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| Summaries of the debates on the forum
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Summary II - 7 - (27 March - 2 April)
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/syntII7.html>
KEY WORDS: RESPONSIBILITY OF UNIVERSITIES IN DEVELOPMENT; RELATIONS UNIVERSITY-DEVELOPMENT; ETHICS OF COOPERATION; COOPERATION WATCH; CHARTER OF QUALITY; QUALITY OF COOPERATION PROJECTS
* * Title: Summary II - 7 - (27 March - 2 April) * *
by: Anne SIMON <anne.simon@skynet.be>
<http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/presentations/simon.html>°°° Abstract:
°°°
- The role of universities in cooperation: In the North, universities are little conscious and aware of cooperation. Universities of the South are confronted to the challenge of the recognition and the danger to remain cut off and elitist in spite of their potential role in the development of their country. To call upon the academics: an example - sociologists at the service of the rural telephony.
- European aid watch: New actors of world governance. Is one able to take inspiration from this logic in the field of cooperation? How to monitor the compliance with the terms of the cooperation contract? The ethics of partnership supposes that this ethics is in the basis of the contract. Orientations for the joint definition of criteria of project quality.
- Tools and methods of the forum, the Experience Bank of the EU-ACP forum. To create forums per "work group" in the future?
1. What role for Universities in North-South cooperation?
In the North universities are little conscious and aware of cooperation.
Karim Mahari notes constraints to development of the role of university mediation in cooperation: students of the North are informed insufficiently of cooperation (or in the limit of some specialized training) and on the other hand, conditions of life and access to universities for students of the South in universities of the North have deteriorated.
Universities of the South are confronted with the challenge of recognition and the danger to remain cut off and elitist .
Djibril Diop deplores the fact that the academics and researchers of the South are not recognized and are disregarded by the national authorities (clientelism, corruption). Financial backers prefer outside experts to them. The academics of the South yet are able to develop adapted methodologies and to integrate local knowledge (he mentions the example of the taxation of the informal economy, elusive for experts of the North).
He also points to the elitist behavior of the academics of the South. Quoting V.Y. Mudimbe, Michel Ansay shows by an image the cutting off of the African researcher in his world of " knowledge", where he himself is stuck in theoretical systems with regard to "the world of the outside, which he doesn't understand."
An evolution is necessary so that universities of the South have a real responsibility in development of countries, the capacities and means to exercise it. Then they could play a role in cooperation.
To call upon the academics: an example - sociologists of the University of Ouagadougou at the service of the telephone in rural zone
Bruno Jaffré tells how his organization financed the installation of telephone lines in four villages of Burkina Faso accompanied by a sociological survey on the social impacts of this installation. This positive experience conducted with the University of Ouagadougou also made possible the setting up of village management of the telephone. It has been heard with interest by the telephonic operators having had failures at the time of attempts of telephonic installation in rural zones. Bruno Jaffré informs Djibril Diop that the SONATEL in Senegal declared it was interested in the financing of such processes.
2. European aid watch
New actors of world governance
Pierre Calame describes the apparition in the various fields of the economic, social, and political life of a new type of actors sometimes exercising a decisive influence at the international scale. It is watch groups that have developed to fill the void of international governance systems, whereas some powerful actors already exist at this level (for example multinationals). The impact of information that they generate is all the greater that one sees in developed countries a loss of credibility of political staff, the media, and experts. The production of free information, provided by citizens, is all the stronger. These new actors have an increasingly large role to play in the construction and the verification of norms on which are founded the contracts that manage increasingly the economic and social life (quality of food, social or environmental equitability of an industrial production, of a pension fund, etc...). They play a role of observation / assessment, watch and prevention of deregulated practices that are contrary to norms so defined.
Is one able to take inspiration from this logic in the field of cooperation?
Starting with the process of this forum, it would be possible to establish criteria of quality, of cooperation transparency. The putting to public debate would allow all participants of the forum then in the country where the project is carried out to be in a position to assess compliance with this label.
The Forum Coordination recalls in a message of March 31, different work leads.
How to look after the compliance with terms of the cooperation contract:
Having and measuring the exercise of different responsibilities in cooperation uses the logic of appreciation what one does and of what it is possible to do. As in other fields, between actors of cooperation, relations are governed by contracts. The compliance with terms of these contracts supposes having measuring tools (indicators, criteria, labels) then certification of compliance with these measures.
The ethics of partnership supposes that this ethics is in the basis of the contract
Ana Larrègle of the Forum Coordination recalls (March 31) that in the field of development education, has already been reported the existence of ethics charters (as the one of UNICEF on development education).
[see the text of Pierre Calame on the ethics of partnership <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/documents/fondeth.html>]
Orientations for the joint definition of criteria of project quality
In an experience report, René Segbenou specifies what one can understand by criteria of quality.
He highlights that one considers financing in itself as an objective. This slip of meaning leads to privileging the procedures and the control to the detriment of consideration of the purpose. He proposes as a method to change this situation to use test actions of cooperation as "institutional sensors".
In specifying their conditions of application of these criteria (that the involved action is really joint among all actors in presence and makes responsible the actors on the field) he proposes the beginning of criteria of definition of a "good project".
- One in which each of actors plays in an equitable, conscious and responsible way the role that he is given.
- One in which a transparent circulation of information is organized
- One that relies locally on real and easily identifiable actions
- One where the different categories of actors fully participate in the process of decision
- One that reaches the majority of objectives and explains why some are not reached.
3. Tools and methods of our forum
The experience bank of the EU-ACP Forum
The experience bank enriched itself of your contributions, it includes today 328 reports. It is now endowed of a search engine simple to use that allows all to search for reports from numerous different indexes (author, organization of the author, countries, sectors and levels of cooperation, actors - roles and relations among actors, constraints of projects, proposals of authors, financial tools used by projects).
==> What do you think of it?
To use other methods for discussions in the future?
Michel Ansay reminds us that we must build on the obvious paradox of equality and difference. For this the forum is built on overall pooling of our differences, through additions and successive strata, avoiding exclusion.
He proposes that we make up groups of discussion on a fairly precise subject, for a determined duration. The "or" and the "and" ;-).
Anne SIMON
Forum Coordination <moderation@ue-acp.org> <http://www.ue-acp.org/fr/forum/participants.html>
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