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The Association of Leaders of Local Civic Groups invites all interested organizations from CEE Countries to take part in an international seminar on ethical standards in watchdogging
The event will take place in Warsaw, on March 26-27, 2009. The working languages of the seminar will be Polish and English.
During this year's seminar entitled “Watchdogs - Working Out Credibility”, there will be discussions what makes watchdogs credible, and how they should act to assure citizens that main aim of their projects is to work towards the public interest. While observing different watchdog activities that were undertaken in the Central and Eastern Europe we could very often witness the reluctant reactions of public institutions that where the target of monitoring or advocate actions. The popular way of undermining trust to watchdog activity is accusation of partial opinions due to individual and even selfish interest. As in some cases it might be true, for large number of them it is false but still may endanger credibility of civic control. For that reason watchdogs have to avoid unclear situations and undertake necessary precautions to make them trustworthy for citizens.
At the seminar, organizers will focus on issues like conflict of interest in civic control, its integrity, accountability and transparency. Although those standards are generally known and accepted, in practice watchdogs encounter several situations when they have to make a difficult choice to defend their views. Moreover, standards that work in old democracies, especially in the United States of America, may not be easy to fulfill in Central and Eastern Europe. The seminar is open to different dilemmas presented by the participants. Organizers prepared three breakout sessions that are planned to provide room for discussion on practical examples that are met in watchdogs every-day life. There will be participants from different political cultures and conditions – this year, experts from United States, Belgium and the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland and Ukraine were invited.
Full agenda and other information in English are available on
http://www.watchdog.org.pl/x/430843
The seminar will take place in Warsaw, Poland on 26th-27th of March, 2009. The detailed information will be provided individually by the organizers. If you are interested in participation, please contact the seminar coordinator - Krzysztof Izdebski at: watchdog@lgo.pl, fax/phone +48 22 844 73 55, www.watchdog.org.pl.
