Our challenge

Post Copenhagen many researchers and environmentalists are now reconsidering their strategies on how to become more effective in the pursuit of our objectives for climate protection and sustainability.  The Action Town project aims to support the process of finding new and better ways for civil society to have influence towards a sustainable human use of the earth’s resources.

In preparation for this, we have written a brief Action Town Roadmap Discussion Paper (please see the DISCUSSION PAPER) on the challenges identified.  Based on the findings of the discussion paper, our starting point for debate are the following theses:

- Environmental NGOs often focus on single issues and symptoms rather than on the key systemic challenges and root causes.

- They lack knowledge in social sciences, and the capacity to integrate these areas into their practical work.

- These organizations rarely fully use the potential of joining forces between different interest groups to build alliances with aligned interests.

The workshop

To address these issues, we have invited a select group of thinkers from academia and civil society on how to develop better and new civil society strategies to tackle the global environmental crisis. Download the FINAL PARTICIPANT LIST.

Key workshop question

- How can we best make use of our collective knowledge and existing thinking and develop and define an agenda for collaboration between academia and NGOs to provide NGOs with better knowledge and capacity for more effective strategies and tactics?

Workshop themes

- What do NGOs need to improve short-medium term focused campaigning strategies?

- What do NGOs need to develop new and better ways to catalyze long-term social and political change towards a new paradigm?

- What do NGOs need in order to better measure and evaluate the success or failure of their activities??.

Recommended readings

Based on our research and input from the workshop participants, we have collected a list of RECOMMENDED READINGS that elaborate on the workshop themes.  If you have material that you consider to be relevant to this process, you can send it to us on the e-mail provided at the bottom of this page, and we will take it into consideration for inclusion here.

Agenda

The workshop is by invitation only, and will be held in Wuppertal, Germany, on the 11th and 12th of March, 2009. We will start at 9:00 on Thursday March 11th and finish at 16:00 on Friday, 12th.   In order to have a prompt start on day 1, we kindly ask you to plan to arrive on the evening of March 10th, when we will also organize an informal get-together at 20:00 in the restaurant Al Howara near the participant hotel.  Download the FINAL WORKSHOP AGENDA.

Getting to Wuppertal and finding your way around the city

For your convenience we have gathered all the PRACTICAL INFORMATION about your arrival, accommodation and the conference venue in this pdf. This document also includes the workshop agenda and the participant list.

For questions regarding this workshop, please contact us at actiontownroadmapworkshop@scp-centre.org.