3RD PARTICIPATION DAY IN BRATISLAVA
The 3rd Danube Participation Day was held from the 2nd to 3rd of November, 2016, in Bratislava, Slovakia. The convention aimed to encourage stronger involvement of civil society and local actors of the 14 EUSDR countries in the implementation of the EUSDR.
The first day was hosted by the Plenipotentiary for Civil Society Development in Slovakia, EUSDR- PA10, DCSF, LADDER and Foster Europe. The general theme was sustainable development, as an issue of participative multi-level governance in the Danube Region and its macro-regional strategies.
Anders Bergström (EUSBR), Daniela Urschitz (EUSDR- PA10), Martin Giertl (Plenipotentiary of the government of Slovakia) and Stefan Lüttgenau (Foster Europe/ DCSF) opened the first day. In his opening speech Stefan Lüttengau (DCSF) underlined the importance of participation and cooperation of local actors, civil society in a multi-level and multi sectoral framework to shift to a sustainable development in Europe and its neighboring regions. He welcomed all 180 participants and motivated them to create national hearings events as they were organized so far in Austria, Republic of Moldova, Bulgaria, Germany, Slovakia and Serbia.
After various presentations about sustainable development in politics and society by the keynote speakers Gisela Erler, the State Counsellor for Civil Society and Civic Participation in Baden Württemberg; Franz Fischler, the President of the European Forum Alpach in Austria and Irene Luciusof WWF Danube – Carpathian Program in Austria, the participants had the chance to collaborate in six different workshops . The workshops dealed with open government partnership, energy and enviroment, social innovation, impact of consumer and producer behavior, DEAR- turning local Ideas into globals studies and infrastructure and participation. The results of the workshops were presented in the afternoon. The first day ended with a welcome reception and dinner for all participants hosted by the Mayor of the city of Bratislava, which took place at the City Hall.
The second day focused on the role of potential of local actors in making sustainable development in the Danube Region possible. Hosting organisations were the Council of Danube Cities and Regions and the City of Bratislava. The coordinator of Priority Area 10 of the EUSDR, Rudolf Schicker underlinded the role of the Civil Society in helping to reduce gaps between countries, cities, regions, citizens ist important to improve their standards of living. He also welcomed established national participation days and emphazised the importance of the opend- mindedness of all actors in the macro-region to establish a multi-level governance.
The 3rd Particpation Day welcomed more than 180 participants from the 14 EUSDR countries and provided a platform for debate, questions, opinion building, exchange and cooperation for actors from civil society, municipalieties, EU and national agencies in the Danube Region.
After the success in Bratislava Priority Area 10 and the DCSF are now looking forward for the 4th Danube Participation Day 2017 in Budapest.
Links:
Agenda: http://www.danubestrategy.eu/pd3/program-0
Keynote presentations and reports of the workshops: http://dcsf.danubestrategy.eu/pd3/reports-working-groups-0
Short report from the platform SLIDO: https://www.sli.do/event/srnrzbvz/infographic/c/0565
