Reference Documents

21 April 1999

 

PRESENTATION OF THE PROPOSALS

RESULTING FROM THE 6-7 APRIL 1999 SEMINAR

ON THE ACTORS AND PROCESSES INVOLVED

IN THE CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN UNION

AND THE ACP COUNTRIES

(Brussels)

Public Presentation – 8 April 1999

 

In his opening statement, Commissioner Pinheiro underscored the exemplary character of the process conducted by the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind and the seminar participants and stated his satisfaction with the frankness of the discussion. ‘I am certain’, he said, ‘that the findings and guidelines resulting from the seminar will be of great help to us in the future, whether for the revision of the Lomé Convention or for that of the Commission's procedures. Development actors will be at the heart of the new Lomé Convention. This will be a revolution in our procedures and in the endogenization of development processes.’

Pierre Calame then presented the collective working process undertaken on the initiative of Michel Rocard, Chair of the Committee on Development and Co-operation of the European Parliament, and the European Commission to feed the ongoing discussions on the next Lomé Convention.

 

1. Working Process

(Pierre Calame)

 

The working process has two outstanding features:

Pierre Calame sketched out the main features of the working process:

This approach ‘at the two ends of the chain’ provided results beyond expectations for several reasons.

The first reason was the field actors' enormous desire to speak, to talk about their experience of the co-operation processes. This explains how in less than one month more than 200 experience reports were completed by or with these actors. They were pleased that what they had to say was taken seriously, that importance was being given to what from afar may appear to be mere details but are actually the main points of co-operation. This is because, where governance is concerned, there is no such thing as a detail or rather, better said, details are sometimes more determinating than big strategies or rhetoric.

The second reason for this success was related to Michel Rocard's reputation. This being his initiative opened doors and generated a climate of trust as much among the Commission as among the partners of the North and the South, making it possible to save a lot of time.

Third reason for this success lay in the commitment and maturity of many of the ACP country partners, an in their ability to express things and to analyse their situation. Here and there, networks are beginning to form, needing only to be backed and developed.

The fourth reason was that we benefited from all the intellectual assessment work already accomplished by the Commission. We were thus able to compare our results with the previous assessments.

Finally, we used an experience-sharing process that has been tested for more than ten years. When partners are accustomed to sharing information that is both straightforward and summarised, time can be considerably reduced and make it possible to do in one month what could have taken up to two years.

I would also like to underscore the Commission's financial, intellectual, moral and logistical support, and the gracious and open reception I got when interviewing a number of officers. Considering their work load, the numerous audits and current attacks against the Commission, someone's coming from the outside, moreover in the name of the European Parliament, could have been felt as a sort of aggression. I was touched, on the contrary, by the competence, the openness and the availability of the people with whom I met and extend my heartfelt thanks to them.

Finally, I was surrounded during all this period by a particularly dynamic, efficient and enthusiastic team would like to mention in particular, Anne Simon, Chantal Tien and Karine Goasmat, who worked day and night so we would be able to hold our seminar on the basis of a strong preliminary document.

The process takes place in three stages.

The six-month forum will allow us to test these new, original procedures for the democratisation of information in the context of European Co-operation. The experience reports revealed that the need to democratise information and to make debates public is in fact vividly felt.

Of course, given the brief period of time in which it has been conducted, this exercise has had real limits:

I nevertheless believe that insofar as there was agreement on the issues raised, this guarantees to some extent the strength of the findings of the survey.

The 6-7 April 1999 seminar was organised in an unusual form, which explains the quality and the intensity of the discussions. It brought together a small force of 30 people. Attendees were there to speak to one another, not to listen to a series of monologues prepared in advance. The participants belonged to five different ‘colleges’: European Members of Parliament; European Commission members; representatives of the ACP community both in Brussels and national organisers; non-governmental actors of the South; resource persons of the North. I would like here to express my appreciation for the intellectual contribution of the Club du Sahel, represented at the seminar by its Chairman, Henri-Philippe Cart, and by one of its experts, David Naudet. Their presence allowed us to compare the difficulties encountered by European Co-operation with those encountered in other forms of co-operation.

We were fortunate to have the benefit of the Commission's excellent reception and the interpreters' excellent work. All of this concurred to produce a rich discussion enabling us to fine tune the diagnosis, validate its main points, and above all to improve the proposals and make them more specific.

I am going to present the diagnosis. The proposals will be presented successively by Max Puig, National Authorising Officer of the Dominican Republic, Ousmane Sy, Head of Decentralisation and Industrial Reform in Mali, Jean-Pierre Elong M'Bassi, Secretary General of the Municipal Development Programme of Western and Central Africa, Guy Petitpierre, European Union delegate for Madagascar, and David Naudet, expert for the Club du Sahel.

 

2. Diagnosis

(Pierre Calame)

 

I was struck of the convergence of diagnoses that came out both of the experience reports from the field and the interviews of the Commission officers. Such convergence is not so frequent: it is more usual, in problems of governance, that the same reality is understood so differently by the actors on the field on the one hand and the actors at the top on the other, that it seems like there are two completely different realities. In the case of European Co-operation, I had the feeling that the same reality was being referred to.

I was also struck by the contrast between the actors' motivation and the obtained results. The feeling is that actors are acting within a system that does not allow them to give their best. This is why I qualified European Co-operation as ‘generous’ but with ‘low output’. It does play a unique role. The Green Book, thanks to the discussions that it raised, gave European Co-operation a new legitimacy. It bears promises for the future because it links world regions that have different levels of development, and relations between world regions are fundamental for inventing a somewhat democratic world order.

Why does an objective bearing such promises for the future with such motivated persons have such low output? The fundamental problem here is one of governance.

Good governance is one of the topics of discussion in the renegotiations of the Lomé Convention and raises some serious apprehension, especially among the ACP countries. Yet, the diagnosis challenges the ‘European Union’ system - and I insist on the word ‘system’ because we are not only dealing with the Commission but also with its relations with Member States and with the Parliament. Is this system prepared to apply to itself the good governance that it recommends to others? Is it prepared to apply to itself the principles that it recommends others to implement? Is it prepared to think about its objectives, contracts and the assessment of its own transformation?

The identified difficulties are of three orders: classic problems of governance; classic problems of international co-operation; and the inertia of strong institutional system in a fast changing reality.

Two metaphors appeared me to illustrate the contradictions European Co-operation is facing:

 

2.1 A Spade of Dissymetrical Patterns

There is not just one dissymmetrical relationship between the North and the South. There is a spade of dissymmetrical patterns. It begins in the relationship between the European Commission and the Member States: the Commission is accountable to the Member States for what it does but the reverse is not true. Going down the line, this dissymmetrical pattern of relations is found at every level: the ACP countries are accountable to the European Commission but not the other way around; actors on the field are accountable to the administrations of their country but get nothing in return. And all the talk about partnership cannot conceal such dissymmetrical relations, the consequences of which are real and many.

First of all, a co-operation policy is by nature a supply policy. What counts is not the so-called everyone is eager to talk about, it is only the supply. What counts is not what the people really need, it is what one is prepared to offer them. The whole co-operation game – and European Co-operation doesn't differ from other forms of co-operation on this point – is, for the people that need money, to disguise their real needs in such a way as to present them in terms that are acceptable to the supplier. The most striking illustration of this is the multiplication budgetary lines. Every time that European public opinion is moved or made aware of such or such a specific issue, it exercises pressure on the European Parliament, which, to do something about it, adds a new budgetary line, an extra supply, often expressed in very specific terms, then puts the Commission in charge of channelling the money. Thus the Commission becomes a broker for things that were decided at the top and have to be disguised as needs coming from the bottom. Any system this unbalanced inevitably includes some cheating and some concealment.

The second aspect in this dissymmetrical pattern is found in the area of information. In all the experience reports, the actors on the field expressed the feeling knowing very little about the Lomé Convention. Some even referred to the ‘clandestine nature’ of the Convention. This comes as a quite a shock to the Commission officers considering the information effort they make, but it is very interesting to have this feedback from the field informing us that the actors in the ACP countries do not know much about the Convention.

The third dissymmetrical element is the one-sided character of rules. This is also a statement liable to disturb officers involved in complex work in which the rules are the fruit of negotiations in the framework of a convention approved by the parties. But it is also good to know that in the field that is not the way things are experienced: the rules are fixed, the forms of control, accounting and assessment are fixed, and if they are not adapted to the dynamics that one wishes to support, there is nothing that can be done about it, one has to make do with what there is. Even though the expression ‘conditionality of aid’ is often challenged, this is largely the way it is experienced on the field.

The most dramatic result of these dyssimetrical patterns, which are often found in governance issues, is what I call the inversion of unity and diversity. The objective is to back complex dynamics involving actors and processes in extremely varied situations. To do so, simplicity should be in the procedures so that diversity and complexity can be on the field. However, the very nature of bureaucratic systems (I’m using this term in its technical, not pejorative sense) implies that complexity and diversity are put into the bureaucratic system itself and that, then, requires simplicity and unity on the field. The more budgetary lines there are, the more procedures are varied and complicated, the more there are different legal frameworks, and more the projects that are put through the blender need to be simple and stereotyped. I was even told of NGOs, ideal partners for the Commission, that produced genuinely stereotyped products, out of a catalogue, explaining after the fact that they met the needs of the populations. The more the blender is complex, the more the projects that you can put into them need to be simple. The challenge that awaits you is to put the simplicity and unity back into the procedures so as to enable true complexity and true diversity, which should be on the field.

 

2.2 Disposable Learning

Obviously, there has to be mediation systems to go from the European taxpayer to the recipient on the field and to transform big sums of money into small sums. How can this be done in no-trust situations where – let's not hide behind words – the people in charge in the North do not trust the public systems of the ACP countries to be properly managed? Other mediation systems necessarily have of be found. At the present time, what counts in everyone’s mind is how fast payments are made. Vis-à-vis the ACP countries, public opinion and the European Parliament, the Commission has to show that it can spend the budgets. As a result, quantity prevails over quality. This is universally acknowledged, as much in the Commission as among the actors on the field. There is no time for subtle processes and long-term dialogues that require little money. The trouble with processes it is that they require little money, and given that there as things stand now is no way to transform the aid money into time for dialogue, backing a long and inexpensive process is in practice, not encouraged.

This explains the ongoing prestige of infrastructure projects: they make it possible to spend a lot in one blow and they are easy to control. Should they still be a co-operation priority at this stage in the history of the construction of the ACP countries? This is certainly not for me to decide. All I can do is note that the present system gives considerable bounty to expensive and simple projects.

The other solution found so far is recourse to mediators of the North: research consultancies, NGOs and experts of all kinds. I was told–and I was also able to check this personally–that 40% of the aid went to financing the mediators of the North. But what is most serious in this recourse to chains of mediators of the North, is that it results in what I have called ‘disposable learning’. The major challenge should be to contribute to building societies and their know-how, and to developing practices. In fact, however, we spend all our time in developing learning among the mediators, which they will immediately destroy because they have to go on to other questions. Of all challenges of European Co-operation, disposable learning is the one that I find the most disturbing.

 

2.3 Contradiction between the Stated Objectives and the Implementation Methods

This issue is a particular challenge to the Commission or, better said, to European Union governance.

As in any large organisation, the Commission’s culture is largely founded on past situations. Everyone says that ‘per-project co-operation’ needs to be abandoned, but my impression is that the Commission way of thinking, reasoning, and programming remains completely linked to per-project co-operation and this is the attitude that will be most often met with by the actors in the field when dealing with the Delegations.

A second feature is that the organisation is partitioned, centralised, top-down decision system, and not much of a learning organisation. Yet if to point is to move in the direction of diversity, the people that are in contact with diversity on the field need to be supported. The central system will have to undergo deep change to play a new, capital, role aimed at facilitating processes of experience capitalisation and sharing. However, at the present time, it seems to me that people are absorbed by the administrative tasks involved in processing files and that as a result, as someone said to me, ‘we speak to one another but we don't converse.’

The third problem has to do with the procedures. I have the feeling that the procedures are based on a culture of suspicion. This culture of suspicion, which is not specific to the Commission, also marks its relations with the Parliament and with Member States. It is typically a problem that cannot be dealt with exclusively at the level of the Commission but also requires a new dialogue between it and its interlocutors. This was underscored by Michel Rocard at the time of the seminar: ‘It is absolutely necessary to move from a process where the energy is placed on ex-ante control with no follow-up on the field, to a new system where ex-ante control is reduced to a minimum, where there is agreement on the objectives but not on the means and where means are made available to evaluate the experience and capitalise on it.’ Today, we are very far from this situation. Not only are we very far, but I am quite aware that present attacks on the Commission can tend to ‘make things worse’: the problem now is for everyone to avoid that their personal responsibility should be questioned, which entails multiplying control. And yet, in co-operation matters, ex-ante control of a project that has been filed is something of a bad joke. It has no meaning, it guarantees nothing, and prevents everything. It prevents adjusting to processes fluctuating in time, to agreeing with the actors on the objectives while leaving them free to choose, progressively, the means to reach them. I would like to add that what I have seen of your recent evolution, with the administrative separation between the people who process the files and those who manage them, seems absolutely terrifying to me. I say this with simplicity: if in terms of governance you had wanted to give an example of what should not be done, you could not have found a better one. How can you claim, if I may speak frankly, to give an any advice in governance to any government if the internal governance of the Commission is not first analysed?

To get rid of the contradiction between the stated objectives and the methods for their implementation, the whole system of relations between the Commission and its partners first needs to be reviewed. The requirements of Member States also need to be reviewed, for instance the principle of ex-ante control of decisions on EDF. The European Parliament needs to think about its own requirements with respect to the Commission. The different components of the system now need to enter into adult relationships. All of these relationships need to be laid out on the table, calmly and serenely, and be given the same objectives that you recommend for the countries of the South.

 

3. Proposals

 

3.1 Moving from Project Support to Supporting Processes

(Max Puig)

 

Max Puig declares his satisfaction with the richness of the process undertaken and the seminar and begins statement of the proposals that have resulted from them.

The project logic needs to be abandoned, along with a number of habits, in favour of a considerably different system, focused on the actors and processes of development, so that the future Lomé Convention backs the construction of actors and institutions, both public and private, of the ACP countries. This has to be the equivalent of what the Marshall Plan was for Europe after the war in the area of reconstruction of infrastructure and facilities.

Central to this proposal is the idea of moving from a system based on projects and on ex-ante control to a system that enables the development of actors, processes and ex-post control. The primary idea is dialogue, dialogue at every scale, between the public and private actors within and without the ACP countries. Such dialogue should give way to an articulation between public actors and private actors and this articulation should, in turn, make it possible to back states and civil society without this being a contradiction in terms. Naturally, this should result in development strategies based on these dialogues. Such articulation should not take anything away from the state’s role in the development of these strategies and co-ordination of their implementation. Strategies are the result of this dialogue within each of the countries involved and also of the dialogue among the actors of each of these countries with outside actors, the European Union and its Members States, and European private actors.

At the beginning of the Lomé Convention it was believed that states had to be reinforced. After that, it was believed that the private actors had to be reinforced. Now we need to understand that development does not consist in building the state in the hope that it will generate society, nor to develop a stateless society, but in building public authorities, society and the relationship between them, at the local, national and regional levels at the same time. Not one or the other but one and the other.

 

3.2. Backing a Twofold Dynamics of Decentralisation and

of Regional Integration

(Max Puig)

Everywhere in the world two complementary movements can be observed, of regional integration and decentralisation. The first corresponds to the increasing interdependence of countries, the second, to allowing a better recognition of the diversity of situations, less sector-specific public management and a more authentic and more participatory democracy. This twofold movement does not eliminate the role of the nation-state, it qualifies and redefines it. It is observed in Europe in particular that this in-depth movement leading to the reconsideration of governance concepts and practices are an excellent opportunity for the ACP countries.

I would like to highlight the importance of this twofold movement and the role the Lomé Convention needs to play in backing regional solidarity in the framework of the ACP countries. At the time when the agreements that gave birth to the WTO were being discussed, regional markets and regional agreements were seen by most negotiators as obstacles to the establishment of a world market, which in principle was supposed to be an open market. But today, these regional agreements, this contribution to regional integration has proved to be an important contribution to globalization itself.

The other aspect of this twofold movement is the trend toward decentralisation: this element was taken into account in the last Convention and in the present discussions in view of a post-Lomé Convention. We have moved from the idea of decentralised co-operation, so far often reduced to specific actions completed through NGOs, to the broader conception of co-operation in a territorial framework where there is articulation of the public actors and the private actors. We are moving toward a more precise definition of decentralised co-operation. This will be a specific and important contribution of the future Convention. We need to support this twofold movement of integration and decentralisation.

 

3.3 Transforming Procedures and Practices

(Max Puig)

European Co-operation designed to be at the service of actors and processes supposes a radical transformation of the Commission’s culture and procedures. It needs to be guided by two strong lines: moving from suspicion to trust and putting capacity at the service of diversity. Moving from suspicion to trust at every level, from the relations between Parliament and the Commission to relations with the actors on the field, implies transferring energy from ex-ante control to joint follow-up and evaluation, because trust means neither naivety nor blind confidence, trust is deserved and trust is built.

So far, we have mainly insisted on ex-ante control to the detriment of follow-up. This situation needs to be reversed. When we say that the culture needs to change and move from suspicion to trust, it is often that there has been a lack of trust not entirely explained by the bad use of funds but also by the fact that we are not ready to let the ACP countries assume the consequences of the completion of all the development projects that our countries have defined. This requires changes not only in the procedures but also in the very nature of co-operation: a reduction of the number of budgetary lines, a progressive construction of trust among the actors.

We have clearly concluded that it is necessary to move from the project point of view to the point of view of the process, and also to move from lack of trust and from suspicion to a situation in which more trust is given to the public and private actors. Articulation among the actors will be the basis for building relationships of solidarity, not only in the ACP countries but all over the world.

 

3.4 Giving Partnership back its Meaning

(Ousmane Sy)

Thank you. My turn, now, to make just two comments because my friend Max Puig has already presented some of my proposals in great detail, and I thank the participants, the European Union and the Foundation for the opportunity that we are given to exchange our views.

My comments will deal with two points that seem important to me. The first point, is about going from the project logic to a logic consisting in supporting actors and processes. The discussions we had made it possible for us to underscore a number of implications this involves. The first implication is to accept that we don’t have the answers to all the questions. I believe that in partnership this is extremely important. It means accepting to move forward without having the answers to all the questions that one has. It means accepting the diversity of situations and answers. It means accepting to take chances within the framework of the partnership and I believe that all of this will make possible, precisely, to move from suspicion to trust, because with no trust there is no partnership.

 

3.5 Globalization wih a human face

(Ousmane Sy)

Today in the European Union / ACP Country partnership, the European Union has an added value that will make it possible to implement what in the document was called ‘globalization with a human face’. What the European Union has in terms of added value today and that the ACP countries and in particular the African countries, from where I come, need is support to regionalisation. Europe has been built on this will to unite to face the world challenges, and I believe that Europe must now help the ACP countries, and more especially, as far as I am concerned, the African countries, to unite to face globalization and its challenges.

 

3.6 Putting Actors at the Heart of European Co-operation

(Jean-Pierre Elong M’Bassi)

Commissioner, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like especially to insist on this business of actors, because most likely, when we speak of going from a project logic to an actor's logic, people could exclaim: "But that's what we were doing! What's so new about this and why insist upon it?"

There are several consequences to this redefinition, to this redeployment of European Co-operation. It is true that in micro-projects, in a number of initiatives of this kind, local actors and social actors have not been not absent from European Co-operation. It is also true that very often in the ACP countries these social and local actors were not present in the negotiations. And, it is true, today when we say that we need to put actors at the heart of co-operation, we are actually asking that they no longer be simply associated, that they should be active parties, in the North as well as in the South. I think this is the major change. These discussions between states, these 'clandestine' discussions, as they're called, must change, because one of the specificities of the European Union, which is appreciated in all the ACP countries, is its capacity to build a political and economic zone peacefully. And it would not have such a capacity were it not for the fact that the European states have understood the need to involve in this process the economic actors, the social actors, the local communities, and the regional authorities. The specificity is based on this association, and this is what we expect to find in co-operation relations between the European Union and the ACP countries. This is, above all, what actors at the heart means. This is the institutional construction that puts faces and humanity in co-operation processes.

When we say we need to put the actors in the heart of co-operation, we are also saying that we need to know how to organise dialogue between the actors. This is very difficult to learn, and something the ACP countries in particular have to do. The Green Paper gave way to a very important debate in Europe. I have a confession for you, however: in Africa, the Green Paper is only known at best by the governments, and at worst, only by the Finance Minister, who is generally the EDF National Authorising Officer. Every once in a while, it's true, regional debates were organised with wide press coverage, but the actors, other than those from the concerned central administrations, hardly took any part in them. I can make this statement with full knowledge of the issue, because in January 1997, I organised in Dakar a meeting of all the mayors of Western and Central Africa on the Green Paper. I searched for the word 'city' in the Green Paper: it came up only twice at the time. I passed this finding on to all the local authorities gathered there. How many had ever even heard of the Green Paper? Practically none. Out of all the presidents of organisations of the sub-region, none, in 1997, had ever heard of the Green Paper, exactly the time when it was being discussed in Europe. This didn't stop the majority of governments to claim - the Commission, I believe, included - that the discussions had been broad, that everyone had taken part in them, and that it was a very open information process that was being conducted on that occasion in Africa. I think this is what has to change. We have to find the way to a true debate. We have to find something that departs from institutional conventions and moves toward the actors' experience. This is the second point on which I wished to insist.

3.7 A Fresh Start form the Local Level

(Jean-Pierre Elong M’Bassi)


Putting actors at the heart of co-operation means going back to the local level. And though everybody agrees that co-operation action has to be appropriated, the local level is surprisingly absent from co-operation programmes. There is some talk about the local level, some about the regional level, but the local level is, let's say, a palliative, the level where one tries to invent the social nets to structural adjustment, something that should help the most destitute to survive. In most African countries, this local palliative level is called social development funds, the main activity of which is scattering a few crumbs around, while the real co-operation budgets are being implemented at other levels.

If we wish to move from project-based co-operation to actor-based co-operation, the local level becomes the strategic intervention level. That is the level of at which everyone actually experiences development and co-operation. When the growth rates at the national level are said to be 5 or 10%, the people ask "Where are those 5 and 10%?" Nobody believes it because development, an improvement in people's lives, does not happen at their level on the field. They don't believe in co-operation because they don't see where the money is going. So going back to the local level is also going back to the reality of co-operation in everyday life.

Focusing greater interest in the local level also means looking out from the contradictions that need to be managed by today's African institutions. The local level is where different sources of legitimacy have to coexist: the traditional legitimacy of the customary and religious chiefs; the legitimacy of the action conducted by NGOs and non-profit organisations; and the democratic legitimacy of the modern state. These three types of legitimacy are in constant conflict, and their hybridisation takes on different forms depending on the context. The hybridisation itself is the result of renegotiations to determine the position of each actor in terms of their interpretation of the constraints and opportunities of decentralisation. The local level is truly where the renegotiations of the rules of the political and social game is the most effective. And that is the level at which the new legitimacy of the state is played out.

It is therefore above all at the local level where the mechanisms of articulation between actors need to be invented. From this point of view, the "decentralised co-operation" approach is beyond doubt the most promising approach for a new form of co-operation between the EU and the ACP. This approach genuinely challenges the classic instruments, because it involves different notions of time in co-operation, different paces, less pressure on disbursements, a multiplicity of forms of intervention needing just as many counters to request financing from, etc. So when there is talk of reducing the number of counters, this of course raises some concern, especially among local authorities and the actors of civil society. How can there be any efficiency when respecting diversity? How can this civil society, this institutional society, be built while at the same time respecting people's different relationship to time? How do we go about making sure that those who are on the field are not systematically suspected of being 'embezzlers' of the funds?

We have to develop a culture of trust, without which co-operation will crumble under the weight of piles of ineffective controls. But to move to a co-operation based on trust, we need to accept that information has a critical value in co-operation activities. For example, the Green Paper and all other ongoing negotiations need to be known by the people. I assure you that very few people know. When the Delegates of the European Union say 'You have a lot of money but it's not disbursed because you have no projects,' the actors in the field simply can't believe it. They say, "We have a lot of projects that are not financed and you say that the funds are not disbursed because there are no projects: that can't be!" Some even wonder if the public statement is no more than a ploy that could be hiding the inadmissible reality of a continuous reduction in the co-operation funds earmarked for the ACP.

 

3.8 Public Information on Aid is the Key to Democratic Control

(Jean-Pierre Elong M’Bassi)

 

It is perfectly understandable that in a period when public resources are diminishing, especially those intended for development aid, there should be greater attention as to how co-operation funds are actually being used. But contrary to what is believed, ex-ante controls do not always eliminate the risk of losses along the chain due to bad management or misappropriation. True control still lies in free access to transparent information on the funds implemented in co-operation, because this is democratic control. Given the logic of honour and the weight of social pressure in African societies, the best guarantee against bad management of aid still lies in social control by the populations. Giving a transparent access to information on co-operation has therefore become a prerequisite to making progress in the transparent management of aid flows. This implies that finicky ex-ante controls should be replaced by ex-post controls based on joint EU/ACP assessments. We all endorsed Pierre Calame's proposal to use the new information tools to set up, at the local community level, information and Internet centres accessible to citizens, to report on the renegotiations and provide all the actors with the necessary information on EU/ACP co-operation, among others. We can hope that such Internet information centres will help in improving control over the use of co-operation funds. If for instance an NGO or a local authority has benefited from European Union funds and the assessments say that part of these funds evaporated, if this information is known by those who are assumed to benefit from these funds, then the population itself will demand explanations, and I believe this is the best control that can be instituted.

3.9 Developing a EUROPE/ACP partnership in the management of flows of goods and people

(Jean-Pierre Elong M’Bassi)


In addition, I would like to say that one of the things we most regret is the meagre consideration given to partnership in EU/ACP relations despite the repeated declarations at all the meetings. As President Houphouët Boigny said, 'the hand that receives is below the hand that gives.' We plead for greater equality in these relations despite the differences in development between the ACP and the EU countries. We are living in a time of fundamental mutation of the world order, where management of the flows has become crucial for everyone: management of financial flows is on the agenda everywhere, flows of goods, but also flows of people. However, you know that for flows of people, the emitters, the big emitters today are the ACP countries, because they are the poorest countries, economically, but the most dynamic demographically. That's where a true partnership should definitely be built, so that, together, we can figure out how to manage these flows. This is why, in the proposals we are advancing, we talk of intensifying relations between the European populations and the ACP-country populations; because there are certainly solutions that states on their own can neither find nor implement for the management of these flows. I believe that if we can make headway in these areas and include that in the renegotiations, we will have done something useful.

I would like to bring up one last point. It has to do with the need to focus more serious attention on regional construction and the articulation of the local, national and regional levels of governance. It is amazing that the European Union should have favoured a bilateral approach in its relations with the ACP countries, thus reproducing the same types of relations that the Member States have with these countries. This tends to generate some ambiguity with the ACP countries, when the EU seems to be in competition with its Members in such or such an intervention sector. The originality of the EU lies in the slow, patient, persevering, peaceful construction of a regional entity through the achievement of a progressive recognition of nations, local communities and populations as having a common future on the world stage. Telling the story of this construction, the many compromises, but also the bold decisions it required, is something that the EU could already offer as a contribution to the ACP. To back the construction of regional entities within the ACP, to turn them into regional co-operation areas with greater value, make this regional co-operation a part of the European Commission's institutional instruments, is another line of action that needs to be developed. As a matter of fact, it is remarkable, for instance, that regional co-operation does not have an institutional Commission correspondent on the field, contrary to bilateral co-operation (with the European Commission Delegations in these countries).

To end with, I would like to underscore the essential character of the articulation of the different levels of governance for a whole range of problems affecting people's lives, which are often the object of important co-operation programmes: water, land, infrastructure; but also education, health systems, human safety and rights, conflict prevention. None of these problems can be dealt with effectively at a single level of governance. Helping ACP countries to develop articulation mechanisms between the different levels of governance is probably an area in which the EU has a comparative advantage with respect to other forms of co-operation. This line of action should, beyond any doubt, also be given more attention in future EU-ACP co-operation.

3.10 Making of Budgetary Aid a Collective Process of Evolution of Governance

(Guy Petitpierre)

The analysis of the case files shows the puzzlement, if not the opposition, of a number of field men, at the Commission’s increasingly resorting to budgetary aid. If the recourse to budgetary aid were to become, as presented, an instrument of general scope, a magic wand to solving the ‘plumbing’ problems the Commission is facing, the contractual relations would have to be defined with some with precision. This report proposes that these contractual conditions should include the supporting the construction of actors and their association with public-strategy definition.

This supposes a massive support to thinking on governance in the ACP countries by undertaking a vast mutual training process on the basis of South-South and North-South experience sharing on the different aspects of governance. These latter include among others conditions of strategy development, public-system management, public-private partnership, methods of public-management transparency, construction of collective know-how, and in particular the articulation between the different levels of governance from the local to the regional, which my colleagues have discussed. It concludes that the classic normative approaches have to be abandoned, going from obligation of means to obligation of results.

This question was discussed at length during the second day of the seminar, with, in the beginning, growing puzzlement, and otherwise concern, among a number of participants. Indeed, on the opportunity of a progress report on the negotiation of the new convention, it was declared to us that the Commission intended to ‘review partnership with the ACP" by proposing two major channels for the new partnership: on the one hand, to reinforce the state so that it should be able to play its role, and on the other hand, to reinforce the Private Sector. Hence the proposal to reduce the six EDF instruments to two packages, one earmarked for support to the state, the other for support to the Private Sector. A number of us then wondered how these two ‘budgetary envelopes’ could be in keeping with the objectives of this forum? Where, in the negotiation of the new convention, is the part that concerns the object of our debate? As the discussion developed, we were progressively reassured, but there certainly remains a lot to do so that the orientations on which we have agreed succeed.

First of all, we were explained - and we accepted and validated it - that budgetary aid is a process: it is not a panacea nor an instrument to replace all others. The political determination underlying this instrument, is to manage to insert aid into state policy. The point is no longer to substitute or to interfere but, after a structural discussion on all the components of governance, to give means from the inside and no longer to inject them from the outside. Every state should be able to manage according to its own procedures and not according to the procedure of each of financial backers with which it is dealing. It is the most natural way to help, by helping inside national policy, as long as we agree on it. This also leads to the fact that it won't be possible to obtain such a result from one day to the next with all of our partners. Evaluations vary, depending on whether they are pessimistic or optimistic, within a range of 5 to 30 countries, by the end of 10 years. This is therefore not a universal panacea that is going to replace all the rest, from one day to the next.

 

3.11 Backing the Actors and the Processes by Combining the Lomé Convention and the European Union’s Own Budget

(Guy Petitpierre)

The policies that are to be negotiated in the framework of budgetary aid will have to be explicit about support to the actors and processes of development. The point is not only to discuss financial, monetary, economic, or trade policies, but to also discuss the dialogue between the local and the central, between the central and the neighbouring countries, or the region. To this consideration, it is important today, while the negotiation of the new convention is in progress, to be careful to maintain, if not to improve Article 251 A, which covers four paragraphs of the revised Lomé Convention IV: this article is for the moment the only window open on Decentralised Co-operation. It will have to be kept open and states will have to be encouraged to work in this direction. It will also be necessary to reassure them.

The negotiations in progress show, once again, the reluctance of ACP states to open the door of the convention to the civil society. It is true that they marked their agreement for opening to the decentralised communities: after all, this is often a form of deconcentration of the state and not all townships are in to hands of opponents to the Government, far from it. Similarly, there is no particular opposition to support for the private sector. The state is becoming increasingly aware that it cannot do everything exclusively on its own: the private sector is a good means, if the state manages to set up favourable conditions, attract foreign investment and to mobilise national savings. What’s more, a number of our governing leaders are experienced business men and they know what they are talking about in this field.

But as soon as we broach the fuzzy field of the other actors of civil society, a number of ACP states appear more reluctant or more apprehensive. They will have to be encouraged, to be made to understand that even within Lomé - where there are two signatures, the Commission’s and the National Authorising Officer’s - one can work in regions and for people not necessarily favourable to them. In fact, it is in their interest to open dialogue and to highlight that they are parties to the construction of the school, the health centre, the bridge or the road, regardless of whether the region is favourable to them or not.

But, beyond Lomé, we must not forget that every year, between the different budgetary lines voted by the Parliament, there are some 800 million to 1 billion euros that can be committed outside of Lomé, therefore without the obligation of co-management. Insofar as the objectives pursued through the budgetary lines would be fewer, more homogeneous and consistent, and insofar as the procedures connected to them would be more flexible and decentralised, this non-Lomé potential could allow us to act where there is no agreement on the question of dialogue with the civil society. This would still allow us to work with the diversity of actors, especially those involved in local development. Two extreme cases were recalled on this opportunity: the budgetary lines made it possible to work directly with the actors of the civil society in South Africa during Apartheid, and similarly in Chile during the dictatorship. In both cases, there was no relation then with the Governments. Without going that far, we should note that there is already much to do in this field within Lomé and that in case of problems, it is possible to work outside Lomé. Still, the procedures have to make it possible on all sides to adapt to the diversity of situations. We hope that the European Parliament will be willing to help us in this direction.

 

3.12 Sparking off, with Officer Involvement, a Dynamics of Change within the Commission

(David Naudet)

The analytical diagnosis led to the finding, extensively shared the by participants of the seminar, that the mutations that European Co-operation will have to face will not happen unless there is simultaneously an internal dynamics of change, ways of doing things, procedures and incentives. This dynamics of change will not happen, as we have learned from the experience of institutional reforms, unless it is based on full support and involvement of the essential actors of co-operation, that is, the Commission Officers in charge of designing it and implementing it.

The governance of co-operation, and in particular the articulation of the different mechanisms of democratic control and partnership, is on of the key factors in the change of nature of aid referred to during our seminar, which has become necessary owing to the changes in the international context of co-operation.

In this sense, our seminar focused the necessary changes in the ways of doing things on two main principles. The first is the responsibility principle – achieving, wherever possible, a co-operation of trust. The second is the learning principle – moving toward a learning institution.

The proposed recommendations can be articulated around three guidelines:

Much greater flexibility in the programming and pre-programming procedures of the actions, which often contribute to excluding the actors from the essential stage which is the starting point of an action. A more contractual approach should be based upon an agreement on the nature of the expected results and on how they will be assessed and on the transparency of accounting, not on compliance with an ex-ante allocation of resources. Relevance and transparency are essential, not compliance.

Simplification of the procedures of approval of the actions. A number of simplifications are already being studied.

Greater fungibility of the credits available to the Commission. This includes in particular limiting the number of budgetary lines and the procedures associated with them, which, when increased, constitute a form of ex-ante programming, previous to partnership.

As a counterpart to this alleviation in ex-ante procedures, the accent must be put on follow-up and assessment, designed to be collective insofar as possible.

Definition of reporting and accounting specifications, specific to the countries involved, enabling the partners themselves to file reports and co-ordination with other donors according to a common procedure.

Definition of collective assessment tools, with the partners as well as with the other donors, focused on the long-term relevance of the actions undertaken.

Backing the constitution or the reinforcement of effective Government Accounting Offices in the ACP countries.

Sharing the assessment process could constitute, beyond its control and collective-learning role, a way of making public action credible in certain ACP countries, where this is sometimes severely at stake.

A more established decentralisation at the Delegation level (a process partially in progress) combined with the establishment of specifications. Increased decentralisation should be accompanied by a reinforcement of headquarters in its specific roles, such as information circulation, experience sharing, and auditing.

Limitation of international calls to tender and greater efforts towards the involvement of ACP actors in these calls to tender. This limitation of calls to tender should aim at increasing local project management as well as at encouraging partnership relationships, in particular with civil societies, rather than commissioning relationships.

Supporting the constitution of a breeding ground of experts in the ACP countries.

This approach is already being implemented, but it appears, to say the least, uncomfortable and out of place in the current framework. It could be seen as a sort of ‘partnership break-in’.

Development of procedures suitable to the support and construction of actors of the South, which requires among others an action framework to be defined, in which pressure to spend no longer constitutes a strong constraint and the time of the action can be the partner’s time and not the donor's.

Increasing importance given to immaterial investment, which goes with adjusting forms of assessment to be more qualitative, long term, and learning oriented.

Organisation of places of debate and experience sharing, outside of partnership relations and financing relations, for a diversity of actors in view of breaking down co-operation barriers and contributing to cross-discussions. Opportunities and places of debate have been mentioned at many different levels: exchanges on assessment under the auspices of the Paritary Assembly, cross-country exchanges, articulation of the different levels of governance – local, national, regional – cross-local exchanges. Such experience exchanges would contribute to the progressive constitution of a collective intelligence at the service of the actors of co-operation.

All these leads for changes necessarily require means, human resources in particular. Even though administrative simplification and the alleviation of ex-ante control and programming will allow greater flexibility, everyone knows that follow-up, proximity and learning require the time and means of support. The question of human resources therefore appears as essential in the dynamics of change discussed at the meeting.

 

4. The Need for a Joint Effort of the European Parliament and the
European Commission (Michel Rocard)

 

‘This seminar has been for us all, and in particular for me, very important. [Addressing the Commissioner:] This seminar, we owe it to you: you didn't hesitate for a moment, when I approached you with this somewhat incongruous, somewhat disorderly and definitely disturbing idea, not only to say yes but to tell all your services and all your collaborators that they would be allowed to express themselves fully. There was no stereotyped language at the seminar and the preliminary work facilitated by Pierre Calame, the case reports and interviews with Commission officers, gave this work great density, a density that I have rarely encountered in seminars and symposia.

A disturbing seminar indeed: we encountered working difficulties. The word ‘frustration’ was often pronounced in these two days. We underscored our attachment to co-operation policy but also its malfunctioning. Our Co-operation and Development Commission, a Parliamentary Commission, can only work on general orientation, evaluation, assessment and suggestions here and there. But the more we move onward, the more we understand that this way, we don't touch reality. Because ‘the devil is in the details’, as one often says. It is the details of the procedures, of the conditions of calls to tender, of the conditions for the implementation of action, it is the perversions due to excessive ex-ante control, that determine whether things work or don't work. It was therefore logical that we should try to turn the spotlight on these questions thanks to the trust and the friendship that have always characterised our relations with the Commission. Thank you, in these difficult times for the Commission, for having accepted that the head of an NGO, someone outside of our organisation and disciplines and hardly suspected of submission to any kind of academicism, should be in charge of facilitating this work. Thank you for having accepted that a lot of your department heads should give us their time in two ways, through the interviews that they granted and through their attendance at the seminar. The quality of what happened at the seminar obliges us all to follow up on it. The third phase of the process, the discussion forum on Internet, will be the opportunity for us all to discuss a number of concepts thoroughly and to begin working on their establishment and their translation into facts.

I can only make the commitment here for the parliamentary follow-up. During our work, the problems of ex-ante control, budgetary lines, of human resources, were extensively brought up. We know that the number of persons working under your orders is not enough to accomplish all the missions. We know that control, which is perfectly consistent with democracy, can drift away from its purpose when excess energy is put into ex-ante control at the expense of ex-post control. We have understood this and have understood that you cannot remedy this alone because the rules are made by the Council of Ministers, by the Parliament, sometimes by both, and we need to help you find solutions.

I have made the solemn commitment that under the next Parliament a report of Parliamentary initiatives will be devoted to the suitability of the forms of control to the missions and the policies. It will deal as much with problems of budgetary lines as with the need to reduce excessive ex-ante control so as to focus energy on ex-post control. This won't be simple but we have made the commitment. This is to show the importance of this seminar to us.’

 

5. For an Ethics of Understanding, Dialogue and Information

(Commissioner Joao De Deus Pinheiro)

 

‘This dialogue shows that there is a true partnership between the European institutions. There have been many occasions in which the Parliament was the pioneer, many others one where Parliament has backed energetically some ideas of the Commission. Every budgetary line has corresponded to a need that was felt. To respond to a demand, Parliament, because it is has the budgetary authority, has decided to open a new budgetary line. This is how they have increased in the last years. If they can be rationalised, all the better, but we need to recognise that they have always made of possible to increase the budget devoted to co-operation and development.

With regard to the Lomé Convention, everyone has understood that we wish to adapt it to the new realities of the third millennium. If we had said from the start: ‘we wish to change the procedures, practices and objectives radically’, inertia and natural conservatism would have prevented any change. The Green Book initiated the discussion. Unfortunately, it is known by only a few of the people whom we would like to reach. But it was a beginning. We need now widen the discussion.

Every stage of construction of the ACP countries has corresponded to specific demands, to which it has not always been easy to respond. The challenge after the independence of the countries was to build the state. Then to build the democratic state, to reinforce the institutions representative of this democratic state, Government and Parliament in particular. Then it was necessary to help to reinforce local democracy. What is now asked for is to reinforce, beyond this formal democracy, the informal democracy of civil society, organisations, NGOs, trade unions, and institutions representing the business sector.

These developments have occurred extremely fast and it is not still easy for elected representatives, governments or parliaments to accept to share the limited resources, all the more that the sharing of these resources implies a sharing of power.

I completely agree with what was said by Jean-Pierre Elong M’Bassi on the role of good information in democratic control. It is an element on which we must focus with a lot of determination. We must disseminate information on strategies, projects and programmes so that through Internet or other methods we can reach all the citizens in the world. Without such information sharing there will be no true development and this is why it must play a decisive role.

From this seminar not only do we gain proposals and ideas, above all we gain an attitude, an attitude of dialogue. Enough humility to accept other points of view, some of them critical. Not to try to justify ourselves but rather to improve ourselves. However, one only improves if one listens to others and especially agents on the field, those whom are meant ‘to benefit’ from their action but who find that there are things that don't work.

Thank you very much.’

 

Following up on the Seminar: An International Electronic Forum for Experience Sharing and to Discuss Perspectives

(Denis Pansu and Marina Urquidi)

 

Many co-operation actors wish to engage in new forms of dialogue. During the seminar, many times frustration was expressed with regard to not being involved in the development of a new co-operation policy, nor even informed of the progress of negotiations.

We believe we have perceived the desire for new forms of dialogue as one of the solutions to this frustration. The electronic forum we are about to describe is an instrument that can respond to this desire. Its role is humble, but it is a first, concrete step in an exercise of direct, open communication.

We shall therefore use Internet, a communication channel known to most of us.

It is important to know that an electronic forum is a discussion place that is demanding, in terms both of understanding and of formulation. It requires participants to be committed and responsible, to comply with some basic rules, and to accept being all at the same level. In this sense, Internet brings out our capacity to change.

This is the spirit in which, for the next six months, we will offer our support to help this international debate take place and be fruitful.

The practice of electronic forums is relatively new. It does not have the benefit, as in the methodology for experience reports, of a long learning experience. The team that will facilitate the forum has already tested a methodology - in particular in connection with the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind - and acquired good experience, but this is the first time that we will be managing a forum of this size. There will be some test mistakes, new learning opportunities.

1. An electronic forum can be a constructive discussion place

 In a ‘physical’ meeting there are a moderator, participants, rapporteurs and interpreters. The principle of a ‘remote’ forum is the same: the same characters are present, with the difference that the means of communication are broader: a Web server allows the rapporteur to disseminate information more broadly, and the interpreters can use machine-translation tools updated with dictionaries specific to the context.

This makes it possible for many more people to take the floor than in a physical meeting. And any forum participant can redistribute the information drawn from the electronic forum among their own networks.

- Objectives of this public debate

The primary objectives of this forum are to disseminate, discuss and enhance the findings of this seminar. As you know, a large number of experience reports have been collected. They will be published on the Web site to contribute to the ongoing discussions.

We will also be advancing on proposals of reform in association with the actors on the field.

We will also be able to increase the experience-sharing platform by continuing to collect experience reports, which have obviously been greatly appreciated in the document handed out for this seminar.

Finally, we can imagine that this tool could constitute a prototype for democratic assessment methods for European aid.

- Working principles

There are, just as in a seminar where people are gathered in one room, some rather strict discussion principles.

No one is anonymous in a forum: introductions are important when speaking from behind a screen.

Language must be clear and simple. You cannot make long speeches or monopolise the floor. It will be up to the moderation team make sure that everyone is ‘listening’ to everyone else.

The role of moderation will be above all to focus the discussion on the subject, to recall the deadlines with regard to critical phases of the negotiations and to recall the objectives, so as not to get lost in endless discussions.

The moderator also has to make sure that the messages are properly formatted, with a title (lacking which, it is nearly impossible to manage the large quantities of e-mail one receives).

Finally, the moderator also gives the floor and calls upon those who haven’t entered into the discussion. All too often on electronic forums, there are a lot of readers but not many people making statements.

2. Stages of the forum

We will begin with introductions. This may be obvious in a meeting where everyone is present, but much less so in one that is remote. The discussion proper will then begin; regular summaries of the discussions will be made to facilitate consideration of all the statements and to enable new arrivals to the forum. There will also be ‘coffee breaks’ – time taken off for assessment.

The first month will be devoted to introductions. They will be posted on the forum, collected, and published on the Web site. We will subscribe people who have marked their interest through e-mail. We will also take the time during that month through private e-mail with you, to answer your questions or doubts concerning the use of this type of tool. The debate will actually begin in one month. It will last five months. During this period we will be in charge of the moderation and provide summaries for your comfort.

In a forum, everyone is an actor. Everyone has their share of responsibility. In the spirit of Co-operation (which is also the spirit of Internet), there are no passive people while others are working – everyone has a part to play, however humble.

The translations provided with the help of machine-translation software will only be given for purposes of understanding, so we will ask you to make allowances for their imperfection. You will not have the perfect translation. Within 24 hours after a message is posted on the forum, a machine translation ‘edited for mistranslation only’ will follow: both the English and the French forums will therefore include all the messages, whether in their original or translated versions, so that there is genuine cross-cultural communication. Hence the need to be concise.

The Web site will be the complement of the electronic forum. The forum uses e-mail, requiring just e-mail software, and the Web site requires using an Internet browser. On the site you will find the report of the seminar, experience reports in French and in English; introductions of the participants and the logs of the discussion forum so you can refer to the messages, per author, per subject or per date, without having to go browse through all your e-mail messages. Finally, the site will feature links to partner sites and active reference sites on the topic of co-operation, so you may complete your information.

The addresses you need to know:

To subscribe to the forum and obtain the reference document(s), you can consult the Web site as of April 9 at <http://www.ue-acp.org>. If you have only e-mail access, write to the Moderator at <moderation@ue-acp.org>.

To take part in the debate: <forum-f@ue-acp.org> (in French) or <forum-e@eu-acp.org> (in English).

 

Thank you for your attention.


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