the reality of aid 2008 ingles

8/9/2019 The Reality of Aid 2008 INGLES

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Development International Cooperationfrom the perspective of socialorganizations in Latin America

The Reality of AidAn Independent Review of Poverty Reduction and Development Assistance

Issue prepared by ALOP / Reality of aid in Latin America

Reality Latin America

Check

AUGUST 2008


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Reality Check August 2008

The Reality of Aid Project exists to promote national andinternational policies that will contribute to a new and effectivestrategy for poverty eradication, built on solidarity and equity.

Established in 1993, The Reality of Aid is a collaborative,not-for-profit initiative, involving nongovernmentalorganizations from north and south.

The Reality of Aid publishes regular and reliable reportson international development cooperation and the extent to

which governments in the north and south, address the extremeinequalities of income and the structural, social and politicalinjustices that entrench people in poverty.

The Reality of Aid Management Committee is chaired by Antonio Tujan, Jr. of IBON International.

The International Management Committee is composedof representatives from Ibon International, Canadian Councilfor International Cooperation (CCIC), African Forum andNetwork on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), AsociacinLatinoamericana deOrganizaciones de Promocin al Desarrollo(ALOP) and the European Network on Debt and Development(EURODAD).

The Reality Check is the official newsletter of the Reality of Aid. It is highlight current issues in aid regime written from a regional perspectivglobal significance, edited in rotation by the leading networks in the f

regions:

Management Committee

REPRESENTING THE AFRICAN CSO PARTNERSMeja VitaliceAfrican Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD31 Atkinson Drive HillsideP.O. Box CY 1517Causeway, Harare, ZinbabweTel: 23-4-778531 y 23-4-747767Email: [email protected]

REPRESENTING LATIN AMERICAN CSO PARTNERSRubn FernndezAsociacin Latinoamericana de Organizaciones de Promocin al DA.C. (ALOP)Benjamn Franklin #186, Colonia Escandn, Mxico, D.F., 11800Tel: + 5255 5273 3400Fax: + 5255 52733449Email: [email protected];[email protected]: www.alop.org.mx

VICE CHAIRPERSON/REPRESENTING NON-OECD COUNTRBrian TomlinsonCanadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC)1 Nicolas Street Suite 300, OttawaOntario K1N 7B7Tel: +1 613 241 7007Fax: +1 613 241 7007Email: [email protected]: www.incommon.web.net; www.net/ccic

EUROPEAN COUNTRY CSO PARTNERSLucy HayesEuropean Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD)Avenue Louise 1761050 Brussels, BelgiumTelefax: +32 (0)2 544 0559Email: [email protected]

CHAIRPERSONAntonio Tujan, Jr.IBON InternationalIBON Center114 Timog Avenue, Quezon City1103 PhilippinesTelefax: +632 425 1387

Email: [email protected]

The Reality of AidSecretariat3rd Floor, IBON Center114 Timog Avenue, Quezon City1103 PhilippinesTel: +632 927 7060 to 62

local 202Fax: +632 425 1387Email: [email protected]: www.realityofaid.org

ALOP, A.C.ExecutiveBenjamn Franklin 186,Colonia EscandnMxico, D.F. 11800Mxico

Tel: +5255 5273 3400Fax: +5255 5273 3449Email: [email protected]: www.alop.org.mx

Secretariat


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Reality Check AUGUST 2008

contentscontentscontentscontentscontentsFinal Declaration of the Latin American and the Caribbeanregional workshop: The challenges of civil societyorganizations with respect to the effectiveness of officialdevelopment assistance

The International Cooperation for Development: A new pubglobal good

The countrys democratic appropriation of official developmassistance in Latin America

Case studies of the European Union cooperation in LatinAmerica

- Integrated and Sustainable Social Development Project(Proyecto de Desarrollo Social Integrado y Sostenible PRODESIS), Chiapas, Mexico.

- Peace laboratories in Colombia- Socio-Labour dimension of MERCOSUR

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23about this issueabout this issueabout this issueabout this issueabout this issue

A UGUST 2008

RealityCheckLatin America

Publisher: Rubn Fernndez, Coordinator of theWorking Group on DevelopmentCooperation, ALOP, A.C.President of Corporation Region,Medellin, Colombia.

ALOP appreciates the support received from theThe Reality of Aid project for this publication.

Mexico, August 2008Edition: ALOP, A. C.Publishing design: Martha Delia Gmez DueasPhotos: Alfredo Lpez

Alop

ISBN in proceeding

Form in Mexico by Impretei

Reality Check

When talking about International Cooperation for Development we refer to a wide and diverse scope of ways of collaboration, fundamentally financed with public

funds. The most substantial resources up until recently have come from countries in the North that destined a small

fraction of their annual budget to the so-called Official Development Assistance (ODA). There is also a long

history of private solidarity funds, which scale is not equivalent to the one of States funds, but nevertheless are significant especially when destined to poor regions and to, what we call, Private Development Aid.

Any of these types of assistances strengthen substantial changes in both the criteria used when granted,as in the parameters that have to be used during their execution, and to measure the efficiency of their application.It is necessary to look for mechanisms to harmonise politics and coordinate contributors programmes in relation to the

agendas in countries in the South to allow a more rational and effective use of resources with a greater impact.


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The Asociacin Latinoamericana de Organizaciones de Promocin al Desarrollo, A.C. (Latin American

Association of Organizations for DevelopmentPromotion, ALOP) is an association of non-governmental organisations on development(NGOD) from 20 countries in Latin America andthe Caribbean. Created in 1979, ALOP is one of the longest lasting efforts of regional integrationbetween NGOD in the region.

Among ALOPs aims are: to build a meeting and interchange space for NGOD, which is part of its network, to make proposals on global and sectoraldevelopment, taking into account the range of experience and knowledge of its associatedorganisations; to establish a proactive relationship

with the actors of the Latin American and theCaribbean development; to increase the NGOefficiency in development processes promoting theirmanagement and instrumental modernisation andtheir sustainability; and to develop the ability of civilsociety organisations in the region to dialogue and toreach agreements on regional integration and ininternational forums.

Executive Committee 2008-2011

PresidentMiguel Santibaez (JUNDEP, Chile)

Director of Andean RegionLuis Miguel Sirumbal (CEDAL, Peru)

Director of Central America, Mexico and theCaribbean RegionOscar Azmitia (PRODESSA, Guatemala)

Director of the Southern Cone RegionMauri Cruz (CAMP, Brazil)

Gender Focal PointMolvina Zeballos (DESCO, Peru)

Supervisor (Fiscal)Roco Lombera (COPEVI, Mxico)

Executive Secretary Jorge Balbis

The assistance or preferably the cooperation received in Latin America cannot escape this

tendency, which in addition involves the aggravating factor of the loss of importance of the region as receptor of international public and private resources to promote development. For this reason,this issue on Reality Check - Amrica Latina compiles a series of documents that take on several of these topics from the perspective of social organisations that work and analyse the cooperation for development in the region.

Specifically, this issue presents:

1. The results of the field work carried out by ALOP on some cases concerning the European Unions official cooperation in several countries in the region.

2. An analysis of some difficulties that are faced to achieve a true democratic appropriation of

co-operation in the region.3. The demand of a more active role played by civil society organisations as key players in the

architecture and work of development co-operation.

4. A political proposal to understand the development co-operation as a new global public good.


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Latin America and the Ca ribbea nRegiona l Workshop:

1At the moment of the publication of this Reality Check, ALOP is preparing to carry out two more national consultations

one in Colombia and one in Peru.

The c ha llenges of c ivil soc iety organiza tions with respec t tothe effec tivene ss of offic ia l deve lopment assistanc e

Managua, Nicaragua, 29th-31stof October 2007

In Paris on the 2 nd of March 2005, ministers and other high level authorities from approximately 90countries and directors and representatives from 27 cooperation organisations, approved the Paris

Declaration (PD) which sets out a series of commitments from donor countries and partners in relationto the Official Development Assistance (ODA) and establishes five principles to improve its efficiency:appropriation, alignment, harmonisation, managing for development results and mutual responsibility.

The PD is a milestone of the worldwide efforts to improve the efficiency of the use of resourcesfor development: a succession of commitments and initiatives that were set up in the nineties and thatincludes the Millennium Summit (2000), when the Millennium Development Goals were established; theMonterrey Conference (2002) on financing for development; the Rome High-level Forum on Harmonization(2003) and the Marrakech Roundtable on Managing for Development Results (2004).

For the follow-up on this declaration, a working group was established in the Development AssistanceCommittee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This

working group has generated a general assessment and consultancy drive that includes: large donors self-assessments; country case studies (in LA only Bolivia); thematic international forums and a consultationprocess with civil society organisations (CSO). To direct this consultation an advisory group (AG) was setup, with a plural representation of governments and CSO from the North and South.

The Reality of Aid (RoA) project, as part of the AG, has played the role of contributing to developa genuine consultation with social organisations. ALOP is part of RoAs Executive Council and has beendirectly in charge of the Latin American consultation and of promoting consultations at the national level in

various countries.

Within this framework, ALOP organised, together with other several organisations and networkstwo national consultations on the application of the PD and the efficiency of development assistance: onein Nicaragua with the support of the CCIC and Oxfam Intermn (Managua, October, 2007) and other in

Bolivia with the support of CCIC and UNITAS (La Paz, 22nd

and 23rd

of October, 2007)

.1

These national consultations contributed to the Latin American and the Caribbean regional workshop:The challenges of civil society organizations with respect to the effectiveness of official development assistance,organised by ALOP with the support of the Reality for Aid project, COSUDE, the Coordinadora Civil deNicaragua, the Red Nicaraguense para la Democracia y el Desarrollo Local, SNV- Nicaragua, Oxfam Intermn,Oxfam UK, Trocaire and ACSUR- Las Segovias in Managua, Nicaragua, that took place from the 29 th to the31st of October 2007. A declaration resulted from this meeting, ALOP has been publicising it in all eventscarried out after the global consultation process towards the III High-level Conference on the Paris Declaration,

which will take place in Accra, Ghana, from the 1 st to 4 th of September 2008.


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FINAL DECLARATIONRegiona l workshop of La tin Americ aand The Caribbean:

The c ha llenges of c ivil soc iety organiza tions with respec t tothe effec tivene ss of offic ia l develop ment assista nc e

Managua, Nicaragua, October 29-31, 2007

From the perspective of Civil Society Organizations of Latin America and theCaribbean, meeting in Managua on

October 29 and 31, 2007 within the framework of the Regional Workshop of Latin America and

the Caribbean on The Challenges of CivilSociety with respect to the Effectiveness of Official Development Assistance, it is clear thatthe development model and styles implementedin our region lead to the exacerbation of theenvironmental crisis, poverty and inequality. Ingeneral, Official Development Assistance hasbeen used as a tool for the imposition of thismodel.

Within the framework of the currentinternational discussion about the effectiveness of

cooperation, and using that stated above as a starting point, the participating social organizations agreeupon the following positions and proposals:

Civil Society: Critical actor in Development1. Civil Society Organizations are key actors inthe architecture and dailyactions of DevelopmentCooperation, as donors, intermediaries or receivers

of the cooperation provided to territories in whichthe poorest, most marginalized and disadvantagedare found within countries of Latin America andthe Caribbean, and as mobilizers of the localresources and solidary energy of society.

2. Civil Society Organizations are essential forthe strengthening and reinforcement of democracy in the region and play a fundamental role in thestruggle to overcome inequalities and poverty, asdefenders of the public interest, promoting theeconomic, social and political rights of all citizens.Democracy is the best institutional, political andcultural environment for the fulfillment of the rightsof the majorities.

3. The starting point must involve acknowledge-ment of the enormous diversity in terms of programming, organization and territorial reachfound among civil society organizations, taking intoaccount the actors who have less access to decision-making processes about Development Cooperation(DC) or who have historically been marginalized,such as: women, indigenous peoples, populationsof African descent, youth, migrant populations andrural populations.


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4. The citizenry and Civil Society Organizations

watch over and raise warning about transparency and accountability in the efficient and effective useof cooperation and, when managing resourcesfrom cooperation entities and the public sector,have the duty to be transparent and accountableto governments, Northern Civil SocietyOrganizations , their peers and the citizenry.

Challenges of Development Cooperation5. Official Development Assistance does not replace

or reduce the obligation of National States tocomply with their responsibilities to ensurefulfillment of the human rights of their populations,to guarantee an adequate distribution of wealth, andto protect natural and strategic resources in orderto ensure the life and well-being of current andfuture generations.

6. It is necessary to ensure coherence as a principlebetween cooperation policies, commercial policiesand the foreign relations of States. Cooperationentities, along with the countries of Latin Americaand the Caribbean, must direct their policies towardthe sustainable development of peoples and thepromotion of truly fair commercial exchange. Thegovernments of Northern countries must use theirpreferential positions within international bodiessuch as the IMF, World Bank and WTO in order toensure that these organizations develop ethicalpolicies that are in line with the realities of poverty and exclusion in the region.

7. Development Cooperation must base its aims

and strategies on: the promotion of a moresystemic, ethical, integral and sustainable humandevelopment; the strengthening of real andparticipatory democratic processes; the promotionof human rights and gender equity; and theencouragement of equality of opportunities andthe efficient distribution of wealth.

8. Development Cooperation is a political tool andpart of an international development financing

structure that, therefore, cannot be discussed in a

manner isolated from other components, such asthe countries commercial policies and foreignrelations. From this point of view, cooperation isonly one instrument among many available to nationsfor the fulfillment of the right to development, aright that all peoples of the world should enjoy.

9. The effectiveness of Development Cooperationrequires the open and broad participation of citizensand their organizations in processes for theformulation, implementation, monitoring,evaluation and accountability of cooperation,thereby guaranteeing the social, economic andpolitical rights of the citizenry from a grassrootsperspective in order to ensure representative andparticipatory democratic governance that respectsthe concept of the social contract between those

who govern and those who are governed.

10. The different instruments used by DevelopmentCooperation, such as the Paris Declaration, must,in a significant manner, include Civil SocietyOrganizations without limiting their role to a

tangential mention about the part they may play inhelping to enrich participatory processes under thedirection of governments or other alternative

vehicles for the channeling of cooperation fromdonors.

11. The intervention of Cooperation in cases of emergency and disaster deserves special attention,preventing a lack of coordination among donorsand receivers with regard to mechanisms andpriorities, reducing high transaction costs, andincreasing the effectiveness of aid for those whoare directly affected.

12. The Paris Declaration puts too much emphasison the instruments for aid implementation,neglecting processes that are precisely thescenarios and dynamics in which Civil SocietyOrganizations are strengthened or weakened. Aclear and explicit objective of Cooperation mustbe to strengthen these organizations capacities to


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The Reality of Aid

wield influence over the definition, monitoring and

evaluation of development policies, plans andprograms.

13. In this spirit, it is necessary to redefine thefundamental principles of the Paris Declarationregarding ownership, harmonization, alignment,managing for results and mutual accountability,moving beyond governmental dialogue andgenerating genuine processes of consultation aboutthe needs of populations and their organizations.

Within this framework, the Paris Declaration mustnot be converted into a new tool with which toimpose or maintain conditionalities.

14. The reference parameter with which to measurethe effectiveness of cooperation policies is the totalfulfillment of human rights. This evaluation mustalso be a broadly participatory process.

15. Mutual accountability implies that donors andthe governments of receiving countries ensuretransparency, accountability and the necessary publicinformation to the citizens toward whom the

international cooperation is directed.

Facing the Accra meeting16. The guiding principle of DevelopmentCooperation must be solidarity among nations andpeoples. Within this framework, conditionalities that

work against the sovereignty of nations and Statesare not acceptable.

17. Decentralization must be a principle of Development Cooperation, both in its practice andin taking into account the particularities of localneeds and strengthening the decentralizationprocesses of States.

18. We affirm the need to continue working on thejoining together of national and international CivilSociety Organizations toward the constructionof their own agenda with regard to Cooperation,as well as toward the creation of spaces and

mechanisms for dialogue between the different

actors in this process.

19. Facing the Third High-Level Forum in Accra,progress must be made in promoting a collectiveawareness for change, making it possible to advancetoward a more participatory vision thatcontemplates the realities of development in thecountries and territories of Latin America and theCaribbean. This must be done in favor of the mostdisadvantaged, based on the promotion of andrespect for their rights, taking into account thepolitical, economic and social processes of theterritories and countries in which they are found,and not with a global recipe. The debate must gofar beyond inter-governmental dialogue, effectively integrating the opinions of Civil SocietyOrganizations .

Managua; October 31, 2007


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International Development Coopera tion: anew g lob al public good (Fragment)Rubn Fernndez

President Corporacin Regin Coordinator of the Working Group on International Cooperation

Medelln, March, 2008

The new ways to relate in the interconnectedand mundializado planet have strong implications in our understandings and

interpretations of reality. New forms of communication have been the first to break downof borders after economic capital, but now alsocultures, populations, political ideas, and socialmovements play a role in the construction of a new map wherein lives and conflicts unfold. In fact,problems and solutions reach out beyond thenormal limits. New problems have emerged, but,at the same time, old problems are understood in

within a new framework.

A starting point for all the debates around

international relations is recognizing that themundializacin of culture is not a falseconsciousness, an exogenous imposed ideology;it corresponds to a real, transforming process incontemporary societies (Ortiz, xx). On the otherhand, it is necessary to recognize that mundializacin is much more than economic or marketglobalization and relates to most cultural, politicaland social dynamics.

A good part of, or even all, contemporary processes are marked by this characteristic of ourpresent world. As in all debates, each actor may

situate themselves among different ethical or politicalpostures. Clearly, we keep a distance from thedominant expressions of mundializacin andglobalization because we understand them as, inessence, unjust; but we must also differentiateourselves as critics from those who struggle againstglobalization as a whole. For the goals of this text,I will use Amartya Sens ethical proposal: this isnot about throwing out global economicrelationships, but rather achieving a more justdistribution of the immense benefits of globalization.

International Development Cooperation isone of the global relationships that must berethought with the lens of greater global justice.

This cooperation, in its many expressions, is adynamic that was hatched in another world thatis no longer in existence. We come together fromLatin America, as social movements, world citizens,governments and all kinds of the actors touched


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The Reality of Aid

by cooperation, to make International Development

Cooperation compatible with a just mundializacin .In this text I express ideas about how this

dynamic of rethinking mundializacin has alsobecome a lever (and sometimes a club!) nation statesuse to promote their foreign policies of Development Aid. The restructuring andreconstructing of the grounds and principles foraction and work, such as redefining the roles of distinct actors is a legitimate and indispensible task.My thesis is that all of the DevelopmentCooperation dynamics (official and private), in

accordance with the times, should be considered anew GLOBAL PUBLIC GOOD used toresolve global problems and the preservation of global public goods.

Public Goods

Among the resources that are available to humansfor the development of their activities andconcretion of their goals, there are many that havethe special nature of not belonging to anyone in

particular, but rather to all. Sometimes, theseresources are as concrete and vital as air and others,equally important, are immaterial goods such as apeoples million year old wisdom.

According to the Italian philosopherNorberto Bobbio, public means two things: it isthe opposite of private, (as in the classic distinctionbetween ius publicum and ius privatum ,, that Romanjurists used), or it is the counterpart of secret,

where it gains the meaning of belonging such asthe public thing, the State, () clear, evident,

visible. The philosopher Nora Rabotnikof speaksto three meanings of public: the collective, the clear,and the open:

These goods have unfolded normally inlocal spheres and, in the best of cases, on the nationallevel as well. But recently a new kind of public goodhas been created that is considered as belonging toall of humanity or, even more extreme, as pertaining to the world-system, including all of the life forms

therein. This notion has emerged thanks to the better

understanding the deep interrelationship among allof the world systems and the arbitrary divisionsand borders that divide countries as un-related tothe cycles of the planet. We now know thatresources such as the Amazon Jungle, the polarglaciers, the River Ganges, the coral reefs, the Gulf Current, the atmosphere, or rather, many ecosystems, perhaps all, that regulate critical variablessuch as the global temperature, the rain seasons orthe availability of fresh water must be guarded liketreasures.

Furthermore, there are culturalconstructions, immaterial goods, that also belong to all humans as a group, not just this generation.

They range from the wisdom of indigenous peoplesof the Mexican Lacandona Jungle, to universalliterature and cinema, to languages, to the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights.

However, International DevelopmentCooperation has an interest in, and has acted uponin diverse, sometimes contradictory ways, a groupof public goods that should catch our eye.

Freedom

First of all, we could think about the immaterialgood of personal freedom that has cost so many lives; that which is consecrated in the constitutionsof almost the entire world and gives a foundationto, in a particular way, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (All human beings are born freeand equal in dignity and rights.) It is not a stretchof the truth to say that when one human beingsfreedom, anywhere in the world, is threatened,everyones freedom is at risk. We can valuedevelopment itself as an instrument in the expansionof human freedoms: The instrumental role of freedom is the form that it contributes to thespreading of different rights and opportunities inorder to guarantee freedom for all, and, therefore,promote development. Presently many cooperation funds go to organizations that struggle


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to spread multiple forms of freedom. Nevertheless,

other fields promote different styles of development that generate more dependence thanautonomy because of inadequate familiarity withthe context.

Cultural and bio Diversity

The preservation of cultural and biological diversity is another example of a good that, if we do not allcare for, will affect the entire planet and humanity

will have fewer options for survival. The ruthless,massive destruction of the biodiversity of the

Amazon jungle cannot be considered a problemof solely the lumber industry or the Brazilian settlers.

The enormous substitution of tropical jungles withcoca plantations and the aggressive eradicationmethods that damage the environment are notproblems for Andean governments alone. Oncemore each human being has an interest in thepreservation of this diversity and InternationalDevelopment Cooperation has a clear responsibility here.

Democracy

Another public good with enormous value tohumanity is Democracy. With all of its imaginablepeculiarities and versions, imperfections and brokenpromises, democracy is the political option thatallows us to surpass tyranny a sovereign state wherepower is delegated. Democracy, as an institutionalenvironment, is where human rights can bestbecome a reality. Out of habit, this good has beendelegated to political parties and states when really

the responsibility of caring for and deepening democracy should belong to each citizen, where italready exists, and to all of humanity, where it doesnot and there is some form of dictatorship. HereInternational Development Cooperation has beencontradictory: historically they have given decisivesupport to NGOs in the Southern Cone in orderto struggle against dictatorships based in the doctrineof National Security, but are also present in Africa,

Asia and Latin America pressuring governments to

adopt policies to reduce the state, which underminesfragile third world democracies.

Peace

And yet of course the absence of peace, the greatpublic good, threatens the existence of all othergoods. Once more we find genuine cooperationexperiences that look for or consolidate politicalagreements between armed groups at war, but thereare also bitter experiences of cooperation thatexacerbate conflicts.

Administration of Public Goods

At this point, the question of the administration of public goods fits. Who is in charge of the abovementioned public goods? Especially if we considerthat a public good does not belong to anyone inparticular, it can be taken care of by an individualor a state. There is no problem as long as thedelegation of the responsibility is done carefully andtransparently with the merited honor. The municipal

budget of Latin American cities is a clear example.Undoubtedly it is a public good, made up of residents taxes or other public funding sources.Local authorities administrate these funds and makedecisions about its destination in accordance withpreviously established rules. In theory any citizenshould be able to know how and where the money is being spent, in this case how a public good isadministrated by a public authority. An exampleof the other kind of case is an owner of land wherea river starts. Society delegates this person to take

care of this treasure, for this persons own benefit,as well as for the benefit of all of the people whoenjoy the river further below. But, in theory, thisperson can do whatever they want with this water.

Until a few years ago it was obvious thatnation states take care of the most significant goods.

To a certain extent many continue that way, but interms of the above mentioned global public goodsthere are, and will be more, serious disputes. Of


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course the United Nations (given its weakness anddependency on governments) is not capable of assuming the responsibility of these resources, andany nation in particular, as powerful as it may be, iseven less so. We will continue to be subject tointernational treaties (that are basically betweenstates), however, the most interesting trend is thatorganizations and social movements of all typesand from all places are active participants in theconstruction, implementation, and verification of

these agreements. This is the point of view theReality of Aid network defended in the discussionregarding the Effectiveness of Aid and the ParisDeclaration.

Therefore, the emergence of a cons-ciousness regarding the existence and importanceof this type of good, that belongs to all of humanity present and future,is now alsoshaping the global forces that are in charge of its

care. In terms of organization, the new stewardships of global public goods are acombination of states, international organizations

with governing capacity, global social movementsand local agents.

Of course, there is also the oppositetendency: those who think that they can privatizeany of the mentioned goods, for example someare already talking about drinking water boughtin Chile to sell in Japan, or patenting medicinalplants discovered by laboratories from theNorth that have been used by local indigenouscommunities for hundreds of years. But thistendency is an absurd suicide if we think about

with long-term vision and not with the short-termblindness of economic gain. We must all, including International Cooperation, if it wants to begenuine, focus our energies on distancing ourselvesfrom this tendency.


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The Right to Development

In the same way we now have global public goods, we also have global problems. These problemshave been around for while, but, again, the way of understanding them has radically changed. Oldproblems such as poverty and inequality,discrimination against women and environmentalirresponsibility are now emerging with new understandings. For instance in many regions of the world we have an inadequate and unjustdevelopment model, both because it does notresolve the problems of poverty and generate

larger earnings and wealth, and because theproduction of goods and services damages theenvironment.

The authors goal is not to once againdescribe these problems and their reach, but ratherto point out how these problems are perceived and,particularly, how the responsibilities of InternationalCooperation relate.

Furthermore, can we continue to calltranscendental problems for humanity national

problems precisely when nation states legitimacy and capacity is being pierced on multiple fronts?Of course not. There is a difficult butindispensable tension to maintain: make clear theresponsibilities of nation states, and, at the sametime, locate them in an understanding of all of humanity, especially the relationships between theplaces that enjoy an abundance of resources and

wealth and who have enormous responsibility inthe production of and solutions to globalproblems and the poorest, disregarded massesof the globe.

An example of new ways of understanding the current problems of humanity isthe Right to Development. It is worth highlighting

what the United Nations says regarding this pointin its declaration of 1986,

Recognizing that development is acomprehensive economic, social, culturaland political process, which aims at the

constant improvement of the well-being

of the entire population and of allindividuals on the basis of their active, freeand meaningful participation indevelopment and in the fair distributionof benefits resulting therefrom, ()Considering that under the provisions of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rightseveryone is entitled to a social andinternational order in which the rights andfreedoms set forth in that Declaration canbe fully realized, () Considering that

international peace and security are essentialelements for the realization of the right todevelopment, () Proclaims the following Declaration on the Right to Development:

Article 1. The right to development is aninalienable human right by virtue of whichevery human person and all peoples areentitled to participate in, contribute to, andenjoy economic, social, cultural andpolitical development, in which all humanrights and fundamental freedoms can befully realized.

In accordance with a new mundializada vision of reality there are not only opportunitiesexpand, but also problems. The risk is that if theseproblems, that could be resolved with resourcesand local externally supported efforts, are notappropriately and quickly settled, they will rapidly become threats that transcend borders

International Development Cooperation

When we talk about International DevelopmentCooperation we refer to a wide gamut of formsof collaboration, but fundamentally it is the publicfunds directed to make or take care of publicgoods.

Until a few years ago, the largest resourcescame from northern states that destine a smallportion of their budgets to OfficialDevelopment Aid. Nevertheless, there is a long


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The Reality of Aid

history of private organizations with different

religious, cultural and political standpoints that raisemoney in different ways and donate to groups inneed. These resources are not comparable inquantity to those sent by states, but are key,especially in impoverished regions. There is animmense experience of solidarity between smallpopulations in the north and south (that havecommon ancestors or family members, forexample), or between parishes that collect money and then send it directly to a priest in a forgottentown; this is Private Development Aid.

Nevertheless, the strengthening of theserecent signals indicates substantial changes: privatesector or individual funds that are dedicated to thesolution of public problems. The most notableexample is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations,

who donate more to treat AIDS in Africa than any government. At the same time, many otherfoundations donate or finance cultural preservationor local development research projects both in theglobal North and South.

All of this dynamic of developmentaid, both private and official should beconsidered and treated as a public good in thenew budget focus, and the best terminology, inour opinion, is International DevelopmentCooperation.

Recently, at The International Forum onCivil Society and Aid Effectiveness: A multi-stakeholder dialogue, organized by the CanadianCouncil for International Co-operation (CCIC) inOttowa, February 2-6, 2008, a group of Latin-

American civil society organizations and particularly the Asociacin Latinoamericana de Organizaciones de Promocin al Desarrollo, ALOP (Latinamerican

Association of Organizations for DevelopmentPromotion) proposed an understanding of OfficialDevelopment Aid, and by extension, alldevelopment aid, as International DevelopmentCooperation. That is aid, not as a relationshipbetween a donor (with resources) that makesdecisions and holds accountable, and a receiver

(with needs) that carries out the decisions made

by the donor and is held accountable, but rathercooperation between two parts that both haveneeds and resources, that hold each otheraccountable and are aware of the need to uniteforces to resolve common problems, that currently affect one of the parts more than the other becauseof their location.

From this point of view the ParisDeclaration about the efficiency of Development

Aid is one step toward starting the conversationabout the efficiency of cooperation and its

mechanisms to make sure that these resources arecorrectly directed and produce the best expectedresults. But as has already been expressed, theconversation must go further to talk about theconception of Cooperation.

Care of Global Public Goods

In this context, care for global public goods is clearly an issue of survival for the human species, nothing more than an intelligent attitude of self-preservation.

Evidently this can even be a cooperative attitude,based on an understanding of co-responsibility forour common future.

Previously mentioned public goods (tolook at a few examples) are closely interconnected.

To take care of one of them (if it is appropriately done) is to take care of all of them, and contrarily,carelessness with one is negligence of the whole.For example, as Norberto Bobbio says

A stable peace in the worldwould bebased on two conditions: an increase inthe number of democratic states in aninternational system whose members, forthe most part, do not have democraticgovernments, and the advance of thedemocratization of the internationalsystem The ideal system of stablepeace could be expressed with thisformula: a universal democratic order of democratic states.


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It is clear that International Development

Cooperation can stubbornly continue to be tiedto an anachronistic view of the world and be seenas a weapon for the carrying out of foreignpolicies, or it can be a useful tool, privilegedsupport for the Right to Development of allof the worlds people, within the framework of the United Nations rights ethos . Our proposal isto understand it as a public good, dedicated tocontribute to the resolution of global problemslocated in different parts of the planet and tostrengthen the care of global public goods. In this

sense it is a challenge to reach the point of being open, transparent and accessible. Here we wouldlike to emphasize that we mean both state andprivate resources.

Clearly the administrators of this publicgood will continue to be nation states for a while,but gradually large private agents that work collectively (international NGOs, foundations,associations) will appear on the scene. This is notthe problem. The criticism is that the programsand projects and their respective resources should

be awarded keeping in mind the following criteria:

Deliberated international construction of guidelines with broad based participation by a variety of actors

Strengthening of global social organizationalnetworks that participate in the differentmoments of these policies.

Participation of local groups affected/benefitted by these policies.

Creation of a positive environment of openness, information production and clearroles for the carrying out and follow-up of these programs and projects.

Our planet is a common ship where thesecure ports where we can tie our trust are few andfar between, and most of the time we are drifting as we search for a dock to be safe from storms.

International Development Cooperation,

understood as a global public good dedicated tothe use of local resources to resolve problems andto the care of our global public goods in general,could be a milestone where we can tie the cord of our trust.


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The Reality of Aid

National democ ra tic appropria tion in La tinAmerica and The Caribbea n (Fragment)Mauricio Gmez Lacayo

Nicaragua

2(http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/53/56/34580968.pdf) TheDeclaracin de Pars sobre Efectividad de la Ayuda al Desarrollo (Paris Declaration on DevelopmentAid Effectiveness) came out of theII Foro de Alto Nivel sobre Eficacia de la Ayuda (II High Level Forum on Aid effectiveness) held in Paris, Februrary 22005. The Paris Declaration was adopted March 2, 2005 by the more than 100 contries and organizations present at the e

What conditions guarantee civil rights? What role can or should a facilitator play in International Cooperation? What are the implications of conflict and the absence of democratic rule for effective cooperation?

Introduction The Declaracin de Pars (DP)(Paris Declaration)2 thatcame out of the Segundo Foro de Alto Nivel sobre Efectividad de la Ayuda (II FAN) (The Second HighLevel Forum on Aid Effectiveness) in Paris in March,2005, produced a progressive and vanguardconsensus that, if effectively implemented, couldindubitably improve the historic deficiencies thathave characterized international cooperation andreach equitable growth, sustainable social-economicdevelopment and poverty reduction.

The Consenso de Pars (CP) (Paris Consensus)(based on the Paris Declaration) represents balanced,permanent and lasting democracy based on

participation and representation where receptorgovernments must strengthen their capacity anddemonstrate stable leadership in their developmentinitiatives through plans, strategies, programs andprojects, assuring articulation with state institutionsand consultation with civil society organizations(CSO) and the general population. These initiativesshould be aligned with laws, norms, procedures,culture and customs of the country, in order topromote and guarantee the necessary appropriationof the government and the state, with a grassrootsperspective focused on the rights and responsibilitiesof the receptor countrys population.


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3Insertar cita 3 http://www.un.org/spanish/millenniumgoals/4The appendix III of theDeclaracin de Pars includes 12 indicators that measure the effectiveness of the development aid in three phases, thea baseline, and the other two in 2007 and 2009. These polls are intended as sensors of the advances and challenges of the pand evaluate these advances in the middle term so that in the IIIForo de Alto Nivel there can be another round of evaluation.5TheDeclaracin de Roma sobre la armonizacin was adopted February 25th, 2003 with the support of the Monterrey Consesus. http://www.worlharmonization/romehlf/Documents/languages/ESRome_Declaration.pdf

The LAC Experience of National DemocraticAppropriationIn the Latin America and Caribbean region (LAC)there have been some of the richest processes of national and regional dialogue and negotiation inpreparation for the II FAN, where the DP arose,and later the evaluation of this tool in preparationfor participation by different development actorsin the III Foro de Alto Nivel (III FAN)(III High LevelForum), to be held in Accra, Ghana, in September2008.

In preparatory meetings for the II FANthe LAC countries emphatically supported theparticipation of Civil Society Organizations (CSO)as a fundamental factor in order to to have enoughelements that support democratic, participativeappropriation as is necessary for this process.Nevertheless, in the face of the concerns of theLAC partner countries with respect to the inclusionof the CSOs, the OECD asserted thatdevelopment aid effectiveness is based on anintergovernmental framework (governmental orcentral state) between donor and receptorcountries.

The II FAN was held within this vision andproduced the DP, which is a declarative instrument

with important central principles such as how toimprove aid effectiveness, but does not sufficiently consider civilian voices individually or collectively and does not focus on poverty reduction withinthe framework of the completion of the Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio(ODMs) (MilleniumDevelopment Goals). 3

The goals and indicators in the apendix III

of the DP4

also do not take into account themeasurement of appropriation and leadership by residents or CSOs. Additionally, they do not discusshow to guarantee political, economic and socialrights in connection with the social well being of the majority populations that have historically beenexcluded from development.

In spite of its deficiencies, the DP shouldbe recognized as a substancial advance from thePrimer Foro de Alto Nivel (I FAN) (First Hight LevelForum) held in Rome in 2003, where donors,

receptor governments, and multilateral organismsmet only to hear cooperations best practices. Theresult of that forum was a declaration of bestintentions Declaracin de Roma sobre la Armonizacin (Rome Declaration on Balancing Aid)5 that lackedteeth to ensure its applicability.

In the I FAN it was clear that the receptorcountries should appropriate their own developmentinitiatives, as seen in paragraph 9: We urge associated countries to design, in agreement with donors, national, balanced action plans that include clear proposals as a basis for follow-up in order to balance the development aid...

LAC receptor countries that participated were clear that if they continued without taking charge of their own development, they would notbreak old patterns of cooperation, a sectorcharacterized by resistance to change.

It was necessary to strengthen the receptorcountries voices and manage to promote anddiffuse their best practices. This was only possible


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The Reality of Aid

6Text from paragraph 1 of theDeclaracin Conjunta de Pases Socios de la OECD DAC (Joint Declaration of Partner Countries of the OECD DAC)

through preparatory meetings that offered spaces

to find shared positions and reach consensusbetween receptor countries before facing jointforums on aid effectiveness with donor countriesand international organisms.

In this context, the LAC countriesresponded seriously to the call for appropriationand leadership of the aid effectiveness process,

which started an interesting preparation andexchange process in order to better positionthemselves in the face of the Armonizacin y

Alineamiento(AyA) (Balancing and Alignment)

process. With the goal of joint reflections and

proposals on how to better aid effectiveness fromthe perspective of receptor countries, fourteen of the partner countries from around the world metin Managua, Nicaragua in October, 2004 andproduced the Declaracin Conjunta de Pases Socios de la OCDE(Joint Declaration of PartnerCountries of the OECD). In this declaration thereceptor countries recognized the need tocontinue strengthening and bettering our

governability, plans and budgets, in order tomake them transparent and results-oriented, now that we believe that proposed changes todevelopment aid are the best way to advance better aid effectiveness, reduce poverty and

promote sustainable development in our countries. At the same time they stressed theimportance of appropriation and nationalleadership of the development aid effectivenessprocess.

(i) Appropriation and National Leadership6

11. Development can only be effective if the strategies are developed and implemented by governments.

Nevertheless, this has not always been

the case. Donor agencies develop

projects as if they were theirs, using logos and flags to show their appropriation. Frequently donors use a joint focus step-by-step, dividing intervention areas among themselves,i.e. one donor gives to healthcare and the other to education, or they distribute

geographic areas amongst themselves; despite the magnitude and reliability of their aid, they leave governments with unbalanced aid in different areas.

Frequently, agencies pressure for reforms or procedures that oblige governments to accept unnecessary structural changes. At times donors negotiate their projects directly with sectoral ministers, without taking intoaccount central planning authorities and therefore create tensions within the national administration. Donor agencies tend to micro-finance

governments and this undermines the local capacities and leadership and erodes Partner Country appropriation.


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7The Working Party on Aid effectiveness is under the Development Aid Committee of the OECD.8In theDeclaracin de Pars this group became the monitor of the implementation of Apendix II of the declaration, in charge of the monitoreal and 9http://www.un.org/spanish/conferences/ffd/index.html

In that same year, there was a LAC

preparatory meeting in Tegucigalpa, Hondurasunder the auspices of the Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo(BID) (Inter-american DevelopmentBank), with the goal of a wide and representativediscussion for regional preparation for the II Forodel Alto Nivel sobre la Efectividad de la Ayuda that would be held at the beginning of 2005.

Unfortunately, receptor countries did nothave control or voice in the preparation of theevent and the BID chose who to invite, the agenda,the presenters, the times and forums for

participation, the themes of the work groups, as well as directed the edition and conclusion of thereports and notes from the event. They invitedgovernment representatives to this meeting, butno CSOs or members of parliament, with theexception of regional countries that chose to invitenational CSOs.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has delegatedregional banks as the hemispheric forumcoordinators, without assuring that they have thenecessary personnel, knowledge, capacity, trajectory or broad-based experience in AyA. Consequently,this has affected national and CSO initiatives in thepromotion of democratic appropriation and hasinhibited, on occasion, truly consultative processes

with a grassroots perspective and CSO participation within the receptor countries.

Nevertheless, the forum of fourteenpartner receptor countries in Managua and thedeclaration and document that came out of thisevent was an important step for the LAC countriespresent because they arrived at the II FAN in Parisbetter prepared, united and determined to raise the

voice of partner receptor countries and the topic

of national democratic appropriation. Nonetheless, when these countries arrived in Paris they realizedthat despite having filled important positions asmembers of the Working Party on Aid effectivenessof the OECD 7, and the Joint Venture onMonitoring the Paris Declaration 8, when they

worked in discussion groups the documents hadalready been significantly advanced and there waslimited space for partner receptor countries to

weigh in on their final form.

In spite of having put on the table, insisted,and repeatedly expressed in documents fromdistinct receptor country preparatory processes,especially by LAC countries, the importance of CSOparticipation in aid effectiveness processes, the DPdid not include this topic to the necessary extent.

Although LAC CSOs participated in theassemblies and working groups of the II FAN, asdid some members of parliament from differentpolitical parties in the region, their comments werenot included in the final declaration, given that, aspreviously mentioned, the forum format and theprior methodological preparation of the declarationdocument did not allow enough space to discusstopics that were not previously agreed upon.

One could conclude that the CSOs wereinvited to provide the rubber stamp of approval

without voice in the process. Consequently, ininternational forums they are called to exercise anappropriation without democratic participation,

which is equally applicable on the country andregional levels where they work, given that at the

national level the same donors reproduce the samepractice and sometimes even receptor countriesare complicit when they encourage consultations


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The Reality of Aid

10Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Per, Repblica Dominicana11This meeting also included the participation of representatives from theSecretara General del Sistema de Integracin Centroamericano (SICA) (The General Secretary of the CentralAmerican Integration System) and theAsociacin de Estados del Caribe (AEC) (Caribbean States Association), who met in Managua August 30, 2006 to prepare ourelationship to theDeclaracin de Pars agreements ,that would be taken to theForo Regional de Alineamiento y Armonizacin para Amrica Latina y el Caribe: Ejerciendo Lpara Acelerar los Cambios (Regional Balancing and Alinement Forum for Latina America and the Caribbean: Exercising Leadership to Accelerate Chof the same year.12Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores (Foreign Relations Ministry) CD ROM / VForo de Coordinacin de la Cooperacin, Reunin de Pases Socios de la Regin de Amricael Caribe (Cooperation Coordination Forum, LAC Region Partner Countries Meeting), August,2006.

that are not participative and do not include a

grassroots perspective, and later try to validate their work with a participation process that is neitherreal or effective.

It is important to add that between theCumbre de Financiacin para el Desarrollo9

(Development Financing Summit) (Monterrey,2002) and the II FAN (Pars, 2005) Fondos Globales Verticales (Vertical Global Funds)(VGF) had beenflourishing and the existence of fundaciones globales (global foundations) that emerged from gran capital

global internacional (international global big capital)have generated distorsions in the work that the LACcountries have promoted to achieve greater nationaldemocratic appropriation, given that these financing frameworks have come to destroy the horizontalrepresentation and participation that receptorcountries have been trying to promote. Cooperationcountries and organisms support these initiatives tojustify the resistance to change and the regressionof aid effectiveness.

Global foundations are sending these VGFand financing to LAC receptor countries violating allthe AyA mechanisms agreed upon in Paris. This,together with the current weight and expense of international cooperation, has wrought havoc.Furthermore, passing over governmental or stateframeworks that coordinate external financing,looking for multilateral or international sponsoring partners, or bypassing regional coordination withmunicipal governments, the population and theCSOs can sometimes generate rivalry and divisionbetween CSOs in the country.

There are extreme cases where some

parliaments and donor country functionaries arejustifying these VGF or contributions fromcooperation resources to global foundations,arguing that cooperation has not been effectiveor adequate in receptor countries, without aprevious evaluation that actually demonstrates thisassertion. In the best of cases the fault is at leastshared with international cooperation.

In the followup and monitoring of the DP,the LAC region also held a preparatory forum of the six10 partner receptor countries that signed theDeclaration in Managua11 in August of 2007 andacted as a regional preamble, preparation andconsensus for the regional follow-up andmonitoring of the DP in Santa Cruz de la Sierra,Bolivia.

Out of the Managua meeting emergedthe Documento de Posicin Comn de la Primera Reunin de Pases Asociados al CADde la OCDE de Amrica Latina y el Caribe,

Adheridos a la Declaracin de Pars: Tomandola Iniciativa (the Common Position Documentof the First Meeting of the Associated Latin

American and the Caribbean Countries of theCAD of the OECD, signers of the ParisDeclaration: Taking the Initiative). In this way they took advantage of the event to re-launchthe Regional Webpage www.partnercountries.netthat holds all the documents and best practicesfrom the LAC region and serves as acommunication and learning instrument for thoseinterested.


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13Held in October, 2006.

As in previous declarations, the meeting of

LAC countries again recognized the importance of Civil Society Organizations in effective internationalcooperation development processes, andincorporated these ideas in the following paragraphstaken from the Documento de Posicin Comn 12

(Common Position Document). In this documentnot only is the CSOs role recognized, but also itmanifests recommendations to strengthen theirparticipation and insert them as partners in thedevelopment process.

Unfortunately, what usually happens is that

cooperation has consultation mechanisms that evadeor substitute the internal mechanisms of the country and create approval processes to satisfy theappropriation and justification mechanisms of theirconstituency and contributors. In any case, thedonors should promote participative andrepresentative dialogue and decision making on theLAC country level instead of claiming structural

weaknesses in the promotion of a process, that if it really satisfied the countrys interests, would affectthe countrys democratic appropriation, and could

even put the fundamental governability principlesat risk.

Unfortunately, in the Foro Regional de Santa Cruz de la Sierra 13 (Regional Forum of Santa Cruzde la Sierra) the same inconveniences emerged ashad in the preparatory meeting for the II FAN in

Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where the BID again took the role of the partner countries who should be incharge of the democratic appropriation of aideffectiveness processes.

In the work groups and open sessions of this Forum the discussion was notably sterile andexclusive of the partner receptor countries positionthat the Common Position Document from themeeting in Managua should have been an integralpart of the Declaration of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.Unfortunately, against the consensus and petitions

of the partner receptor countries, the BID

proceeded to elaborate and translate their ownreport, negating again the voices of the receptorcountries.

In the Forum in Santa Cruz de la Sierra,representatives of bilateral and multilateralcooperation who did not have knowledge orinformation about the AyA and aid effectivenessparticipated, at the same time as there was almost acomplete absence of office representatives, whichlimited their contributions to the process.

Also neither CSOs nor members of parliament were invited to the Forum. Somecountries that had included members of CSOsand the parliamente in their national AyAprocesses brought national CSO representativesas guests.

How can we promote countriesdemocratic appropriation in the region with thiskind of national and regional behavior when theLAC receptor countries allow others to appropriatethe process that belongs to the partner receptorcountries, and therefore do not allow the necessary participation of bilateral cooperation, receptorgovernments, and CSOs?

ConclusionsDespite the different LAC processes, there are stillgreat challenges to achieve national democraticappropriation where CSOs can have enoughinfluence to change the way that developmentcooperation has been run, and, more recently, the

aid effectiveness agenda in the DP context. Although the LAC region has had one of

the richest processes in terms of democraticappropriation and CSO participation, the DPframework still does not permit two-way dialoguethat would affect change.


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The Reality of Aid

Despite the creation of an Advisory Group

for the Aid effectiveness Working Group of theOECD-CAD, and a presentation space in the IIIFAN in Accra for best practices, it is still not clear

what more will be achieved apart from a parallelprocess that results in a paragraph of recognitionin the Accra Forum.

Nevertheless, the process has left greatrichness, experience and processes driven by theLAC region that can clearly serve as examples forother world regions in regional and nationaldemocratic appropriation, necessary to advance the

agenda from Paris.Countries should promote true democratic

appropriation in the national and regional grassroots. This should be done in a representative and

participative manner, and therefore should count on

international cooperations support and promotionsince they are key actors in the process. There shouldbe a real opening of cooperation in order to makeexistent frameworks more flexible and to overcomeresistance to change and clinging to the status quothat limit necessary change and transformation.

We can not forget that there are institutionalshifts in governmental administration that sometimesaffects policy and procedural modifications. In this

way, it is necessary to achieve greater national andregional democratic appropriation in order to reachsufficient sustainability and permanence to be ableto consolidate democratic appropriation efforts

where the general population, CSOs, and states jointly guarantee this important LAC regional process.


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Cases stud ies of the c oopera tion ofEuropean Union in Latin AmericaEach one of the following three documented cases are the result of the work of theEuropea n Union - La tin Ame rica Rela tions Soc ial Ob serva to ry, deve loped c urren tlyby ALOP in relation to the political, commercial and co-operation ties between thetwo reg ions. 14 The monitoring w as c arried out o n three c ase stud ies tha t involved c o-operation relations between Latin American countries or regions and the EU in 2007.The full version of these rep orts c an b e fo und a t ALOPs we bsite : www.a lop .or.cr andat the Observatory website: www.observatorioueal-alop.eu.

14The Project European Union- Latin America Relations Social Observatory (RSO) gets the support of: the 11.11.11. Coalition of the FlemiHivos, ICCO and Oxfam Novib (Netherlands).15ENLACE Comunicacin y Capacitacin A.C., www.enlacecc.org

Integ ra ted a nd Susta ina b leSoc ia l Deve lop ment Projet -

(PRODESIS), Chia pa s, Mexic oALOPs associate responsible for the report:ENLACE Comunicacin y Capacitacin, A.C.15

Chiapas, Mexico, March 2008

This project has as a background the Programas Caadas (Gullies Programme), executedfrom 1995 to 2000, a programme that, as it

has been pointed out in multiple forums, was aparamilitarisation programme with clear counterinsurgency and excluding aims, that caused divisionsbetween communities. This programme wassubstituted in 2001 by the Rain Forest IntegralProgramme for Sustainable Development ( Programa Integral para el Desarrollo Sustentable de la Selva , PIDSS),

which was not sponsored by the federal government

but by the Chiapas state administration. Thisprogramme had an assistancialist character and,besides other phenomenon, it modified theterritorial division, as a result of a new regionalisationof the Rain forest area: 34 micro regions were

created, which did not respect the existing structure.PRODESIS came into effect in 2004 as a

result of the agreement between the EU and thegovernment of the Chiapas state. The institution incharge of executing the programme was the stateMinistry on Social Development. It is important topoint out that PRODESIS was only applicable to18 micro regions that are located around the Montes

Azules Biosphere Reserve. In contrast the PIDSStried to cover the totality of the Rain Forest region:34 micro regions.

The project sets out as its main objectives:poverty reduction, mitigation of the processes of environmental degradation in the Rain Forest regionsin the state of Chiapas and the adaptation of the


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The Reality of Aid

social development politics with a participative and

sustainable sense of territorial development. Theprojects budget amounts to 31 million Euros; theEU contributed with 15 millions and thegovernment of the state of Chiapas contributed

with 16 million euros.

A query: How can representatives fromsocial organisations assess the results of theprogramme, on the basis of the improvement of their production and/or economic level? The resultsof the experience qualify the project as regularor negative. The institutions failure to comply

with their obligations is a commonplace responseexpressed by beneficiaries of the programme inalmost all the cases. Additionally, many of thebeneficiaries refer to the conventional characteristicsof the segregated and fragmented support to theproduction processes. The operative strategies andthe projects profits have been questioned by severalentities in terms of the efficiency in the applicationof the financial resources of the project, specifically on the investment of resources, mainly European,in consultancies to carry out studies, workshops and

other tasks.

In relation to the pertinence of the project it ispossible to conclude:

1) The costume and tradition as well as all theknowledge of the local conditions are takeninto account, thus creating a culturalbackground that influences the ways of decision making present in the planning andmanaging processes by the population at thelocal level. The Micro Regional Councils

(MRC) are in charge of translating the issueslaid out by the population into concreteproposals to be managed in the project.Nevertheless one institutional representativepoints out that the MRC does not have anappropriate methodology or the respectivespecific trainings to value the proposals lay out by localities and organisations.Consequently, these processes are given on

the basis of a personal consideration and

criteria.2) In regards to the production alternatives and

the experimentation or implementation of more sustainable production schemes, theProject has mainly assumed the task of inducing technological innovations of medium scope. This is based on products

widely distributed in the region (for example:banana, coffee and cattle). They have alsolooked to stimulate the generation of products that have, externally, been assessed

as promising. This suggests that due to adeficient consultation process with the localpopulation during the planning phase of theproject, the internal logic of the localproduction systems have not been taken intoaccount thoroughly.

The sustainability of the achievementsreached by the Project on gender equality is agood attempt; nevertheless it will be uncertain untila follow up mechanism to these processes, by external agents, is implemented by the communitiesthemselves or the MRC is not guaranteed. Facing the fact that in these regions the participation of

women in the productive aspects, or even in politics,is clearly biased by the traditional definition of theroles played by men and women in these areas andthe change of attitudes and responsibilities that


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constitute a mainly intergenerational process, it would

mean that the project cannot secure a significantinfluence on gender equality, if it does not promotefollow up mechanisms on these processes. () Afact faced by many women in the region is the needof securing economic autonomy due to the mediumand short term labour migration of men.

According to interviewed PRODESISrepresentatives, the projects impacts on MRCssocial organisation have been several, as there

were trainings and many meetings. Specifically themain impacts have been:

1) The request of the MRCs legal recognitionas territorial planning and managementbodies;

2) The follow up of all actions that have beencarried out in the micro regions through fivecommissions organised by the MRCs: socialdevelopment, sustainable development,control and follow up, gender equality andeconomic and productive development.

Regarding the strengthening of the

productive organisation by the project it was foundthat: During the years of work we have not achieved the self-sufficiency of groups. The groups that we have been supporting have gone through a spiral that has grown slowly; there is always the need to bring in resources, but we also need to set a goal so that the groups set up on their own.

As seen, PRODESIS impacts are farfrom what was expected. The planned objectivesof this project, based on the developmentsobserved after four years of implementation, arefar from being reached. Proof of this is thegrowing emigration. In the last few years theLacandon rainforest has become an emigrating region. The regional emigrants mainly go to theMayan Riviera, the agricultural fields in the Northor the US. The phenomenon is the fundamentalconsequence of the few opportunities that thepopulation has to obtain resources for theirsurvival.


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The Reality of Aid

16Centro de Investigacin y Educacin Popular, CINEP: http://www.cinep.org.co

Peace Laboratories inColombia

ALOPs associate responsible for the report: CINEP16Luz ngela Herrera R. y Luis Guillermo Guerrero

Bogot, Colombia March 2008

The Peace Laboratories (PL) are developed

within the framework of the RegionalProgrammes on Development and Peace

(PDP) in Colombia. These are regional entities

integrated by social organisations and private andpublic institutions that promote social, political,economic, cultural and environmental processes,impacting on the improvement of the living conditions of the communities and social groupsin the regions of their work coverage. The PDP, asthe social regional initiatives and processes, look toconsolidate sustainable human development andlasting peace processes in the middle of conflictivecontexts.

The PDP have, as main referent, the

experiences started in the Magadlena Medio regionduring 1995 and 1996, where on the basis of aconvention between the Unin Sindical Obrera and theState Company ECOPETROL, with theparticipation of the Barrancabermeja Dioceses,CINEP and other actors in the regional and nationalcivil society, set up as an objective to build adevelopment and peace proposal with a participativeand inclusive process to transform the exclusion andunequality to situations where a decent life in thecommunities of the region was the top priority.

This initiative was sponsored at first by ECOPETROL, and then it was financed throughtwo bank credits by the World Bank, between 1998and 2000. Later it was supported by the EuropeanUnion in the shape of what has become the First Peace Laboratory within the PDP framework of

Magdalena Medio. The coordinating body is

integrated by the Barrancabermeja Dioceses andCINEP. Its area of influence is a group of 30municipalities that are part of Magdalena Medioand that belong to four departments: Santander,the Southern zone of Bolvar, the far East of

Antioquia and the South of Cesar.

The Peace Laboratories are anopportunity to support social initiatives andprocesses articulated with citizen participation andinstitutional strengthening with the aim of carrying out, in the middle of the conflict, social, economic

and political transformations that would lead theadvancement on building the appropriate conditionsfor lasting peace.

The laboratories were born as a responseto three problems in the Colombian society:

1. The high index of violence at all levels andmainly the human rights violations.

2. Weak governance due to the absence anddifferentiated presence of the State in theregions as the public regulator and articulator,

as well as a fragmented civil society.3. An unequal, excluding and unsustainable

socio-economic development, both at theenvironmental and economic levels, thatcontinues generating poverty and violence.

The PL has been developed in differentregions of the country and at different times: thefirst, set up in Magdalena Medio, began itsnegotiations around 2002 and during the currentyear (2008), it is ending its second phase. The second

is being implemented in three regions: Eastern Antioqueo, Northern Santander and in Macizo-Pata in the South-West of the country. It began itsnegotiations in 2004 and will be in place until 2009.Finally the third one is carried out in the Montes deMara region, in the North of the country, and in


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17This Agency recovered three old State programmes: the Social Solidarity Network (Red de Solidaridad Social ), ACCI and the social component of Plan Colombia.

the West in the Meta department. It began its

negotiations in 2005 and its implementation will endbetween 2010 and 2011.

Objectives: The expected results in sum are three:1) Peace, human rights and decent life: Theconstruction of social and economic assets thatcontribute to reduce the risks of displacement orto mitigate its effects 2) Institutional strengthening,democratic governance and citizen participation asprevention of the conflict and to reduce thepopulation vulnerability and weakness of theinstitutions that are facing the conflict 3) Economicsustainable development: The recovery of a basicnetwork of social protection and of incomegeneration for displaced families for their return,relocation and economic stabilisation processes.

Participants

It is important to highlight the wide reach that thePDP and the PL have had, both at the regional andnational level, with a significant number of entitiesfrom social sectors; private and public:

1. Social organisations at the local, regional andnational level.

2. The national government through thePresidential Agency for Social Action ( Agencia Presidencial para la Accin Social), theInternational Cooperation 17 and the National

Department on Planning ( Departamento Nacional de Planeacin- DNP ).

3. Churches, mainly among Catholic churchesin the areas of their ecclesiastical jurisdiction,


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18Centro Latinoamericano de Economa Humana CLAEH: http://www.claeh.org.uy

Soc io-la b our Dimension o fMERCOSUR

ALOPs associate responsible for the report:Centro Latinoamericano de Economa Humana - CLAEH18

Written by: Leopoldo FontMontevideo, Uruguay, March 2008

The objective of this report is to visualiseand compile the achievements and phaselags in the execution of the Socio-labour

Dimension of the Common Market of the South(MERCOSUR) project, with the aim to contributein building better practices in the context of thecooperation between the EU and MERCOSUR.

The Socio-labour Dimension of MERCOSUR project began with the signature of the agreementnumber ALA/2003/005-767 between the EU andMERCOSUR. Therefore the area covered by thisagreement includes all country members of thiscommon market comprised of: Argentina, Brazil,

Paraguay and Uruguay. The Ministry of Labour andEmployment of Brazil was in charge of itscoordination and management.

The objective of the cooperation of theEuropean Commission with MERCOSUR hasbeen to strengthen the regional integration process.

The cooperation in the period from 2002 and 2006 was based on the Memorandum of Understanding (signed in July 2001) and in the Regional Strategy Paper (RSP) approved in 2002.

This memorandum comprises of threeareas: a) Institutional re-enforcement, b) thedynamisation of MERCOSUR economic andcommercial structures, and c) Support toMERCOSUR civil society.

The execution period of the project went

from June 2003 until June 2007 and its mainorganisations were: the Subworking Group 10, incharge of the labour, employment and socialsecurity; the MERCOSUR Socio-labourCommission, a tri-party body that supports the work of the common market group and the creation of mechanisms that facilitate the dialogue among thepolitical and socio-economic actors on social issues;and the Social and Economic Advisory Forum, aconsultative representative body of civil society organisation.

The total cost of the project amounts 1.250.000. The European Commission financed 980.000 and the local contribution (MERCOSUR) was of 270.000.

MERCOSUR is an integration process thatresults from the restructuring of the technological,commercial and productive changes associated tomodifications in the world economy. Its origin datesfrom the Asuncion Treaty, signed between Argentina,Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay in the city of Asuncion,on the 26 th of March 1991. This treaty wascharacterised by the free flow of goods, servicesand productive factors, the establishment of acommon external tariff and the adoption of acommon commercial policy, the coordination of macroeconomic and sectoral policies and theharmonisation of legislation in the relevant areas, toachieve the strengthening of the integration process.

It is possible to say that the socialdimension of the MERCOSUR regional integrationprocess can be measured at two levels. One, at thelevel of the integration degree of the social andlabour policies and at the institutionalised levelsoriented towards securing the important role of civil society and the social actors during theimplementation of the agreements.


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The Reality of Aid

Some difficulties inherent to the regional

integration process on social issues have beenidentified that somehow influenced the referredprocess. One of these is the construction of long reach social and political agreements, whichimply an existing institutionalisation, thepromotion of a political culture of civil society and the recognition that the social agreementsdepend greatly on the conviction that theorganised civil society would have on them.

Another difficulty is the heterogeneity of thenational situations that are reflected in theinequalities of their different modalities of collective and individual relations.

In relation to the relevance of theproject, it has been identified that the excessivetiming use for its design and approval (betweenseven and ten years) affected its correctimplementat ion, because the act ion of possibilities and the context for the developmentof the activities differed greatly from what wasthought of initially. Additionally, the constant

rotation of the functional institutions in thedifferent countries, which somehow cracked thedesigned actions and/or their later executions,did not fit what was planned initially. This willbe further developed and analysed in thefollowing part.

The general assessment of the project in termsof its impact and sustainability

Impact: It is considered that in general the project

had a low impact level, fundamentally due to thelow efficiency of its proposed objectives. In relationto the strengthening of the different instances of MERCOSUR involved in the socio-economicaldialogue, through an effort of structured dialogueamong the different political and economicalorganisations, it is considered that the impact waslow since the four components foreseen were notreached.

Sustainability: It is visualised that the project, at

the global level had difficulties to reach the resultsin time. On the projects efficacy and efficiency, basedon interviews carried out and the final report by the Executive Unit, it is possible to assess itssustainability on the following aspects:

- In the issue of the sustainability foreseen inspecific technical areas, through trainings,

workshops and/or exchange of experiences(internships in Brussels), it is considered thatthe project did not have a successful degree

of sustainability because, according to theorganisations, these activities did notcontribute to a greater knowledge and/ordevelopment of technological capacities.

- In regards to the Observatory of theMERCOSUR labour market forecasted inthe project, the project managed toincorporate the importance of the issue, butit did not obtain the creation of a uniqueobservatory, although it continues

functioning in the different countries.

- At the governmental sphere of the country members of MERCOSUR, they are still

working to achieve a regulation project of MERCOSUR related to labour safety.

- The institutional strengthening of the Socialand Economic Advisory Forum was slightly reached.

It is valued that there were seriouscoordination difficulties at the level of the projectsexecution unit, which affected the completion of the objectives. This has been attributed in part tothe strict financing European norms, in part thatthe execution phase was delayed, added to thecoordination difficulties between the differentorganisations involved, the rotation of functionalinstitutions, etc.