Prepared by

M. Sohel Iqbal

Deputy Director

COAST

27 August 2011

Introduction

A three-days regional conference on Development Models and CSO Strategizing Session on Rio+20 has been organized by Reality of Aid (RoA) at Bangkok, Thailand (15 -17 August 2011). The major objectives of the conference are:

  • Increase the awareness and understanding of CSOs and peoples’ movements in the South on key issues in Busan (including a new consensus on development) to inform a coordinated Asia Pacific action plan and CSO message for the Busan High Level Forum
  • Bring different CSOs and people’s movements in the South into a common discussion to exchange ideas, experiences and analyses on development models in practice and reflect on the challenges and opportunities for promoting sustainable development.

List of the participated organization

65 participants from 20 different countries have participated in the conference. The name of the organizations that have participated in the conference are: International NGO Forum for Indonesian Development, Indonesia; China Association of NGOs, China; Forum of Women NGOs of Kyrgyzstan; Arab NGO Network for Development, Lebanon; Green Movement of Sri Lanka; ETC Group; Institute for Motivating Self-Employment, India; Roots for Equity, Pakistan; Public Interest Research Centre, India;

Centre for Sustainable Rural Development, Vietnam; CECOEDECON, India; EquityBD, Bangladesh; Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific, Malaysia/Philippines; Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, India; Centre for Environment and Development, Sri Lanka; Korean Federation for Environmental Movement, South Korea; Asia Monitor Resource Center, Hong Kong; Korean Civil Society Forum on International Cooperation (KOFID); Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment, Philippines; Korea NGO Council for Overseas Cooperation, South Korea; Center for Peoples Democratic Governance, Philippines; Aidwatch Philippines; Peoples Movement on Climate Change; Centre for Sustainable Development in Mountainous Areas, Vietnam; Coastal Development Program, Bangladesh; Cooperation Committee for Cambodia; Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact; Timor Leste NGO Forum/FONGTIL; Ecumenical Institute for Labor Institute, Philippines; KID, Cambodia; Asia Pacific Forum for Women, Law and Development; Participatory Research and Development Initiative, Bangladesh; ODA Watch Korea; Peoples Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, South Korea; Shan Women’s Action Network, Thailand; Burma Environmental Working Group; Asia Society for Social Improvement and Sustainable Transformation, Philippines; Foundation for Consumers, Thailand; Thailand Environment Institute Foundation; Reality of Aid Asia Pacific; Asia Pacific Research Network; IBON.

Description

Keynote speech, panel presentation and cafe were the methodology of the conference. Tony Tujan (Philippines), Dr. Bandana Shiva (India), Uchita (Srilanka), Kelly Hayden (UNESCAP), Daxing Zhao (China), Dr. Azra Sayeed (Pakistan), Paul Quintos (Philipines) were some of the speakers during the conference. From BangladeshI myself was also a speaker for the session of Natural Resource Management: Agriculture, Forest, Water, and Fisheries on the second day of the conference. Following the session a cafe was organized for reflecting the experiences and insight of CSO leaders like every other session. The topic of the sessions of conference was interesting and useful (e.g., what is wrong with aid? Public private partnership (PPP) for development, Aid architecture, BusanState of play and opportunities for CSO engagement, Alternative paradigms to neo-liberalism, Demystifying the ‘Asian growth’ strategy, Chinas development experience etc.).

In the evening meeting of RoA Asia-Pacific members’ has organized where the agenda were: approval of the agenda, secretariat report, introduction to the planning, brainstorming for a

strategy, Busan action plan, regional report and case stories, affirmation of membership applicants, election of new steering committee. 14 members (including me) were presented in the meeting. The meeting approved a list of 40 organizations from different countries of Asia as member along with CDP Bangladesh. It is nice to mention that COAST has been elected as member of Steering committee and coordinator of South Asia. On 17 August a different

workshop has been also organized for the preparation of Busan HLF 4.

We promised in the conference to conduct a quick research on Rio (1992) as preparation of Rio+20 conference. We will search what government has done following the Rio declaration so far? What should government act more for proper implication of earth summit? Then we will organize divisional workshop to share the findings of the study and for receiving insight of different stakeholders including CSOs. Finally we have to organize a national seminar/press conference to present the final findings of the research and will prepare a statement as well. Al the events should be completed by April 2012.

As regional coordinator of RoA we have to make a plan for next two years. Raising fund is also a challenge for us to meet the expenditure of the planned programs. Regular communication with the members is mandatory. We need to think about some program right before the SAARC conference of Maldives.

Ending Annotation

The conference was highly participatory. Spontaneous contribution of the CSO representatives from different countries was encouraging. Our effort to enrich the intellectual capacity should be promoted. Regular homework is also important.