Environment and Climate Forum, Kick Off Meeting
Date: 07-08.05.2014
Place: Budva/Becici, Montenegro
Organizer: ECRAN Secretariat
The European Commission attaches a lot of importance to the public consultation process and the involvement of the NGOs community in the national decision-making process. The NGOs Dialogue established in 1999 with the European Commission's support has enabled over the last 15 years the creation of a network of selected NGOs from the enlargement countries while providing them an opportunity to become an active and constructive partner for national public administrations. Starting with October 2013, the NGOs Environment and Climate Forum (ECF) is part of the Environment and Climate Regional Accession Network (ECRAN) project, covering environment and climate policy areas. Following the call for interest published in January 2014, in total 21 NGOs were selected for participation in the ECF. These organisations represent civil society from Croatia and the EU candidate countries (FYRoM, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey) and potential candidates (Albania, BiH, Kosovo1). In order to establish the group and create basis for the productive work and cooperation, the ECRAN-ECF has prepared Kick-out regional meeting of the 21 ECF NGOs. The meeting main goal is to start up planed activities and agree/approve the key programing document s and plans for the 2014 and beyond.
Key objectives of the meeting is to open officially the ECF component of ECRAN, introduce ECF NGOs, ECF-ECRAN team and experts, explain and discuss ECF goals, objectives, opportunities and tasks for the NGOs; to discuss progress in development of the key ECF related materials and plans (i.e., Training Needs Assessment, The NGOs Specific Regional Training Plan - SRTP, Work Plan 2014) and to approve next steps; to discuss and agree on the principles of work and communication, to develop and agree on the system of cooperation and decision-making procedures;
Expected results:
- ECF established in line with the ECF/ECRAN Term of Reference and basic principles/rules of cooperation and work agreed.
- Framework agreement on the Training needs assessment (TNA) and the NGOs Specific Regional Training Plan (SRTP).
- Draft agenda for the 1st ECF training event (June 2014).
- Endorsed Work plan for 2014.
