EU ACP > Forum > Summaries > Summary II - 3 - (28 January

Summaries of the debates on the forum

Summary II - 3 - (28 January - 13 February)

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/syntII3.html>

KEY WORDS: THE MEDIA AND COOPERATION; MEDIATION; TRANSPARENCY; DEMOCRATIZATION OF COOPERATION

* * Title: Summary II - 3 - (28 January - 13 February) - How can we develop functions of information and mediation of the forum at the service of EU-ACP cooperation? * *
by: Anne SIMON <anne.simon@skynet.be>
<http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/presentations/simon.html>
ААА Summary:
Discussion and actions continue concerning the mediation of the press through networks of journalists. The actions launched concern the mobilization of the general population (ACP in particular) on the results of the forum and information on EU-ACP cooperation by using the added value of this forum. A strong mobilization of participants is noted on these subjects.
An idea to compare with: the experience of sensitization to EU-ACP cooperation in Europe with the support of teachers and students in Austria, a decentralized process to get out of discussions restricted to experts.
A perspective: What represent the actors of our forum and those that negotiated the new EU-ACP partnership? If one displays the political determination of struggle against poverty, can one consider that one has created a dialogue with those who live with less than one dollar per day?
An international meeting on the topic of the NICT takes place in Bamako next week. The EU-ACP forum will be present as well as the opinions that you gave out during the discussion.
A solution has been presented to facilitate the access to documents on the Web via electronic mail. ААА

1 - Pursuit of the discussion and action concerning the mediation of the press on the results of the forum and information on EU-ACP cooperation
--- Mobilization of relays in countries ---
The collective gathered in Abidjan (see summary II-2 of January 31) addressed to six members of the network of Journalists of the traditional fishing in West Africa (Benin, Burkina-Faso, Guinea Conakry, Mali, Mauritania, and Togo) a letter [available on the Web site: <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/documents/collectif.html>].
This letter asks its correspondents:

to help them to identify in their country other press, organizations of the civil society having an easy access to populations and means of facilitation.
to define their possibilities of participation as relays or focal point vis-a-vis the civil society and the media.

It specifies the responsibilities of the collective of regional facilitation and those of the correspondents (press and organizations of the civil society). For further information download this letter.
--- Personal mobilization of participants ---
Etienne Tasse insists on the fact that to lead an operation of sensitization vis-a-vis the press supposes of the members of the forum that they have the availability and the necessary opening to converse and to answer requests of information emanating from journalists. Rene Segbenou reminds the relays (journalists and organizations of the civil society) that the participation in this work is based on volunteer work.
--- Circulation of the idea continues ---
Etienne Tasse (Cameroon), journalist, approves (message of February 8) the idea to associate the press to the progress of the forum. He wonders about the absence of the press in the debate on the renewal of the Lomщ Convention. He studies on his side the feasibility to create a network of journalists in Central Africa that is interested in EU-ACP cooperation.
--- Use of experience reports ---
Etienne Tasse proposes to base himself on the specificity of the EU-ACP forum, which makes available on the site <http://www.ue-acp.org> a set of experience reports. Journalists could use these experiences to put in perspective and to make comparisons, to analyze conditions of success and failure of actions of cooperation in their respective countries.
--- Informing to improve the efficiency of projects ---
He also proposes to call on the press to improve the efficiency of actions of cooperation in a country. Indeed, the insufficiency of information on the working of a project can lead to failures. He mentions the example of a micro-credit operation that failed because it had been perceived as an operation of subsidy.
In brief, participants of the forum consider that the nature of information to transmit must bear on:

Mechanisms of aid.
Analysis by comparing failures and successes.
Information on the political events concerning cooperation (renewal of agreements of Lomщ).
A better knowledge of flows of the aid (amounts and nature in play).

Any others?
2 - To cross information: An action of sensitization in Europe
In answer to Rene Segbenou who suggests that actions of information be led in Europe, Ana Larregle (message of January 17 <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/archives/2000-01/msg00009.html>) proposes an experience report that describes a conference of sensitization to development cooperation between the European Union and the ACP countries. This conference organized in Austria by the organization Sudwind Agentur has been organized in a decentralized way in order to involve in the best way the populations and not to be limited to discussions of experts. For this the targets were teachers (multiplying effect), university students, the press through a big daily. It also used the regional structures of its organization in all Austrian states. It is on this basis that a national conference was organized thereafter.
This other experience of sensitization converges in its objectives (to come closer of the civil society). It proposes another type of relay in particular in the teaching body.
[The author of the summary presents her apologies to participants as well as to Ana Larregle, this message should have been taken in account at the time of the previous summary.]
3 - New topic of discussion?
Who will be the new actors of the next agreements of partnership between the EU and the ACP? Djibril Diop wonders if this agreement of partnership is a copy of the previous Lomщ Convention (Friday 4 February 2000 <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/archives/2000-01/msg00019.html>)?
Can the elite, the privileged of the ACP societies, those who have access to Internet for example, speak in the name of the recipients? He speaks of brokers of the development, whom he compares to those that he considers as the only interlocutors: those who live with less than one dollar per day.
On the forum, questions concerning the nature of "true interlocutors", mediation in aid, the possibility to use information and exchange as a medium of democratic control, and the interest in taking a fresh start from the local level while avoiding the false complacency have been discussed. This awareness led to testing other types of connections concretely between the North and South, to other ways of designing and transmitting information, and other ways of receiving it.
Can the forum respond to this paradoxical challenge? What can a tool bring, which is only accessible to those who are not directly those with whom one would wish to dialogue?
4 - Information to the participants of the forum
--- Call to projects ---
January 21 a message of the Forum Coordination informed the forum of a project contest <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/archives/2000-01/msg00013.html>. This contest by the Association for Progressive Communication (APC) allocates a prize to nonprofit organizations in the world that have succeeded in using the NICT as an essential component of their action for development.
--- Bamako 2000 ---
An international meeting is organized on the topic of the appropriation of the new technologies of information and communication for local development in the North and the South.
Two members of the Forum Coordination will attend this Forum, which will include many actors working for the appropriation of technologies of information and communication. On the initiative of participants, the EU-ACP forum discussed the inequality of access to Internet and some alternative solutions were proposed (see messages of the month of September then discussions of the month of December - - Summary II-1). They will be the spokesmen of the opinions given out by participants.
In their message of February 15 <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/archives/2000-02/msg00002.html> the Forum Coordination presents the working program of meetings and topics of workshops. Opinions or supplementary analyses of participants are welcome before then. You will find details on the site: <http://www.bamako2000.org>.
--- A tool to facilitate the access to the available resources on Internet ---
Numerous are participants that have alerted us on their difficulties of connection. Djibril Diop recalls this week that Internet "this tool that links us" is reserved to the privileged only. A message from the Forum Coordination on February 14 <http://www.ue-acp.org/fr/forum/archives/2000-02/msg00000.html> explains the process to receive free in your electronic mailbox the documents available on any Web site (for example your favorite documents on the acp-eu.org Web site!). Keep us informed!
5 - For those who have just joined the forum
In addition to the forum archive, experience reports, and documents by participants that are available on the Web site, you will find in the letter from the Abidjan Collective [available on the Web site: <http://www.ue-acp.org/fr/documents/collectif.html>], on page 2, a brief history of the process of creation of this forum.
[To obtain the document by e-mail, compose the following message:
To: www4mail@web.bellanet.org
Subject:
Message: get http://www.ue-acp.org/en/documents/collectif.html
You will receive the document in your e-mail box a few hours later].

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