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   Summary 10 (24-30 July)


FOLLOWING IS A MACHINE TRANSLATION OF THE ORIGINAL IN FRENCH. IT HAS BEEN EDITED FOR MISTRANSLATION ONLY. THE ORIGINAL IN FRENCH IS AVAILABLE ON THIS WEB SITE AT: <http://www.ue-acp.org/fr/forum/syntheses/synt10.html>

KEY WORDS: PROGRESS OF THE DEBATE

* * Title: Summary 10 (24-30 July): To put actors at the heart of the partnership, and Life of the forum * *

by: Anne SIMON <anne.simon@skynet.be>
<http://www.ue-acp.org/fr/forum/presentations/simon.html>

°°° Abstract:
So that actors, that is to say the local recipients, are to the center of cooperation, their implication must be real as early as the stage of the conception of actions and must continue during the implementation and the assessment of these.
News of the forum, discussions become more concrete but exchanges between French-speaking and English-speaking world are developed little. Several intervening parties pronounce themselves in favor of a pursuit all along the discussion on the improvement of procedures and practices. °°°



1. To put actors at the heart of cooperation (Theme 3.6)

René Segbenou returns to the definition of "actors" to which this wording refers. Among the numerous actors that are involved in cooperation, it is the end recipients of actions of cooperation that are at stake. Starting from this definition, recipients must be "actors of cooperation" at the time of the conception, the implementation and the assessment of actions of cooperation.

Conception: He notes that projects are designed by the outside experts. Therefore, this expensive operation produces projects exogenous to realities lived by the recipients and without relation to their expectations. However according to his experience of community support, recipients are able to analyze their difficulties and to propose answers.

Implementation: Given the externality of the conception, it is at the time of the implementation of actions that the team of execution "realizes all (the) misunderstandings ". He denounces the fact that, with regard to the "participation", it is about making people "accept what has been planned without them". Besides, the team of execution is confronted "to the stress of deadlines and the race to results". A prerequisite to actors' being at the heart of cooperation must be ensuring therefore their effective participation in the project as early as the phase of conception.

Assessment: Making reference to an experience where it has been refused, he proposes that actors are at least informed of the way in which will be conducted the external assessment (information on terms of reference).

2. Life of the forum

The moderator exposes us some statistical data on the forum. There is a lot more "observers" than "participants" (78% / 22%). He notes the meager exchange otherwise between the "English-speaking" world and the "French-speaking" world. We hope that this forum will be the opportunity to improve this rewarding dialogue.

The beginning of the forum has been judged by some too conceptual, but it becomes more concrete. The coordination committee is at your disposal to advise you if you wish it. In this sense, a new intervening party insisted this week on the need to pursue during all the debate the theme 3.3 (Improve procedures and practices) even though he expresses a fear as to a too great technicality of the debate.

Finally, the moderator informs us of the partnership that has just been formalized with Euforic, Web site dedicated to the European cooperation and decentralized cooperation at which you will be able to find in addition to resources linked to the forum, a great quantity of information (see the "Euforic" box at <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/documents/docmil.html>).



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