Conference of the National Civil Society Forum “Roadmap of the Eastern Partnership for Belarus”

We would like to invite you to take part in the Conference of the National Civil Society Forum “Roadmap of the Eastern Partnership for Belarus”, which will take place in Minsk on July, 5-6  2010. The Conference is devoted to the discussion of the current and future activity of the Civil Society Forum as one of the principle institutional actors of Eastern Partnership initiative, as well as to further ways of development and strengthening of EaP” both in Belarus and at the European level.

• Invitation letter
• Conference program
• Application form

Eastern Partnership is a multilateral structure of cooperation, proposed by the European Union for six East-European states: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and the Ukraine. During the passed year, from the moment of the initiative’s start on May, 7 2009, the Eastern Partnership program has made a considerable contribution.

Within the Program a special consideration is given to the issues of civil society involvement. On November, 16-17 2010 the first Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership took place in Brussels. There the Belarusian civil society organizations showed high level of activity, organizational skills and solidarity and secured the rise in the institutional status of the Forum together with their colleagues from other states. Two representatives of Belarus were chosen members of the Coordination Committee of the CSF, and one of the Belarusian third sector leaders, Siarhei Mackievic’, became the official speaker of the Civil Society Forum.

At the meeting of the first Forum participants and other interested NGO actors of Belarusian civil society, which took place on January 29, 2010 it was decided to further develop the National platform of the EaP Civil Society Forum as an instrument of a permanent public communication and dialog with the aim to raise the effectiveness of activities within the Eastern Partnership in Belarus. Conference “Roadmap of the Eastern Partnership for Belarus” is another important step in this direction.

The Conference is supposed to solve a number of tasks, facing the Belarusian civil society in the framework of further development of the Eastern Partnership, namely:

• To get acquainted with the activity, that has already been undertaken in the framework of the Eastern partnership by the Belarusian state and organizations of the civil society in their cooperation with the EU, as well as with the nearest perspective plans.
• To present and discuss analytical and strategic proposals by various Belarusian analytical groups on further development of the Civil Society Forum in 2010-2012 both on the institutional level of the EaP, and in the framework of certain directions of thematic platforms of the Eastern Partnership.
• To deepen knowledge of the civil society staff and leaders in Belarus about the current and planned activities in the framework of the Eastern Partnership at the national and European level.
• To prepare and recommend for participation in the second Civil Society Forum (Berlin, 18-19 November, 2010) a group of civil society organisations from Belarus, taking into consideration the present framework conditions and criteria (representation of organisations of different types and directions of activities, the balance between thematic priorities, etc ), as well as the presence of specific aims, strategies and plans, assuming active, competent and interested participation of the Belarusian civil society in the work of the Civil Society Forum.

Taking into consideration an utmost importance of the Eastern Partnership initiative for the Belarusian civil society, as well as for the state in general and for the success of regional and the European cooperation and provision of securing of openness and transparency of the public dialog, the Organisational Committee of the Conference invites all the interested International organizations, representatives of EU Delegation in Minsk and Embassies of EU and  EaP states in Belarus, representatives of the European expert, donors’ and CSO communities to take part in the public discussion of the following issues:

• Assessment of the first year program “Eastern Partnership” realization by the Belarusian civil society organizations;
• The role of the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership in the realisation of strategic and thematic aspects of the program;
• “Roadmaps” of the activity of the Civil Society Forum on the level of the program in general, as well as in specific thematic directions;
• Urgent tasks for Belarus and the civil society of the state in program “Eastern Partnership”;
• Challenges and opportunities of the Belarusian delegation at the Civil Society Forum in Berlin (November, 2010).

For more details see the draft Program of the conference

TERMS OF PARTICIPATION

• The following types of participants are expected as participants of the Conference:
• Honorable representatives of civil society organizations in Belarus (the main part of participants),
• Authorized representatives of the Belarusian government,
• Representatives of the Belarusian expert community!
• Representatives of EU delegation in Minsk and embassies of EU and  EaP states,
• Experts and representatives of donor institutions from EU and other countries
• Civil society organizations from EU and EaP countries

Perspective participants should send filled application form before June 20, 2010 on the following e-mail address: [email protected]. In the view of limited number of places, those persons, who will not announce their participation before the deadline, will not have the possibility to take part in the Conference.

We pay special attention of the participants, that the Organisational Committee of the Conference will not reimburse transport expenses of the participants.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

In case of any questions, please, contact coordinator of the Technical group of the Organizational Committee Galina Cherepok, e-mail: [email protected]  
Phone/Fax:  (017) 2454118; mob. (029) 3105024 (Mon-Fri., from 10:00 till 18:00)

You can also find all the information about the Conference on EUROBELARUS.INFO

We are looking forward to meeting you at Conference “Roadmap of the Eastern Partnership for Belarus”!


Sincerely,
Organizational Committee of the Conference