Category: CLLD

Storytelling on project development for advocacy purposes

Storytelling on project development for advocacy purposes

“Storytelling for advocacy works because our brain is wired to remember narrations and is equipped to experience them as being told. It is the oldest and most powerful tool to affect change in society.

And personal stories detailing the challenges one faces are easier to connect with and bring out our ability to empathize with the storyteller. In this way, stories can influence people and help bring about change.

The art of storytelling for advocacy helps you bring out the importance of the issues that matter to your organization and how it relates to people.”

“The Art Of Storytelling For Advocacy Campaigns” by

In the framework of our long-running project “New Solution to Old Problems”, funded by EEA and Norway Grants, we want to use storytelling to raise awareness and bring good examples of local projects. We did this by contacting our partners in over 10 different countries in Europe and asked them:

What was your biggest achievement with the project? What was the most surprising to you in the project implementation? What was the biggest challenge and how did you solve it? How has this project affected you personally?

In other words, we have asked our partners and beneficiaries to tell us stories about the projects they have carried out. Not the reports (although this would come too), not the presentations. But to ask the beneficiaries, the members of the community from different countries to tell us a story about what they have done and could be replicated in other countries. We have collected all these stories and turned some of them into visuals to promote a bottom-up approach in funding.

The objectives of this project are: 

– To raise awareness of the benefits of bottom-up approaches and community organizing to Roma inclusion through personal stories
– To gain an insight into the process of bottom-up project development through personal stories
– To highlight the successes of the project “New Solution to Old Problems”

We are now happy to share these stories with you.

 This initiative has received financial support in the framework of the project “New solutions to old problems”. The project “New solutions to old problems – exchange of new type of approaches in the field of Roma integration” is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.

Integro Position Statement

Position Statement with Recommendations on the need to strengthen bottom-up approaches in the implementation of the National Policy of the Republic of Bulgaria for Equality, Inclusion and  participation of Roma for the period 2021-2030

By INTEGRO ASSOCIATION and Local Organisations-Members of the National “Intellect” Coalition

In recent years, Integro Association, as member of the ERGO Network, has been actively engaged in monitoring and supporting the implementation of the LEADER approach. This approach was transformed in 2014 into the Community Led Local Development – CLLD approach for addressing local issues of the Roma community in Bulgaria The importance of the Community-Led Local Development approach came on focus after the analyses of the Decade of Roma Inclusion and the European Union Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies 2011-2020.

In short, these analyses identified a failure in both initiatives, mainly due to the lack of real Roma participation in policy-making and implementation, as well as due to the inadequate monitoring and evaluation system and weak political commitment. The failures of the two major Roma inclusion initiatives over the past two decades are a clear indication that paternalistic and top-down funding approaches to Roma inclusion require an essential review to achieve more positive results.

To download the full statement, please follow this link.

This statement has received financial support in the framework of the project “New solutions to old problems”. The project “New solutions to old problems – exchange of new type of approaches in the field of Roma integration” is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.

Report: Funding of bottom-up approaches

Report: Funding of bottom-up approaches: Ways forward to support Roma inclusion

We are happy to present ERGO Network’s new Analysis of funding for bottom-up approaches to Roma inclusion. This study sheds light on the importance of bottom-up approaches and assessing funding programmes targeted at Roma inclusion. The paper was prepared by Marko Pecak for the European Roma Grassroots Organisations (ERGO) Network and has received financial support in the framework of the project “New solutions to old problems” funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.

The report also analyses the major variety of donors, such as EU, national governments, international organisations, state developement agencies and private foundations. It provides the comprehensive analysis and a set of recommendations to each type of the donors, which can be used to improve their performance.

This report aims to contribute to raising awareness of institutional and private donors in the importance of bottom-up approaches to strengthen Roma inclusion and empowerment. It also reflects on the challenges and discusses improvements to existing funding programmes.

The main recommendations of the report are:

General

  • All strategic and planning documents on Roma inclusion need to be public
  • Donors need to consider weak local governance
  • Beyond consultations. Implement participatory research methods for needs and strategic development
  • Detailed approaches with implementation plans, not general guidance, and concepts
  • More resources, funding, and human capacity, for community-led approaches

European Union

  • Any ESIF funds being managed by local municipalities should use a community-led and participatory approach
  • Good governance support should be highly recommended with any funding managed by local municipalities
  • Desk Officers, Managing Authorities, and NRCPs need specific guidance on what is CLLD and how to implement them
  • EU needs a detailed plan that defines the concepts of participation, empowerment, and bottom-up approaches and how to ensure they will be implemented
  • Monitoring Committees should be more independent, transparent, have representative from Roma community

National Governments

  • There should be a defined Roma inclusion budget with corresponding implementation plans, indicators, and monitoring system
  • Go beyond Monitoring Committee requirements
  • Develop a strong cooperation with RCM
  • Mainstream project need specific Roma inclusion targets
  • Conduct campaigns with local governments and community members on the importance of Roma inclusion to reduce the barrier of bias and antigygpsism

State Development Agencies

  • Develop approaches and priorities outside of the EU agenda
  • Should have public and detailed documents on their approach to Roma inclusion
  • Mainstream social inclusion strategies need details on how they ensure the impact on Roma inclusion 
  • Longer-term investments that use community-led and participatory approaches
  • Shift the priority of their investment from bilateral cooperation to more focus on setting inclusion agendas

Intergovernmental Organizations

  • A new long-term and collaborative initiative to be develop with a focus on community-led, participatory, antidiscrimination, and empowerment approaches
  • Develop agendas based on their organizational values not EU or other institutional agendas

Private Foundations

  • Increase transparency in their funding approaches and strategies for Roma inclusion
  • Implement measures with the goal to test alternative approaches that can be shared and scaled
  • Larger portion of funding should go to supporting community organization’s operational and human capacities. Especially, core funding.

To download the full report, please follow this link.

This report has received financial support in the framework of the project “New solutions to old problems”. The project “New solutions to old problems – exchange of new type of approaches in the field of Roma
integration” is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the
EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.

This publication has received funding from the European Union. The information contained in this publication reflects only the author’s view; and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

 

ERGO Network’s Event on Funding of Bottom-up Approaches-NEWS

Funding of bottom-up approaches:

Ways forward to support Roma inclusion

9 December 2021

On the 9th of December, ERGO Network organized its online round table Funding of bottom-up approaches: Ways forward to support Roma inclusion, in the framework of the project “New solutions to old problems – exchange of new type of approaches in the field of Roma integration”

Over the past 20 years, Roma communities across Europe have seen very few improvements to their living situation, even though many public, private, international, and national funding programmes were aimed at Roma inclusion and empowerment. One of the reasons for the lack of success of such funding programmes is the application of a top-down approach that does not consider the realities and voices of Roma at the grassroots level and comes with a heavy administrative burden.  All evaluations of the last EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies acknowledged that Roma communities needed to be involved in project design, implementation, and evaluation to bring changes at local level.

The round table served to launch ERGO Network’s new Analysis of funding for bottom-up approaches to Roma inclusion, shedding light on the importance of bottom-up approaches and assessing funding programmes targeted at Roma inclusion. The event reflected on the challenges identified and provided input on how to improve existing funding programmes.

The main recommendations of study are:

General

  • All strategic and planning documents on Roma inclusion need to be public
  • Donors need to consider weak local governance
  • Beyond consultations. Implement participatory research methods for needs and strategic development
  • Detailed approaches with implementation plans, not general guidance, and concepts
  • More resources, funding, and human capacity, for community-led approaches

European Union

  • Any ESIF funds being managed by local municipalities should use a community-led and participatory approach
  • Good governance support should be highly recommended with any funding managed by local municipalities
  • Desk Officers, Managing Authorities, and NRCPs need specific guidance on what is CLLD and how to implement them
  • EU needs a detailed plan that defines the concepts of participation, empowerment, and bottom-up approaches and how to ensure they will be implemented
  • Monitoring Committees should be more independent, transparent, have representative from Roma community

National Governments

  • There should be a defined Roma inclusion budget with corresponding implementation plans, indicators, and monitoring system
  • Go beyond Monitoring Committee requirements
  • Develop a strong cooperation with RCM
  • Mainstream project need specific Roma inclusion targets
  • Conduct campaigns with local governments and community members on the importance of Roma inclusion to reduce the barrier of bias and antigygpsism

State Development Agencies

  • Develop approaches and priorities outside of the EU agenda
  • Should have public and detailed documents on their approach to Roma inclusion
  • Mainstream social inclusion strategies need details on how they ensure the impact on Roma inclusion 
  • Longer-term investments that use community-led and participatory approaches
  • Shift the priority of their investment from bilateral cooperation to more focus on setting inclusion agendas

Intergovernmental Organizations

  • A new long-term and collaborative initiative to be develop with a focus on community-led, participatory, antidiscrimination, and empowerment approaches
  • Develop agendas based on their organizational values not EU or other institutional agendas

Private Foundations

  • Increase transparency in their funding approaches and strategies for Roma inclusion
  • Implement measures with the goal to test alternative approaches that can be shared and scaled
  • Larger portion of funding should go to supporting community organization’s operational and human capacities. Especially, core funding.

The full research report will be officially launched at the beginning of 2022.

The conference was very well attended with over 70 participants, and it brought together ERGO Network national members from the grassroots level in many European countries, as well as other national practitioners, private donors, European civil society organisations, EU policymakers from the European Parliament and the European Commission, and other stakeholders.

If you attended this event, or watched the recording, don’t forget to let us know what you thought about it by filling in this evaluation form. Thank you!

See more:

For more information about this event, please don’t hesitate to contact us: info@ergonetwork.org

#BottomUpFunding

 

This event is kindly supported by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.

The project “New solutions to old problems – exchange of new type of approaches in the field of Roma integration” is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.

ERGO Network’s Event on Funding of Bottom-up Approaches

Funding of bottom-up approaches:

Ways forward to support Roma inclusion

9 December 2021, 10am – 12pm, Online

Join us in our discussion on bottom-up approaches to funding for Roma Inclusion!

Background

In the past 20 years, Roma communities across Europe have seen very few improvements to their living situation, even though many public and private, international, and national funding programmes were aimed at Roma inclusion and empowerment.

One of the reasons for the lack of success of such funding programmes is the application of a top-down approach that does not consider the realities and voices of Roma at the grassroots level and comes with a heavy administrative burden.

All evaluations of the last EU Framework for National Roma Integration acknowledged that Roma communities needed to be involved in project design, implementation, and evaluation to bring about change.

This now needs to be translated into better funding programmes and regulations of public and private donors, including using more national resources for smaller projects, a prioritization of bottom-up approaches, and more support for Community-Led Local Development (CLLD).

With this event, we aim to raise donors’ awareness of the importance to give more support to bottom-up approaches, to finally improve the living situation of Roma communities on local level.

Objectives

The event will serve to launch ERGO Network’s new Analysis of funding for bottom-up approaches to Roma inclusion, shedding light on the importance of bottom-up approaches and assessing funding programmes targeted at Roma inclusion.

The main findings and recommendations aim to kick-start a debate with policy makers, donors, and civil society on how to design more effective funding programmes that can lead to a real change for local Roma communities.

Participants

The conference will bring together EU policymakers from across the institutional spectrum, donors, ERGO Network members, civil society from the grassroots level, as well as other relevant EU and national stakeholders.

We’re looking forward to counting you among the participants, so that together we can build positive, sustainable, evidence-based policy solutions that work!
#BottomUpFunding

 

This event is kindly supported by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.

The project “New solutions to old problems – exchange of new type of approaches in the field of Roma integration” is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.
`
CLLD – ERGO Network

By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.

Close