The Baltic Sea NGO Network warmly welcomes NGO-representatives to participate in the 6th Baltic Sea NGO Forum. Some 180-200 representatives from national and international NGO, representatives from the Council of the Baltic Sea States and the public sector will be invited to participate.

Introduction

The Baltic Sea NGO Network was established in 2003. It is a voluntary, open and transparent structure that supports civil society by creating spaces for interaction between people and organizations, facilitating dialogue and practical co-operation in different spheres. Our vision is a strong and vivid civil society contributing to enhanced democratic participation in the Baltic Sea region.

Forum Syd as Swedish Focal Point, and member of the Consultative Committee of the Baltic Sea NGO Network, will have the honour to coordinate the VI Baltic Sea NGO Forum 2006 under the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States-CBSS.

Previous NGO Forums were held in; L?beck, S:t Petersburg, Turku, P?rnu and now most recently in Gdynia under the auspices of CBSS. The overall coordination process is shared jointly within the Baltic Sea NGO Network and the respective Focal Points in all eleven countries active in the Network: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Russia, Poland, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland. We will also invite participants from Belarus and Ukraine to take part in the forum. Forum Syd will be responsible for the practical implementation and follow-up of the event.

Objectives

Overall objective
An operational Baltic Sea NGO Network interlinking and channelling the knowledge, experiences and perspectives of NGO:s to civil society organisations and more formal structures, such as the Council of the Baltic Sea States and other regional organizations, as a mean for enhanced democratic participation.

Immediate objective
To further strengthen the capacity and consolidate the activities of the Baltic Sea NGO Network in becoming a trusted partner and resource on the regional level in areas of importance to Baltic Sea civil society organizations.

The objectives for the 6th Baltic Sea NGO Forum are:

The launch of 2-3 Thematic Working Groups that will develop closer contacts with relevant CBSS working-groups and continue to operate between the NGO Forum events. The Working Groups are expected to be an integral part of the Baltic Sea NGO Network.

Forum Syd and the NGO Network is in the midst of identifying 2-3 working areas within the CBSS of interest to NGO:s and Government structures where we can become active. The Working Group on Democratic Institution is one of several relevant bodies of interest to the NGO network co-operation – as well as WGCC and Baltic 21.

The thematic working groups are the most interesting challenge for us at the moment  and if successful, they will play a decisive role in the future of the Baltic Sea NGO Network. To make it possible to develop sustainable working groups, the preparatory process prior to the forum is crucial. Forum Syd is currently exploring possible organisations and person that are interested in acting as a lead-agency for the working-groups. Within the Thematic Working Groups the lead-agency will cooperate with other NGO:s from different countries in the Baltic Sea area. It is foreseen that the Thematic Working Groups will gather expertise and become valuable platforms for dialogue and practical co-operation between NGO:s and between NGO:s and government structures.

Networking is about building relationships with other independent actors. The aim creating and upholding a Baltic Sea NGO Network is to become more efficient and more effective in doing what we normally are doing in our respective fields. It is very important to underline that a multi-actor network such as ours, like similar networks, need time to build relation-ships, trust and ownership, and to gradually build a shared vision and effective ways of planning, operating and facilitating networking activities based on voluntary work.

NGO Forum themes
Human Rights and Democratic participation will be the overarching theme of the NGO Forum 2006. It will be the framework for thematic clusters, or perspectives, that the participants will reflect upon in different workshops. It is likely that the expected launch of the working groups correspond to the chosen themes listed below.

Four thematic clusters have been chosen and each cluster will be divided into 3-4 work-shops:

1) Trafficking, violence against women/children, criminality and drugs as a development obstacle.
2) Discrimination/social inclusion
3) Environment/sustainability
4)   Legislation (with a focus on civil society)

Plenary session
In the Plenary session we plan to focus on three topics of concern to most NGO:s  followed by an interactive panel discussion with keynote speakers (perhaps followed by some alternative type of participatory activity in order to involve people a bit more). The topics are:

1. NGO legislation in the region (for example, but not only, the new NGO law in Russia),
2. Cooperation between NGO:s and local/regional authorities (examples of successful cooperation and alternative methods/models)
3. International cooperation in the Baltic Sea region (for example funding possibilities and the role and potential of NGO:s in the Baltic Sea Region)

Please note: topic one and three will probably also be subject for separate workshops. In addition, topic two will be mainstreamed into all forum workshops in the sense that they all will present examples of successful cooperation and alternative methods/models.

 Participants

The preliminary number of participants per country is distributed as follows:

Denmark   15
Estonia   15
Belarus   8
Finland   15
Iceland   10
Latvia   15
Lithuania 15
Norway    15
Poland   15
Russia   15
Sweden  20-25
Germany   15
Ukraine   8

Representatives from CBSS, Nordic Council of Ministers, EC, the Swedish Government and media will also be invited to participate.

Each participant will have to pay a registration fee of 50 euro, partly covering room and board etc. Depending on availability of rooms and meeting space, self-paying guest might be accepted. Travel costs to/from Sweden is the responsibility of the participants themselves. However, we foresee that we have to cover some travel costs for those Belarusian, Ukrainian and Latvian NGO representatives that might not be able to raise the needed funds.

Please note that English will be official language of the NGO Forum 2006.

Coordinator of the 6th Baltic Sea NGO Forum 2006:
Forum Syd – Organizations cooperating for global justice, Stockholm, Sweden
Aase Fosshaug, Coordinator,
Anna-Maria Norman, Assistant Coordinator,

Baltic Sea NGO Forum’s website: www.bsngoforum.org