Bringing awareness raising alive through decentralised cooperation

« Development Education and Awareness Raising (DEAR) are natural lines of action for local and regional governments active in development cooperation and tie in perfectly with their territorial strategies. » With this remark ends PLATFORMA latest publication on Raising Citizens’ awareness through development education.

It includes 19 success stories conducted by local and regional governments and their associations in cooperation with civil society organisations (CSO), schools, local media, students and other local stakeholders aiming to engender positive impact in awareness raising, behavioural change and policy making.

Decentralised cooperation (the development cooperation carried out between sub-national governments like local and regional governments and their associations) is vital in building inclusive and horizontal partnerships using whole-of-society approaches. Decentralised cooperation incorporates cross-sector interventions and projects as well as mutual accountability by focusing on the same priorities to be tackled in different parts of the world.

Raising awareness of global agendas and decentralised cooperation is a process in itself and not only a goal along the path towards an active and informed citizenship.

Do you also want to show how your municipality or regions is raising awareness on global challenges through decentralised cooperation? Do you think that recovery goes hand in hand with solidarity?

As demonstrated in the publication, the campaigning-advocacy approach aims to elicit concrete changes in behaviour at individual and collective levels, or in institutional policies. Actions under this category are focused on attitudinal, behavioural and policy changes, usually through predetermined public actions.

In this context, the 5th edition of the European Days of Local Solidarity (EDLS) organised between 14 and 29 November 2020 was another success with over 70 municipalities, regions and provinces, more than 60 events in 2 weeks and over 20 local and regional elected officials actively participating in some of the events. But also +770 Tweets and retweets with #LocalSolidarityDays. More numbers about the campaign are available in this video.

What is next? Mark your calendar

The 6th edition of the EDLS campaign will be organised between the 15 and 30 November 2021. In the upcoming months, we will publish a series of articles highlighting some 2020 EDLS success stories and the benefits of global citizenship education actions planned and developed by local and regional governments, their associations and other local stakeholders.  DEAR and global citizenship education actions are gradually being recognised as important tools for the implementation of EU external policies, stay tuned!