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   Summary 17 (13 to 19 September)


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/synt17.html>

KEY WORDS: PROGRESS OF THE DEBATE

* * Title: Summary 17 (13 to 19 September) * *

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

°°° Abstract:

A democratic reality that allows citizens to have their voice heard is a condition for budgetary aid to be able to support good governance.

To reinforce actors and processes, the future Convention should help to build and to facilitate the dialogue between state and civil society. The traditional role of the National Authorizing Officer should be reviewed, making possible more flexibility vis-a-vis the civil society. In parallel to the evolution of the Convention (Lomé), aid on the Community's budget should be increased. The backing of actors requires new essential orientations of cooperation (support to the local, national, and regional networks and people's training/education).

Information and communication are keys to a democratic control but they will also contribute to the rebalancing of the partnership ACP-EU. °°°



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

Madeleine Ngo Louga thinks that budgetary aid can be linked to a backing of "good governance" such as advocated by the World Bank. But she invites us to think about the nature of the actors of this good governance (see Summary 3).

Next to the state, it is citizens but also the private sector that must play the role of the "motor of development" that participates in good governance.

In a budgetary aid process "it is necessary that citizens, from whom emanates power, have the possibility to have their voice heard". As Jules Dumas Nguebou last week, Madeleine Ngo Louga brings up the complexity of citizens' participation to "good governance" too often limited to discussions or round tables. She wonders if the democratic reality is not a condition so that the budgetary aid can contribute to building good governance.

3.11 Backing the Actors and the Processes by Combining the Lome Convention and the European Union's Own Budget

For Jules Dumas Nguebou, there are in the ACP societies mutual relations of incomprehension and rejection between the governing authorities and civil society. It is therefore fundamental that the future Convention dedicates itself to dialogue (to be supported and/or established) between the state and the society. Delegations of the European Union in direct contact of these protagonists should contribute to this, by also opening up to the ACP civil society.

So that the future Convention can change in this direction, the roles of the different partners (National Authorizing Officer of the EDF, State, civil society) should be reviewed and redefined (or even to reconsider foundations of the "double signature"). This requires adaptations of the present Convention (Making the field of contribution of the National Authorizing officer with regard to the civil society more flexible) but also of the EU Community development cooperation budget ("increase of the non Lomé budget allocation in favor of grassroots actors).

In order to reinforce the actors, and to allow them to define their own development, European cooperation should center its contribution on:

  • The construction and the backing of actor networks (experience sharing,
  • intercultural exchanges) at the local, national and regional levels.
  • Education in development, people's education and citizens training.
  • Grassroots communication.

Public information and education

With regard to the content of the previous discussion on the role of information (3.8 Public Information on Aid is the Key to Democratic Control) Jules Dumas Nguebou insists on the role of "people's education") and of communication as conditions of rebalancing of the EU-ACP partnership.

Thus the "non-adequacy of procedures to the reality, the non-adequacy of the reality to the procedure" are linked to this failing of communication, and of training of populations of the ACP countries.

He recalls otherwise some data on the structural weakness of communication and the education in the countries of the South.



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