Thematic Working Group Diaspora and Migrants for Development
February 24, 2017
by admin
in ADPC Projects
Fourth Lobbying & Advocacy Training Workshop Successfully completed! Featured
Fourth Lobbying & Advocacy Training Workshop
Successfully completed!
During the week 5-9 September 2016, in partnership with The Hague Academy for Local Governance, ADPC successfully held its 4th Lobbying and Advocacy training workshop.
The workshop was held in The Hague in the context of the Diaspora Academy project. The Diaspora Academy strives to strengthen the skills, knowledge and competencies of African diaspora based in Europe in the area of Lobbying and Advocacy in order to bring about their respective development initiatives to the attention of key decision makers to effect positive change. The training brought together a group of 10 vibrant African diaspora coming originally from Uganda, Ghana, Somalia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Gambia and Ethiopia currently based in the Sweden, Hungary, The Netherlands, Ireland, Finland, France and Switzerland. The workshop report will be available in due course.
From us at ADPC we would like to congratulate the group on completing the course !
Partnerships for Peace: Engaging with Diaspora
Partnerships for Peace: Engaging with Diaspora
On the 23rd of September 2016, the African Diaspora Policy Centre (ADPC) organised a seminar entitled “Partnerships for Peace: Engaging with Diaspora”. During the seminar, an interactive and open exchange of experiences among diaspora organizations, NGOs and policymakers took place, focusing on the challenges and opportunities in creating partnerships in the field of peacebuilding. Building on these experiences, the seminar worked towards identifying next steps and actionable recommendations to establishing and utilizing these partnerships for peace more effectively.
After a word of welcome from the director of ADPC, Awil Mohamoud, Mrs. Juliènne Doppenberg-Difukidi (Tosangana) and Mr. Olivier Muhizi (African Human Rights Network) shared their first-hand experiences in running a diaspora organization in the field of peacebuilding. Both provided some interesting best practices of what partnerships can bring. Whereas Juliènne’s organisation has been deeply involved in the National Action Plan 1325, a partnerships of different organizations and government on issues related to women, peace and security, Olivier recently established a new platform, which links up international NGOs with local human right defenders. Another great example of what type of partnerships exists. Both stressed the importance of working together to be able to contribute to sustainable peace.
On the basis of participants expertise and linkages with their activities, they then split up into peace network groups on either gender, radicalisation or youth. 
Facilitated by colleagues from WO=MEN, ICCT and The Hague Peace Projects, the groups delved deeper into the challenges and opportunities they face in their work when building partnerships and jointly identified next steps to address these. A key insight from the event was to turn the challenge faced by many diaspora organizations of having little capacity and resources, into the opportunity of joining forces, also with NGOs, when developing projects.
Overall the participants of the seminar expressed a clear interest and willingness to continue this exchange of experiences, to be able to learn from each other. A concrete idea would be to have this continued conversation as a way to actually explore possibilities of establishing partnerships.
For more information on the overview of NGOs and other organizations in the Hague working towards peace, click here.
Watch the video here.
Entrepreneurship and Private Sector Development
Entrepreneurship and Private Sector Development in Fragile States
‘New insights and lessons from the field’
A seminar on entrepreneurship and private sector development in fragile states was held on the 24th of June, which none other than our colleague Dr Rens Twijnstra spoke at.The seminar discussed new insights and lessons from the field, as in recent years Private Sector Development (PSD) and entrepreneurship support have taken center-stage in the international community’s approach to promoting security and development in fragile and conflict-affected states. This seminar was held to promote new insights from the domains of academia,policy and business itself with regards to PSD and entrepreneurship in fragile and conflict-affected states.The seminar focused on these main questions: how does Dutch development policy envision the role of businesses in promoting growth and equity in fragile states? What are the preconditions for international businesses to invest or start a joint venture or (post)-conflict environment? What is the significance of transnational diaspora entrepreneurs? How can women’s enterprise groups boost business engagement and local conditions of peace?
The seminar was organised by the IS Academy Human Security in Fragile States & Ministry of Foreign Affairs,Sustainable Economic Department.
The DAP programme aims to upgrade the professional..
The DAP programme aims to upgrade the professional skills and development competences of Diaspora organizations in Europe who are active in the field of migration and development.
