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   Monthly Summary 5 - (3-23 October and 3-8 November)


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/syntm5.html>

KEY WORDS: PROGRESS OF THE DEBATE

* * Title: Monthly Summary 5 - (3-23 October and 3-8 November) - Contributions of participants around proposals of Pierre Calame and Ana Larregle * *

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

°°° Summary:
Proposals of participants concerning the following of the forum -ACP EU, around the management of information on cooperation. °°°

1. Participation of actors in the forum

There are several proposals to broaden (or to specialize) the participation to the forum:

  • · Broaden the range (nature) of actors (how to hear the institutional actors' voice?) ;
  • · or on the contrary to make possible a more thorough work with the existing network?
  • · Involve the English-speaking actors for in active participation;
  • · Increase the number of countries involved in order to make possible more South-South and North-South exchanges;
  • · Include participation of local networks (such as farmers and villagers).

2. The forum: invent a democratic relay for cooperation

How to circulate information on cooperation? How to transmit, on the field, ideas and proposals of the forum? How to give the means to know and to act? Different means are proposed: organization of local exchanges, interpersonal transmission, the media, organization of activities and discussion groups at the grassroots level, exploitation of experience reports.

Let's return to sources. The forum is the place where public affairs are discussed. How can the forum ACP-EU benefit from local discussions and the latter benefit from the forum's open, international and multiple experience?

More precisely participants made the proposal to organize local / regional groups that actually meet, physically, and are linked to the forum. A moderator plays the mediator role with the forum and his/her functions are:

  • - to identify information likely to be transmitted and discussed with these groups,
  • - to question groups, to facilitate exchanges and the learning on the subject of cooperation (whether or not the topics come from the forum ACP-EU),
  • - to transmit to the Internet forum the voice and teachings of the groups. This process is tested by several participants in Cameroon <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/archives/1999-10/msg00104.html>.

Through the forum, groups can have access to an information on the EU-ACP cooperation (or broader). It would thus be necessary to get the best out of centers of information and exchanges in the process of constitution (the Assoal example <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/presentations/nguebou.html>) with the creation of a common information base.

Several insist on the importance of test operations, in real life, around concrete experiences. The forum makes it possible to exchange on these experiences. A participant thus recalls how the municipal management experience in Brazil led them to initiate in the region of Dakar a process going in the same direction and which is only possible if one breaks the information monopolies <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/archives/1999-10/msg00022.html>.

3. Link between experiences reports and discussions on the forum

Several parties wish to use the data base of experience reports to support the discussions of the forum, as illustration of subjects. Beyond, it can be a tool of learning, exchange and collective assessment <http://www.ue-acp.org/en/forum/archives/1999-10/msg00105.html>.

Others propose some more specific topical working groups.

4. To exploit and to disseminate the experience and results of the forum

In addition to this function of information at the level of the previously described local groups, the forum can play the role of transmission by sensitizing and informing:

  • - government and legislative institutions EU, ACP (European Institutions, ACP institutions and EU-ACP equal institutions as the Joint Assembly) or others.
  • - organizations federating numerous member organizations (ACP or European).
  • - the press

Some networks (e.g. Inter'reseaux) or journalists have proposed their collaboration already, others have marked their interest.

5. Topics and forms of discussion

Some people raised topics that had not been dealt with. For example: widening the discussion of the EU-ACP cooperation to the other forms of cooperation, world challenges (trade, co-development for example). It is also possible to go into more specifics in other topics already brought up such as the way in which are treated the methods of cooperation in the EU-ACP negotiation.

Finally, participants wish that the format of messages is made more flexible by periods, in order give freer rein to expression.



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