Many European Union New Member States (NMS) have recently shifted from being recipients of development assistance to a role of international donors. The conference "Development Assistance Operators from the EU New Member States: Experiences, Trends and Challenges" is therefore being organized to examine the need of NMS to (re)design their development assistance policies and to explore best practices of institutional arrangements for the assistance implementation. The following topics will be covered:

• Recent Trends in the EU Development Assistance: Emergence of New Member States as New Donors
• Structures for Development Assistance Implementation: Experiences from Traditional and New Donors
• The Role of Development Assistance Operators from New Member States: Capitalization of Their Sector and Geographical Advantages and the Outlook for Their Future Policies
• Management of Development Assistance Operators
• Effective Participation of Development Assistance Operators from New Member States in EU-funded Projects and Programs in least developed countries

The idea for the conference has been initiated and the conference will be coordinated by the Slovenian development assistance operators - Centre for European Perspective, Center of Excellence in Finance, Foundation "TOGETHER" and International Trust Fund for Demining and Mine Victims Assistance.