GDN Next Horizons Essay Contest 2014

Call for essay
Application ddl 15 September

How would you reinvent foreign aid? 

The world has changed radically since the emergence of official development assistance and since the aid agency was invented. How should aid change? Aid is by no means the only source of financing for development in today’s world. Yet for the poorest countries, aid is a vital source of government finance. Aid helps fund critical social services and may catalyze other sources of development funding, such as private investment. In the lead up to 2015, when many significant financing commitments for development will be made, there is a need to be smart about where and how aid is deployed, based on an understanding of how aid can be most valuable in a given country.

In order to help bring attention to the need for scholarship and fresh ideas in this area, and to encourage broad participation, the Global Development Network (GDN) in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announces an international essay contest. The contest invites essays on the future of development assistance. The primary objective of the contest is to invite fresh thinking related to the future of aid that can inform the ongoing discourse on development assistance and to make this thinking available to policymakers and key stakeholders.

Up to 20 winning entries will be chosen, and receive $20,000 each. An independent panel will make the final selectionsof the best and most potentially consequential submissions, based on criteria defined. Select winning ideas may be promoted by GDN and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

More info here: http://www.gdn.int/html/page11.php?MID=3&SID=24&SSID=80#

SERBIA - Belgrade EU Model

Application deadline 15 September

Let’s put it simply – Belgrade Model European Union (BEUM) is all about gathering more than 250 future young leaders of the Old Continent together with one main goal – to simulate the  decission making procedures within the European Union.
It is about strengthening connections between young professionals, exchanging different ideas, meeting different cultures and languages, practicing personal skills, learning about how the European Union really functions and how can the young people make their voice  heard in those processes.

Belgrade Model EU is a fresh project founded in 2011. Our first simulation took place in November 2011, with an amazing success, already promising a long-term annual project that will become a tradition.

The second edition, BEUM 2012, proved to be an even bigger success, gathering nearly 200 participants coming from all parts of Europe.  Our third edition, BEUM 2013, was our greatest success so far. We managed to gather almost 250 participants from over 35 countries, and we got support from the embassies of the Kingdom of Norway as well as the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

How did it all start?

We had an idea. Several experienced students from Belgrade decided to join together and make something new and challenging, something inspiring, something that has not been seen in this part of Europe before. We established BEUM Student Association and started with our work. It was not easy, but we had help. Thanks to our friends and colleagues from Bringing Europe Together Association e.V we managed to take first baby steps towards realization of our idea. Results speak for themselves: first BEUM was attended by 150 participants from 20 countries.

What is it about?

Belgrade Model EU will simulate three European Union institutions:
European Parliament (EP), Council of the European Union (CEU) and European Council (EC).
While the EC sessions are taking place separately and individually, EP and CEU are bound to cooperate according to a strict procedure in order to deliver the legislation together. This procedure that we will be simulating is called The Ordinary Legislative Procedure. That means that the proposals have to be approved by both EP and CEU in order to become the legislation.
This means that the participants will really have to give their best to reach the consensus in order for their amendments to pass.

The roles at BEUM

Participants can chose a large scope of roles this year: starting from the Members of the European Parliament, Ministers in the Council of EU and Heads of states or governments in the European Council, all the way to challenging roles of Lobbyists and Journalists. Our goal is to provide the participants with all of the different aspects of the EU decision making procedures.

More info here: http://www.belgrade-meu.org/