Dialogue Toolkit
To address this problem and mitigate its negative consequences, the INGO Conference of the Council of Europe decided to elaborate a practical guide to conduct dialogues where they are most needed. The aim is to supply a hands-on concise, user-friendly Dialogue Toolkit that can have impact in situations where people want to build social cohesion and the human rights based approach to diversity issues.
What is in the Toolkit?
The Toolkit is around 30 text pages long. Each element ends with a set of Action Points, to be used in the situation when and where dialogues are being initiated. It is also provides readers with a variety of useful references and links.
How is it meant to be used?
The Toolkit helps the designing of a Dialogue in a given situation.
It further provides guidance in dialogue facilitation and evaluation.
The INGO Conference proposes that Partnership Agreements be drawn up with relevant stakeholders to implement these Dialogues and is training Facilitators for this role.
To whom it is addressed?
The users of the Dialogue Toolkit are all those who are concerned by social cohesion, human rights, governance and diversity issues and willing to pass from policy recommendations to elaborate and implement policies, based on a multi-stakeholder approach.
How was the Dialogue Toolkit made?
The Toolkit is the result of experiences, field observations and debate, a drawing together of lessons learned. The INGO Conference began this task as part of the preparations of the Council of Europe NGO Forum of March 2011 in Istanbul. A working group was created. Workshops and questionnaires were used with theoretical underpinning and the draft text underwent a Peer Review by a Council of Europe expert as well as Academicians . External funds were raised and more volunteers brought on board to get to the launching stage of the Dialogue Toolkit.
