EU ACP > Forum > Summaries > Monthly Summary 3 - (3 August

Summaries of the debates on the forum

Monthly Summary 3 - (3 August - 5 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/syntm3.html>

KEY WORDS: PROGRESS OF THE DEBATE

* * Title: Monthly Summary 3 - (3 August - 5 September) * *
by: Anne SIMON <anne.simon@skynet.be>
<http://www.ue-acp.org/fr/forum/presentations/simon.html>
°°° Summary: The third monthly summary deals with a new set of 3 topics discussed. During this month, 10 new people introduced themselves and 14 contributions have been published.
Topic 3.7 - Take a fresh start from the local level, a clear enough consensus among participants but warnings and principles to develop for practical application (complexity, potential deviancies, means to test new forms of action..).
Topic 3.8 - Public information on aid is the key of a democratic control, it is just as necessary at a local level as at a global level, at the local level it encourages involvement and the assumption of responsibility.
Topic 3.9 - Develop a Europe-ACP partnership in the management of flows of goods and people. And if the EU-ACP cooperation could contribute to what African teenagers dream of living in Europe? Is there a possibility that the ACP and the EU defend some common positions within the WTO? What impact of Internet for the development of virtual flows with the South?
Topic 3.3 - Transform procedures and practices: some working leads are formulated concerning conditions of the local action, criteria of financing and the role of Internet °°°

State of the participation
On September 5, 108 people were subscribed to the EU-ACP Forum, of which 26 of English-speaking language. 10 people transmitted their introduction.
We recall that it is still possible to transmit your introduction: if you don't do it, "you don't exist for the other participants ". It is enough you to fill the form on the Web site at the following address: <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/present.html>.
14 contributions have been published by 6 different people. In spite of the quality of contributions and their density, it is necessary to note the lack of participation of most subscribed persons, paradoxical situation in a discussion where the question of the participation of actors is central!
After a survey among some of you, you follow the discussion attentively but the lack of time is the main reason invoked when it is about contributing. The form of contributions probably holds up those that don't have the time to write an argued answer.
Content of discussions on the 4 topics of the month
Following a suggestion by a participant, the summary of this month takes up the numbers and titles of topics. In order to follow this setting, some contributions are sometimes divided in several topics, which can entail some repetitions.
3.7 - To take a fresh start from the local level
A consensus between intervening parties around the need to anchor cooperation at a local level seems clear. It is necessary " to start out from the local level, because it is there that development happens", because it is from there that must emerge the forces of change.
"Those that are involved must be convinced that the situation in which they are must change, that they accept to be the first actors of this change and that they undertake an action in this sense". Start out from the local level is a condition of the development.
A cooperation that would really start out from the local would mean "reversing " the tendency of the present strategy of cooperation (for example in the sectoral policies as the rural development). It would be also a way to give back meaning to those that work for cooperation, and to give a voice to those that benefit in the South.
To act implies consideration at a local level of models of decentralization, their progress and the limits of their implementation. If the population feels reflected "in actions of cooperation, if it gets involved in it, then systems of local democracy will be improved progressively.
If intervening parties of the forum are pleased of the evolution of cooperation in this sense, they insist in the fact that it is, beyond rhetoric, from the new practices that will come changes.
Several warnings are formulated however:

An action at a local level that would only repeat the shortcomings (an exogenous and rigid development action) of "centralized aid" or would constitute only a sort of palliative "sprinkling" to the poverty (reference to certain social funds) would not give the expected results. Participation should not constitute an alibi for actions controlled from the outside.
To take a fresh start from the local level is complex. The local is first an "arena", a place of confrontation of various forces, of various rationales, sometimes antagonistic. There is at this level a balance between several forms of legitimacy (traditional authorities, local elected representatives, actions of organizations and NGO, representations of the funds provider = Delegation of the EU). Rather than to conceal the conflicts of interests under an "obvious unanimity" it is worth to try to know them before acting better. It would be vain or even dangerous for the existing balance to act at a local level without taking account of these games of power and their legitimacy, and the identity of the whole of actors involved.
Dialogues or forms of dialogues also have their limits. Facing divergences of interests, it is necessary to also recognize the utility of negotiation, of arbitration, of the construction of rules.
This "local level" option should not be approached simplistically by doing an the "All civil society - exclusive" that would disregard the role of the state and the administration or that "would idealize the local level" thus eluding the complexity and the need for forms of control.
It is necessary to give oneself the means for this . "When one accepts to invest in a form of cooperation that transforms people, it is necessary to respect the rhythms of these latter". It is therefore necessary to learn new methods of continued support and of negotiation of processes resulting from the local level.

Contributions are therefore consensual on the need "to start out from the local level" for a more efficient cooperation but they recognize the real complexity of such a form of action and warn against simplifying visions.
To succeed to reorient cooperation in this sense therefore supposes conjugated determinations of the European and ACP political powers. Several intervening parties present principles that should underlie the practices and procedures of a cooperation that "would start out from the local" (see topic 3.3 below)
3.8 - Public information on aid is the key for a democratic control
Today in the ACP countries, information on actions of cooperation remains of the order of "the event-related or the sensational", for example on the occasion of an inauguration. It cannot give account of the way in which the action has been completed and is discovered late.
Diversion of aid is facilitate by what is eventually a lack of transparency. An intervening party explains that the information of all actors involved, including at the grass-roots level, at the starting of a support process, encourages a democratic control on the use of funds.
Besides, an information thus designed clarifies the sharing of roles in the completion of an action and positions each facing their responsibilities. It can also entail a bigger involvement of actors "at the grassroots level". Event-related information cannot make possible such a mobilization.
The equity of the access to information via Internet at the global scale is essential for a better public information but also for a better access to knowledge, to experience sharing.
3.9 - To develop a EUROPE-ACP partnership in the management of flows of goods and people
The death of two Guinean young people whereas they attempted to reach Europe dealt to this topic an unexpected current news. The text of the letter found on the bodies of the two teenagers, Yaguine KOITAS and Fode TOUNKARAS, addressed to " Your Excellencies, Gentlemen Members and Leaders Europe", which asks to make a big efficient organization for Africa and to "allow us to progress" was published on the forum by an intervening party <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/archives/1999-08/msg00010.html>.
The author of this summary recalls that next to this event that has been given media attention other similar dramas continue to occur. For these teenagers, the dream of a better life is in Europe or in the United States.
This event resuscitates the discussion on the economic and social marginalization of the African continent, the political responsibilities of governments and the role that the EU-ACP cooperation intends to play in the struggle against poverty. This determination of struggle against poverty becomes each day more urgent in terms of balances between continents in order to avoid that situations of chaos don't increase. For some, it is "by intervening directly with regard to actors that this struggle can be efficient ".
But this contribution at a local level must be understood also in an overall and world considerations on the management of wealth that is translated in unbalances of flows of people, goods and information. A participant wonders on this subject why he is the only one to pronounce the word of co-development.
The question of flows of goods has been considered in a reaction to the presentation, by a participant of the Commission European, of main lines of negotiations between the European Union and the ACP States. Can one think that there is a specificity of relations between Europe and the ACP countries with regard to those developed with other countries or groups of countries?
On the economic aspect of this cooperation, some mechanisms of compensation encouraging the stability of returns of the export of raw materials are to be improved by ascertaining guarantees as for the completion of their objectives.
These mechanisms are all the more important that the ACP countries (most of whose economies essentially depend on the export of raw materials) are defended badly within the WTO. Could cooperation between EU and ACP allow them in fact to defend a common position within this organization?
Flows of information via the Internet are unbalanced structurally today in favor of countries of the North. A recent report of the UNDP highlights "the crushing domination" of industrialized countries in the access to the Internet (they publish 95% of the Web sites). There again cooperation in general and the EU-ACP cooperation in particular should be mobilized most urgently for a North-South rebalancing of this new form of communication.
The development of Internet makes possible to substitute virtual flows with real flows. For example it would make possible to develop the relocation of intellectual benefits, of training and competition in favor of countries of the South. The ACP countries remain relatively remote from these new flows.
3.3 - To transform procedures and practices
- To start out from the local:

The phase of identification is primordial. Before speaking of activities, it is necessary to be able to take the time and to have the means to know the different actors while not avoiding the difficult questions of their representativeness, of the responsibilities of each, of power games in presence.
calendars and methods used for identification must make possible a more systematic way a decentralized programming of the development.
It is necessary to give time for the starting of actions by the actors and to commit a continued support of the processes during a long enough time (beyond the first starting of actions that have been identified).
It is necessary to develop in actions of cooperation new practices of negotiation, mechanisms of arbitration, and clear rules known by all.
When the responsibilities of each of the actors are defined, forms of adapted contractualization must be available (for example types of contracts, conditions of eligibility to each type of actors, procedures of financial delegation).
It is necessary to find an adapted language (the language must not in fact constitute a determinating element of selection).
As regards the financing of cooperation, it is proposed that a part of the funds allocated to the EU-ACP cooperation (EDF) is assigned to the learning of such a cooperation by encouraging, with regard to the present cooperation, experimentation devices, the multiplication of exchanges, and mutual support. This learning should happen in a spirit of partnership.
The decentralization of structures implementing the UE/ACP cooperation should be increased as much at the European level as at the ACP level (even if more details are given in the first case). The actors on the field have the impression that the personnel of Delegations because of their work loads don't have the time to take care of the "small projects" with which they are concerned. They express the need to converse more with Delegations. They wish that the Delegations have more autonomy so they can propose an aid more adapted to their needs (objectives of actions, calendar and financial amounts engaged) in the relations of greater confidence with their headquarters.

- Criteria of financing:
In answer "to the consensus around the need to take a fresh start the local, to center cooperation on the real actors, to reconsider the concept of participation…," an intervening party proposes to interested participants of the forum to contribute to a research project <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/archives/1999-08/msg00015.html>.
The objective would be to build a set of criteria making possible to measure together, to evaluate the quality of projects and to bring a practical contribution thus to the improvement of the forms of management of actions of cooperation exercised by financial backers.
In answer to this proposal, details are requested. It should be more general and should focus on "the general conditions and criteria of financing". The participation in search of all institutional or non institutional actors would constitute a realization of the spirit of "partnership".
Some working leads are given for these "criteria of quality of a cooperation process", as for example "the transparency of information between categories of actors", the "distribution of roles" and the "taking of responsibility" by these actors.
- What role for Internet in practices of cooperation?
The Internet is under-used in countries of the South whereas it is one new form of communication of economic and human opening. It could also constitute a means of improvement of cooperation practices whether at the level of the operation of cooperation institutions such as the European Commission or at the level of the diffusion of information and training, of exchanges between different partners of cooperation and the learning of new forms of cooperation. An intervening party regrets the lack of reactions on the forum on this tool <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/archives/1999-08/msg00029.html>.

Topics of the previous months that were considered
3.4 - To give back its meaning to partnership
The renovation of partnership should be, entirely separately, a theme of the negotiations in progress. It should concern the necessary conditions and the institutional, humans and financial means for its implementation. It would be possible to elaborate there the necessary reform to succeed in this, the devices of experimentation of this new partnership. Participants regret the almost complete absence of contributions of the institutional European or ACP persons . For one among them "to involve everybody in the considerations" could be, "why not (…) the beginning of partnership".

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