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   Summary 14 (21 to 29 August)


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/synt14.html>

KEY WORDS: PROGRESS OF THE DEBATE

* * Title: Summary 14 (21 to 29 August) * *

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

°°° Abstract:
In answer to the call to collaboration of a participant on the definition of quality criteria of projects jointly financed by the EU with development NGOs, it proves to be necessary that this thinking is led with all actors involved (decision-makers, intermediaries, beneficiary communities) and that it concerns actions of cooperation more extensively.
Some elements of criteria are proposed to participants of the forum. They concern the assumption of responsibility by different actors, the control of information, real contribution, the participation in decision making.
To take a fresh start from the local level to put actors at the heart of cooperation only makes sense if there is a deep reorientation of the cooperation strategy. It must lean on a systematic analysis of relations between the different types of existing power (traditional, democratic of the modern state, associative, local representative of financial backer) in order to really decentralize the sharing of responsibilities among the different actors involved in the action of development. Conversely, it is not necessary to duplicate top-down and directive practices at a local level. °°°



1. Call to collaboration for the definition of criteria of project quality (general conditions of joint financing with NGOs)

Following the call to collaboration by François MILIS to participants of the forum, René SEGBENOU asks for more specifics on the research in progress. He thinks that it would be necessary to rephrase the issue so that it challenges the different categories of actors and that it doesn't focus on financial backers. He it proposes to rather "state the general conditions and criteria of financing of an action of cooperation".

Otherwise the risk is to fall again in what one criticizes until now, that is, "general conditions and criteria of financing " only defined according to financial backers, and not by communities or other actors. He defines four categories of actors that should be associated to these considerations:

  • the European Union or financial backers,
  • ACP State decision-makers,
  • populations (communities) generally so-called " recipients "
  • mediation groups or agencies (organized civil society of the ACP countries or the EU).

He proposes complementary considerations on the assessment of challenges of financing that is proposed (financing is only a means). These considerations have to also be led of in four-power way on the basis of test operations.

Drawing a parallel with the forum, René SEGBENOU concludes that this type of considerations is vain if it doesn't concern all actors involved by cooperation.

In a second message, he proposes " some reference marks " to define indicators of quality of a good project, which are only valid in a joint action among " all the actors in presence " and by " making responsible the EU and ACP actors on the field."

Criteria of a " good project " proposed:

  • " each of the actors plays in an equitable, conscious and responsible way the role that is his" (historic, accounts made of programming, of negotiation, etc..)
  • " transparent circulation of information " (how and by whom are controlled the different types of information)
  • " real and easily identifiable contributions from the local level "
  • " real participation of the different categories of actors in the process of decision making "
  • " the majority of fixed objectives is reached and one can explain why others are not.

2. Putting actors at the heart of the European cooperation": taking a fresh start from the local level

René SEGBENOU explains that in the mind of its defenders " to take a fresh start from the local level" was above all an operation of "technical renovation" of development cooperation, facing its deficiencies or past insufficiencies. " One said to oneself that perhaps by taking a fresh start from the local level, this could vivify the action of cooperation ".

However for him, there must be a fundamental modification of strategy (without which it would not be worth doing anything "to demystify the local" as proposed by Denis PESCHE). Indeed, "the local level is populated with numerous categories of actors including actors of the EU" among which there "are no more angels than in Brussels ".

As specified already by Jean-Pierre Elong M'Bassi, the different existing forms of legitimacy (traditional, associative-NGO, classic democratic) to which it would be advisable to add the one of EU Delegation, are sometimes sources of tensions, conflicts or dynamism. Before, and to lead any action of development, they must be known and must be analyzed. It is this phase of diagnosis that very often lacks.

As regards the institutional organization of cooperation, he pleads then for what he calls "a decentralization" and not a "deconcentration". This means to organize the sharing of the power at a local level and not to decentralize to this level the spirit of systematic control and interventionism. This sharing of the power among the different actors is possible if the role of each among them is perfectly defined. It is then that to define the better procedures adapted to each of situations is possible.

" On the other hand what it is necessary to centralize, is: the vision, the purposes, the values, the ethics (a clear and strong deontology), some fundamental principles, the spirit of things ".



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