Congress of Local and Regional Authorities

The Launching Conference of the LADDER project (Local Authorities as Drivers for Development Education and Raising awareness), organised in Brussels on 5 June 2015, focused on “Empowering and engaging citizens in global issues” with the participation of Congress Vice-President Gaye Doganoglu (Turkey, EPP/CCE). “The key to sustainable achievements in this respect is to make citizens believe that they can make a difference through their actions,” stated Mrs Doganoglu addressing the participants at the debate on “Local for Global – From localisation to globalisation”. “The Congress plays a crucial role in delivering this message to local authorities, and through them, reaches out to the citizens. Based on the human rights approach of development, notably the promotion, at local level, of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, the Congress has undertaken several activities to raise awareness of democracy through education,” she explained. Mrs. Doganoglu highlighted, in particular, the European Local Democracy Week which will be dedicated in 2015 to “Living together in multicultural societies: respect, dialogue, interaction”. The LADDER project seeks to enhance the action of local authorities in EU DEAR – Development Education and Awareness raising – policies. Managed by ALDA (European Association for Local Democracy), itwill be running until December 2017.

Speech