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   Summary II - 9 - (10/04-16/04)


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/syntII9.html>

KEY WORDS: RESPONSIBILITY OF UNIVERSITIES IN DEVELOPMENT; OPENING OF UNIVERSITIES; GRASSROOTS INDICATORS; CIVIC SCIENCE; COMMUNICATION ON COOPERATION.

* * Title: Summary II - 9 - (10/04-16/04) * *

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

°°° Abstract:

  1. Development education: Education as a means to change cooperation (continued…); development education and education to citizenship: a need so that citizens can profit from information.
  2. The role of Internet in the circulation of information: The Internet for the access of the civil society to knowledge; the technical conditions so that it is accessible to most people.
  3. The role of universities in development: is there a hidden interest of the North to marginalize the universities of the South?
  4. New actors of world governance: Charters of good conduct of partners involved in urban development. To feed the considerations of the forum, Bernard Lecomte proposes in an experience report a set of rules of the game that partners could comply with.
°°°

1. Development education

Development education as a means to change cooperation (continued…)

We analyzed on the forum the evolution of development education and the role that it must play today. Jérôme Bar adds two elements. He wonders: (a) if the slip of development education toward a machine of calling for funds is not in fact due to the resignation of the public service in Europe and (b) if the process of development education should not have as its objective to transform concepts and methods of the aid to development.

Development education and education to citizenship: a need so that citizens can profit from information .

Julian Attakla-Ayinon reminds us that the provision of information cannot be enough. So that information makes possible a democratic control of the management of the affairs of the country and cooperation, it is necessary to have a minimum citizens' culture and for this development education and education to citizenship to have a primordial role to play. He mentions several reasons:

  • lack of information concerning the whole of the country's working such as the national budget and the national policies, as much as cooperation and policies of financial backers;
  • the system of cooperation exercises de facto a psychological pressure on States and the NGOs so that they make the good choices; in end of the chain one "informs" citizens at the last moment;
  • agents of the civil service feel deprived, facing outside projects, of their right of initiative and management; their position is all the more uncomfortable that for some, this mechanism of dispossession is a necessary difficulty to thwart the corruption (direct or imposed by the hierarchical framework).

2. The role of Internet in the circulation of information

Internet for the access of the civil society to knowledge: some technical conditions so that it is accessible to most people

For Gilles Mersadier three lines of action must be led:

  1. to connect extensively to "mediators" (organizations and networks, centers of documentation and libraries, media, territorial communities, organizations of producers, etc.)
  2. to encourage the accessibility to the computer tool through second-hand markets and assembly of computers.
  3. to multiply and to democratize training to tools of processing of information, to its introduction (data processing and Internet)

3. The role of universities in development

Is there a hidden interest of the North to marginalize universities of the South?

Jérôme Bar, responding to Fatoumata Kane, wonders if the marginalization of universities of the South is finally more due not to an "incomprehension" of the countries of the North but to interests founded on an ideological basis.

==> A subject of discussion? Can this be stated more precisely?

Through his personal dilemma, he also raises a question that one had not heard in these terms on the forum: What is the position of the "developers" of the North, of experts or members of NGO "expatriates" in South?

4. New actors of world governance

Charters of good conduct of the partners involved by urban development: to feed the considerations of the Forum, an experience report by Bernard Lecomte.

This report proposes a set of "rules of the game", which partners should endeavor progressively to respect concerning the control of the work and methods of financing of the urbanization:

  • the respect of the subsidiarity principle; the clarification of the role of all, and at the different levels, must make it possible for decisions to be taken at the nearest level of the interested parties; this principle implies an effective control of local work whereas financial backers still privilege central bodies;
  • the progressive dismantling of the monopoly of information to the benefit of the financial backers, the central authorities and experts;
  • the existence of an effective local counterpart that will be developed when all actors and local operators will find their interests;
  • the discipline of outside intervening parties in accepting a coordination resulting from the local project director; as long as rules are multiple and divergent, the local communities won't be able to be rigorous in their follow-up.

5. Life of the Forum

Karim Mahari explains that the EU-ACP Forum was very useful to him in the writing of his dissertation, and that it contributed by bringing closer people from various contexts in South-North "co-operation" [quotation marks to give its first meaning to the word]. --------------------------
 RESOURCES
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Memo on the book "La palabre, une juridiction de la parole" by Jean-Godefroy Bidima published by Michalon. This work describes and analyzes the different functions of palavers in Africa, then the contribution that it can bring to globalization.

Anne SIMON
Forum Coordination <moderation@ue-acp.org> <http://www.ue-acp.org/fr/forum/participants.html>



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