Preparing the second workshop: setting the stage for a civil society position paper on the national strategy for sustainable development

Workspaces Spot the Future Belarus
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We write a briefing email and a template for input.

Briefing email (send ideally by Nov 11th)/please edit

Email header: UNDP invites you to design the future of Belarus

UNDP and Edgeryders invite you to take part in an experiment. In the course of Spot The Future Belarus we discovered that the Belarusian civil society has incredible expertise, and is using it in many groundbreaking projects on social innovation, tech, social inclusion of disadvantaged groups and many other areas. We think this expertise should be used to advise the government as it plans the next moves: people active in these areas know better than anyone else the problems on the ground.

We have a fantastic opportunity. The Ministry of the economy is working on a document called the National Strategy for Sustainable Development. The NSSD is very broad, and touches on most areas that are of interest to Belarusian changemakers, from quality of life for people with disabilities all the way to sustainable mobility and transport. So, we are trying to produce a civil society position paper, a set of recommendations that tell the government what it can do to facilitate the work of the people that are already working on these issues. UNDP takes responsibility for presenting it to the Ministry of the economy. We do this in the context of a workshop, to be held on November 17th [place and time].

Remember: this is not a survey. We are inviting you as a designer of solutions. If you are receiving this email, it means we think you are one of the most knowledgeable people in Belarus on whatever it is you are working on. Feel free to invite any other person that feels he or she has something to contribute. Anybody is welcome, as long as she is willing to work to propose solutions.

The workshop works like this:

  1. X and Y will present the NSSD and explain how we all can contribute to it.
  2. We split in groups, each organized around a them (for example: designing cities who are user-friendly for everyone, including people with disabilities). Each person can join any group. Each group will go through a set of simple questions meant to capture the expertise  in the table and channel it into recommendations.
  3. After the workshop, the material will be compiled into a paper that will constitute our collective input to the NSSD.

[Housekeeping instructions: contact person, RSVP etc.]

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Works for me, let’s do this.

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The sooner the better

Ok, so I guess it is up to Olga to add the names of the people who will do the presentations. I guess the contact person will be @masha_cheriakova, who also needs to add one line about how people should confirm they are coming.