In the finalizing phase of the Erasmus+-project Young Eyes I facilitated the dialogue in a 3-day workshop in Robertsfors municipality on projects that youth from Latvia, Poland and Sweden wanted to work with in their municipalities for the benefit of youth and the communities as whole. Besides of youth from Jelgava and Rauna in Latvia, Suwalki in Poland and Robertsfors in Sweden, a team from Scotland and Norway working with the project was also part of this workshop.
Together with schoolars and practioners from a wide range of countries I participated at ICLDs international workshop "The Future of Local Government in the New Development Agenda" at Visby, Gotland May 22nd-25th. A big variation of themes, issues, topics and cases were discussed at several sessions. Local governments and democratization at the local level may not be a panacea for success, but it is certainly one of the key factor for a fair, non-discriminatory sustainable development.
When driving from Kigali International Airport into and through Kigali it is hard to imagine that this country has experienced a genocide 1994. Kigali is now a green, clean and beautiful city inviting people, countries and investors for rapid modernization. With assistance, me and the photographer Evelina Rönnbäck met several representatives for the Rwandan society. Everyone showed hospitality and interest. I can recommend a visit to Rwanda for many reasons, but do not forget Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. Kwibuka Rwanda.
Together with a team from Robertsfors Municipality and the unique entreprenur Jonas Forsberg - founder of Red Q and advisor for sustainable business - we join a stakeholder meeting with representatives for Busia Municipality, government, civil society and others for a dialogue on how these parties could support the development for sustainable livelihood in Busia. The project - funded by Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD) will continue until 2018 as mentioned in earlier news.
Through an urgent need to get closer to contemporary realities in The Middle East - a region and a concept which is politically defined rather than just geographically - I decided to visit Jordan due to its location and for the possibility to meet senior research fellow and team-leader Adel Elsayed Sparr at WANA Institute who works with human security - one of the pillars at the institute. Thank you Jordan for your beauty and Adel for interesting dialogue around several areas.
In two programmes with workshops and study visits in Homa Bay County, Kenya and The County of Västerbotten representatives from Homa Bay County Government and The Center for Rural Medicine in Storuman Municipality have worked to identify areas of cooperation in an application to Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD). The partners, who have an interest of using and developing telemedicine to enhance health, will work with and include different stakeholders, for example Nordic Health Innovations Ltd and Microsoft.