Invitation to Partnership Fair

Invitation to Partnership Fair

In the frame of Slovenian Development Days, organized by SLOGA – Platform for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Peace institute is organizing Partnership Fair i.e. consultations with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on migration and development – two fields that are interrelated and largely affect by each other.

We will discuss the (in)coherence between migration and development policies, how does it operate in practice, which systematic changes are needed and how can NGOs (development on the one hand and migrant or diaspora organizations on the other hand) contribute to positive changes. Many NGOs involved in development cooperation projects may have already experienced how this mismatch of policies can lead to difficulties in the implementation or in achieving the objectives of the project. At the same time we are often faced with the difficulty of cooperation between development organizations on the one hand and migrant or diaspora organizations on the other hand – as they often see each other as competition, which can be an additional problem due to unsystematic and inadequate financing. Therefore, the primary purpose of the consultations is that different NGOs (development and migrant or diaspora organizations) share their experiences in the aforementioned fields, highlight problems that are commonly encountered, and on the other hand, share the positive practices that already (successfully) link fields of migration and development and possible ideas for collaboration with other NGOs on specific projects within these areas. Instead of competing with each other, we can cooperate with each other.

The Partnership Fair, which will take place on Thursday, 4 October in the City Museum of Ljubljana, is an activity of the project "Consistency of Migration and Development Policies" which Peace Institute implements in partnership with the Vienna Institute for Development and Cooperation (Austria), COSPE (Italy), Südwind Agentur (Austria) and Society Development Institute (Slovakia). The project is funded by the European Commission (EuropeAid). More on: www.comide.org.