First meeting of the Metagora Partners Group, Paris

— launching the process

The first meeting of the Metagora Partners Group took place in Paris on 24-26 March 2004. A few weeks after the official launching of the project's pilot phase, it gathered for the first time representatives of all Partner Implementing Organizations, selected experts, representatives of EC, UN-HCHR, UN-HABITAT, as well as the METAGORA Co-ordination Team (MCT). In the opening session, Mr Antoine Simonpietri, manager of PARIS21, addressed the attendants with a welcome message on behalf of Mr Michael Roeskau, director of DCD-OECD and commented on the importance the PARIS21 consortium attaches to the success of Metagora.

After a long preparation period, the pilot projects designed by the partners could finally start. In order to assure the coherence of these

Reviewing the overall plans and goals

activities with the overall project focus, the different task teams and plenary sessions during the three days of meetings aimed at allowing all partners to:

• know the persons involved in the "core forces" of the project (PIOs, MCT, Experts);
• contribute to build up team spirit and develop effective interaction and cross-fertilization;
• be informed of the rules, administrative procedures and communication tools of the project;
• inform each other of preparatory and/or implementing steps taken by PIOs or MCT;
• confirm the commitment to the Metagora objectives;
• review the targets and profile of Metagora activities and update the working program;
• identify PIOs' specific needs for scientific/technical support and plan assistance missions;
• fix deadlines and agree on a consolidated project schedule;
• finalize partners' budgets and related documents to be submitted for approval to the donors.

The presence of the OECD's GOVNET during the same days in Paris opened the opportunity for a joint GOVNET-Metagora meeting. On this occasion, Mark Orkin (South Africa) delivered a speech on the Metagora objectives and Nancy Hidalgo (Peru), in collaboration with Francois Roubaud (France), presented first results of on-going work in measuring governance and democratic participation through regular national household surveys, implemented by the National Statistical Institute of Peru.

Executive Report of the meeting (english; .pdf; 165 kb)