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Summaries of the debates on the forum

Summary 9 (19-23 July)

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KEY WORDS: PROGRESS OF THE DEBATE

* * Title: Summary 9 (19-23 July): The role of cooperation for a globalization with a human face. For a recognition of informal structures as actors of cooperation. * *
by: Anne SIMON <anne.simon@skynet.be>
<http://www.ue-acp.org/fr/forum/presentations/simon.html>
ААА Abstract:
To make globalization with a human face supposes that populations of the North and the South recognize that they share the common challenges of development. One cannot be limited to discuss the technical and financial aspects of cooperation. An in-depth discussion on values that found our societies must take place and must bear as much on the political and ethical questions as on the cultural ones. Cooperation can contribute to this refounding by proposing places of discussion. It is necessary for this that it is carried by a political vision.
To put actors at the heart of the European cooperation: It is dangerous to wish at all costs "to institutionalize development". Cooperation should recognize the informal structures of self-promotion and should make possible that they enter in dialogue with donors.
In the economic globalization, Africa must find the means to meet specific challenges. ААА

1. Making globalization with a human face
Contributions of this week concentrated on conditions of a globalization with a human face and on the contribution that international cooperation in general and the cooperation ACP-EU in particular could bring in this way.
Today the economic globalization is "one-way", the North-north exchanges concentrate the investment, the transfer and movements of capitals from the rich countries finance 5% of the investment only in developing countries. The picture is especially dark for Africa, whose history is showing that Rene Dumont, politician and French environmentalist, was right when he said that " Africa (was) off to a bad start".
For Rene M. Segbenou and Francois Milis, making globalization with a human face supposes refounding the ethical, philosophical and cultural values that underlie the current model of society. To advance in this way supposes that rich countries "change their relationship to consumption" and modify the ensuing behavior "of monopolization" which continuous to act to the detriment of poor countries. It also implies that the spirit of sharing becomes widespread in human relationships and that the rich don't shut themselves in on themselves.
The globalization with a human face also rests on the shared conscience that problems of development are common challenges for humankind. For Rene Segbenou, it is the same behavior of refusal of sharing that entails unbalances of wealth redistribution in the world (20% of the population detain 80% of the world wealth) and of access to work in rich countries. In the rich countries, the level of unemployment reached, whereas the society is sitting on unprecedented technological advances and on huge capital, "is beyond understanding".
In the North as in the South, citizens claim a need of expression on the project that one imposes on them and "which is not in their image". This is the reading that Francois Milis does of recent events such as "the white march" (march of 300,000 people in Brussels in a country that counts 9 million inhabitants for the reform of justice) or the rise of green parties in Europe).
Cooperation can contribute to the intercultural dialogue on values, which is denied today. Mr. Segbenou, in a message to M. Michel Rocard, thus proposes to think about "a fourth line of thinking on values that base the development cooperation". He recommends that, in the framework of the EU-ACP cooperation, places of dialogue are created, where one would not consider only questions of financing but also the type of society that one wishes to build by means of cooperation. Means available by the EDF make this possible. This type of considerations should precede the big moments of negotiation of cooperation agreements. Francois Milis also thinks that this intercultural dialogue makes possible to reconsider models of development in presence. Because the work of the development cooperation is also "an exchange of material values but also and especially immaterial ones".
It is because this discussion on values has been eluded (type of health, of education, of housing) that "one is back to square one" always. Continuing in this direction won't make it possible to change cooperation. Djibril Diop makes the link between this dialogue and the renovation of partnership by questioning "why do they always wish to speak in the place people as of small children"?
Cooperation will be able to contribute to make relations change between the North and the South (and in a more general way between the affluent and those who are not) and to really contribute to development, if one recognizes and one accepts that it bears a political project. Francois Milis wonders about the "reason of this fear of the political dimension of cooperation" that characterizes financial backers whereas the renovation of the development cooperation depends on the implementation "of a strong political project that instrumentalizes the citizens change". Rene Segbenou asks, "where one can find today a political determination to go in the direction of sharing". For Ibrahim Faria, the world mechanisms of political regulation of the economic sphere in favor of underprivileged countries are urgent in order to correct this unbalance of the globalization.
2. Putting actors at the heart of the European cooperation
Djibril Diop exposes the difficulty of cooperation to identify actors, as well as methods of the dialogue that it attempts to establish with them. He doubts that the use of formal structures, such as for example communities created by policies of decentralization will make it possible to take in account realities in the ACP countries. This tendency translates the determination to institutionalize the development. Cooperation should grant more credit to the informal structures of self-promotion without using intermediate structures. It is this type of organization that allowed the most underprivileged populations to survive. To make possible a dialogue that respects differences, he proposes that the cultural dimension takes importance in the framework of the future EU-ACP partnership.
3. What specific challenges for Africa
Ibrahim Faria recalls the position of Africa in the world economy. For him, the aid and the international solidarity cannot take Africa out of misery. It is quartered in the role of raw material production, on which it is strongly dependent, as shown lately by the panic in Ghana and in South Africa caused by the decision of England to put on the international market a part of its gold reserve. "It is time" that the African countries think of the transformation of raw materials on site. They have to do so to highlight their comparative advantages (raw materials, cheap manpower) and to meet several challenges (setting up networks of road and communication interconnections, mastering the local markets, encouraging technical training, developing tax legislation).
4. Life of the forum
Huub Mudde presents the Web resources available on the site of Euforic that are in relation with topics of discussion of this month.
Ibrahim Faria proposes that one continues during all the debate to pursue the topic "to Transform procedures and practices" (3.3).

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