After 36 months of fruitful work in cooperation with its 27 co-applicants and 19 associates, the LADDER project can strike a successful balance. Our metrics are not only the brilliant debates and the smiles of participants during the final conference, but also the figures. The cooperation of local authorities and civil society organisations did promote Development Education & Awareness Raising (DEAR) in the European Union and beyond.

LADDER worked along five dimensions:

  1. The Research dimension produced 5 documents, in form of toolkits, about DEAR and SDGs, and 1 survey on the outreach of DEAR which involved 1,268 participants.
  2. The Capacity Building and Peer-to-Peer Education dimension can look back on 123 Capacity Building Activities which managed to foster the capacity of EU and non-EU LAs and CSOs concerning their capacity in implementing DEAR policies and foster citizens’ participation for development in their communities, as well as the drafting of 1 Methodological Handbook on DEAR best practices.
  3. Advocacy actions were carried out in 3 Geographical Paths (Mediterranean, Eastern Partnership area and South-East Europe) as well as in 6 Thematic Paths: Youth in Development, Migration, Citizens’ participation in development, Environmental and Sustainable Development, Public-Private Cooperation for Development and EYD 2015 & Follow up. Combined, they organized 21 events reaching a wide public, and published recommendations and other advocacy papers.
  4. Supporting Grass-Root Actions & Citizens brought about the Citizen Journalist initiative, with more than 60 young people writing 130 articles about sustainable development and contributing to the LADDER’s mission. A Slogan Competition was also launched and revealed to be extremely popular receiving 773 slogan proposals from students all over Europe. At the same time, through the re-granting scheme, LADDER supported 73 micro projects at the local level in various EU countries.
  5. Finally, the Creative Component wrote and performed an emotional and insightful theatre play about migration. 11 Performances in a European tour spread the message of inter-cultural understanding and hope to more than 700 spectators.

As the Secretary General of ALDA, Antonella Valmorbida, concluded at the project’s Final Conference in Strasbourg (November 2017): “LADDER has cultivated diverse and multiple actions and has established a large network of local actors, representatives of civil society and local authorities. LADDER’s seeds have been sown, and together, we will continue working to awake an awareness of sustainable development in the daily lives of citizens.”

Citizen journalists decided to continue their work in their own local communities, making sure every single person is made aware of the impact of local actions for the whole world. This is the legacy of LADDER – a pan European network of people, local authorities, and organisations committed to making a real change at local level for a better planet.

Stay tuned to know more about each dimension of the project!

LADDER in figures