Promoting development cooperation policies to citizens
The French Association of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (AFCCRE) is organizing a conference with a European dimension on the 5th of July in Bordeaux, aiming at exchanging and collecting experiences and practices of people working on the ground for local governments and for associations in Development Education-Awareness Raising programmes.
If the adoption of the Paris Agreement at COP 21 and of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are considered as successes, the predictable withdrawal of the US from the global climate deal shows that nothing should be taken for granted. Therefore, beyond treaties, what counts is the everyday awareness and mobilisation of the whole population in the territories.
At the same time, if citizens are increasingly mobilising to put pressure on decision makers, local and regional authorities face an increasing number of challenges: pressure on public finance, demagogic attitudes, regular evolutions of territorial governance.
In this context, the international action of local authorities – and especially the solidarity dimension – is often called into question. Given the new wave of nationalism, communitarianism and self-withdrawal, it seems of utmost importance to remind the local effect of public policies aiming at opening up to the rest of the world actors and populations from our territories.
It is often difficult to promote the interest of decentralised cooperation to the citizens. This awareness-raising shared challenge needs a collective answer.
This Conference is organized in partnership with the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region, the Delegation to the External action of local authorities of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign affairs, the Regional multi-stakeholders network SO-Cooperation, in the framework of the strategic partnership with PLATFORMA.
It is the follow-up of the AFCCRE-PLATFORMA initiative launched in 2015 with the support of the Centre-Val de Loire Region. The collection of these experiences and actions will allow the publication of an evolutive toolkit facilitating the spreading of innovative and efficient ideas to the interested public.
For any further information, please contact Felix Henou at felix.henou@afccre.org.
Discover the programme here.
