will be awarded. The event will be held on 14th October in the premises of the Old Market Hall in Bratislava.  We have started a communication with guests and participants and started a preparation of the concept of the event.

Preparation of the brochure Aidwatch report 2014
A short quantitative and qualitative evaluation report of the Slovak official development cooperation of the past year has being prepared by PMVRO. The brochure will be sent along with the Bulletin 3/2015 to the decision makers and media representatives.

BAAG in June and July

Half a year gone already!  Here is a short update on how the BAAG team have been contributing to the M4D programme in the last 6 weeks.

Our main activity was the first of our National Policy Maker Roundtables.  The theme of this was development in fragile states, using Afghanistan as a case study - and how the development sector can better communicate these complicated programmes to the public.  Public support of overseas development is important, but perceptions of the importance of this, and the ways in which aid is delivered can be negative.  This is particularly true for state-building activities in conflict-affected or fragile states - compared to, for example, a natural disaster such as the recent Nepal earthquake.  
Our Round Table posed 2 questions: 
How is the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States (the New Deal) shaping aid in Afghanistan, with what impact? And how might the New Deal shape public support for ODA in the UK?

19 policy-makers and development experts attended the half-day discussion on 9th June, which was co-hosted by Chatham House.  The breakdown of participants was as follows:

• 4 civil servants

• 1 Member of Parliament

• 2 media experts/journalists

• 2 private sector professionals working in Afghanistan

• 3 NGO staff working on Afghanistan

• 6 think tank researchers/analysts 

• 1 academic 

The report of the event is being finalised as I write and we intend to share it with British and Irish policy-makers, the NGO sector and our M4D partners within the month. 

One of the think tank attendees, Bill Byrd, used the content of our National Round Table to shape his presentation and discussions at the International Round Table in Riga two days later.   

Our other activity has been the development of our photo-journalism contest.  In further consultations last month, we have agreed that the contest will be for experienced journalists and photographers who will work in partnership to produce a piece of original development journalism in Afghanistan.  
A dedicated competition webpage is being developed, through which entrants will submit their proposals and examples of their work for the judges consideration.  A media partner, who will publish the winner's work, is being sought - this is likely to be a British or international online media outlet, providing a large public readership. 
BAAG hope to launch the competition in late July or early August, for a period of 6-8 weeks.

Finally, an activity we undertook back in April 2015 is about to bear fruit.  BAAG is a member of BOND, the network of over 440 organisations working in or supporting international development.  Their Conflict and Humanitarian thematic group worked with various NGO country-specific networks (including BAAG) to produce a briefing pack on the state of the world's humanitarian crises for the new influx of British MPs (post our May general election).  BAAG provided this paper which has been incorporated into the pack of around 12 different country contexts.  This week we heard that BOND will be sending the pack in the week starting 20th July to 50 MPs (those who hold Minister/Shadow Minister roles in relevant ministries or committees, chair/sit on those committees or who are foreign affairs spokespeople).  BOND are also planning a media campaign to highlight these emergencies and BAAG will participate in that. 

Mondo M4D Activity Update

Mondo has been quite busy during the last months! We have been planning the EYD public awareness campaign, taken part of public events and had several meetings with policy makers. But let's start from the beginning.

• During the first days of May we chose an advertising company to be our partner for the EYD public awareness campaign. All the ideas that three different companies presented were very good, but after long discussions we decided the best bid was presented by a company called Vatson.
  So now for two months we have been busy with planning and reviewing poster drafts. The campaign will show concrete samples of work that has been done in development cooperation or what people themselves can do. On the campaign website we will also introduce wider background and talk about the development aid given by the EU.
  The campaign outdoor and web posters will be public during August. Then we can also post pictures of the campaign!
  The outdoor posters will focus on four main topics: 
• Women's income and financial independence 
• Education
• Hygiene and open defecation
• Responsible and ethical consuming

• In May we also finalised our EYD stickers and bracelets. The bracelets were made in Kenya by two women's groups: ladies of Ikoli and Riziki living in Shianda village. The bracelets are in the colours of the EYD motto and have an ecologically printed tag that explains who made them and why.

• 

  EYD bracelets and stickers.

• In May we also took part of two big public events on the main event square (Vabaduse väljak) in Tallinn. 

• The first event was European Day (9.05) that had very very many visitors and was also attended by the prime minister. Most of the organisations represented were embassies of different European countries and international schools or education programs. As the crowd was big, we managed to reach much more people than we had expected. We had a EYD-thematic ruffle/quiz where everyone could roll a wheel and then would be asked a question concerning development cooperation. The questions were divided into two groups: easier questions for kids and a bit more difficult for grown-ups. 

EYD thematic ruffle/quiz wheel and roll-up banner at European Day.

We also had a chance to have a quick chat with the prime minister and his wife at European Day and do some lobby work on the run :)

• The second event was World Day (30.05) that had a more clear focus on development issues and most of the organisations represented were NGOs. The day was sunny and people enjoyed our activities. We arranged the same ruffle/quiz as on European Day and had also some other activities - like workshops in writing in Arabic and West-African dance and drumming lessons. There were also two discussion panels arranged: one on education and other on ethical consuming.

Our tent was right next to the MFA's so that gave us a good chance to connect with policy-makers :)

EYD thematic ruffle/quiz at World Day.

MFA's Development cooperation desk officer Helen Ennok with our EYD rollup at World Day.

Education panel at World Day.

• We also had a smaller event at Mondo's office where we arranged a private meeting between an Afghan journalist visiting Estonia and representatives of the Estonian Young Journalist's Club. The discussion was very interesting and both parties learned from each other. Young journalists were mostly interested in how safe it is to work in Afghanistan as a journalist and what are the opinions of local Afghan people on the war and current situation.



Representatives of the Estonian Young Journalist's Club meeting with a journalist from Afghanistan.


• In terms of joint activities with Media4Development partners, we attended two main events: 
• The Helsinki training arranged by VIKES with three journalists: Riin Aljas from Eesti Päevaleht, Külli-Riin Tigasson from Eesti Ekspress and Evelyn Kaldoja from Postimees. All the journalists were more than satisfied with the training. Very big thank you to Maiju from VIKES for arranging such a great event. 
• In June we also attended the development financing roundtable in Riga with one official from the MFA - Tõnis Saar (Undersecretary General of Administrative Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Estonia, Member of Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing (ICESDF)); two politicians and one civil society representative. The roundtable was a success and Inga from Green Libery had arranged everything perfectly. 
• Another big activity for us has been producing and putting together the first development-themed bulletin for policy-makers. You can view the bulletin here.
  The bulletin was posted to several dozen officials in the Foreign Ministry and Financial Ministry and also to all 101 members of the Estonian Parliament (and additionally to the officials working at each of the Parliament's fractions). The PDF version was published on Mondo's website and a public post was made both on Facebook and Twitter.
  The first bulletin covers issues that will be under discussion at the Addis Ababa Development Financing conference and has articles on: 
• ODA and the financing gaps for SDGs, 
• EU's development cooperation 
• taxation issues, 
• micro-financing, 
• the private sector's role in development, 
• Estonia's roles as both an aid donor and aid receiver (upto 1998) and other interesting topics. 

  

  Delivering the bulletins in envelopes to ministries and the Parliament.