Expert sending is increasingly perceived in Romania and other new EU member states (NMS) as one of the most effective ways to develop capacity for development cooperation and, very important, to create capacity and support for awareness raising and development education. Development cooperation is fundamentally about eradicating poverty and its associated problems throughout the most affected countries in the ACP (Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific).
In Romania/NMS however at present Sub-Saharan Africa and its endemic problems are out of the public agenda. Particularly after 1989 there is virtually no bounds left with Africa. Whatever legacy is left from the relations established with African countries during the Cold War era, this is generally compromised and perceived in a negative way. There is no exaggeration in saying that Africa has fallen off all Romanian/NMS maps. As a consequence, in the absence of direct links to Africa, promoting development cooperation in Romania/NMS, both as a national and European policy, is very difficult. People simply do not feel connected in any way to problems in the global south. Migration has not been an issue for Romania/NMS so far. There are very few migrants coming from poorer countries (mostly from Asia) and very few refugees from Africa. Economic ties with countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are very poor. Political linkages are almost non-existent. Mass media is only marginally interested in issues in this region of the world and usually by simply propagating negative stereotypes.
While most members of the Romanian NGDO platform FOND have contacts in the area covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), very few of them are connected to ACP partners. Therefore identifying ways to send development workers in the ACP countries seems essential to creating a sound basis for development cooperation in Romania/NMS.
It is in this context that the study visit organized by TRIALOG from March 2-8, 2008 has been particularly interesting. The first days were dedicated to an introduction in the concepts and system of expert sending, hosted by AGEH (Association for Development Cooperation) in Cologne and with the participation of Joachim Lindau (Consultant, former Programm Director Bread for the World, Germany) and Cliff Allum (FORUM ids, International FORUM on Development Service, Great Britain). Throughout its long experience in managing expert sending programmes, the German organization has developed an excellent system of recruiting, training, placing and reintegrating development workers. One of the secrets of the German success story is definitely the national Development Worker Act, regulating all this particular section of development cooperation. While the Act is the product of a very favourable political momentum in the 1960s, it is still at the core of German development policy.
The one-day stop in Bonn, at the headquarters of DED (German Development Service), clarified many of the implications of public support to expert sending and volunteer sending programme. It also offered the participants from NMS a more Government-like perspective on expert sending, by introducing topics such as Programming and Controlling of Country Programmes or Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. In the following years the German Government, with the technical support of DED plans to send 10,000 volunteers in developing countries. This dwarfs any possible initiative coming from not only NMS, but also from the other old member states.
Albeit very enriching and with so much useful information, the study-visit days in Germany were felt among the members of the group as rather overwhelming: the situation in the NMS is so far away from the German context, both in terms of scale of the programmes and of the institutional and legal framework, that any thought of comparison can only cause disillusionment.
Therefore, the last stop, at HORIZONT3000 office in Vienna brought more confidence among the participants as the Austrian case is definitely more similar to what could be achieved in the NMS at the moment, in terms of both resources and scope of the expert sending programmes. HORIZONT3000 presented to the participants its own system, more simple and thus flexible, as well as the Austrian Development Workers Act. Also in Vienna, the participants to the study visit had the opportunity to become engaged in the discussion on the f
uture of expert sending programmes during a Roundtable on European “Experts” in Development. Added Value or Time for a Change.
It seems that NMS will have to face a double challenge: the challenge of establishing development worker sending programmes, but also the challenge to adapting them quickly to the changes of a new international context.
View the online documentation of the Study Visit and the Roundtable discussion in Vienna on the TRIALOG website at:
http://www.trialog.or.at/start.asp?ID=148&b=74
Information provided by Valentin Burada, Civil Society Development Foundation, Romania
In Romania/NMS however at present Sub-Saharan Africa and its endemic problems are out of the public agenda. Particularly after 1989 there is virtually no bounds left with Africa. Whatever legacy is left from the relations established with African countries during the Cold War era, this is generally compromised and perceived in a negative way. There is no exaggeration in saying that Africa has fallen off all Romanian/NMS maps. As a consequence, in the absence of direct links to Africa, promoting development cooperation in Romania/NMS, both as a national and European policy, is very difficult. People simply do not feel connected in any way to problems in the global south. Migration has not been an issue for Romania/NMS so far. There are very few migrants coming from poorer countries (mostly from Asia) and very few refugees from Africa. Economic ties with countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are very poor. Political linkages are almost non-existent. Mass media is only marginally interested in issues in this region of the world and usually by simply propagating negative stereotypes.
While most members of the Romanian NGDO platform FOND have contacts in the area covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), very few of them are connected to ACP partners. Therefore identifying ways to send development workers in the ACP countries seems essential to creating a sound basis for development cooperation in Romania/NMS.
It is in this context that the study visit organized by TRIALOG from March 2-8, 2008 has been particularly interesting. The first days were dedicated to an introduction in the concepts and system of expert sending, hosted by AGEH (Association for Development Cooperation) in Cologne and with the participation of Joachim Lindau (Consultant, former Programm Director Bread for the World, Germany) and Cliff Allum (FORUM ids, International FORUM on Development Service, Great Britain). Throughout its long experience in managing expert sending programmes, the German organization has developed an excellent system of recruiting, training, placing and reintegrating development workers. One of the secrets of the German success story is definitely the national Development Worker Act, regulating all this particular section of development cooperation. While the Act is the product of a very favourable political momentum in the 1960s, it is still at the core of German development policy.
The one-day stop in Bonn, at the headquarters of DED (German Development Service), clarified many of the implications of public support to expert sending and volunteer sending programme. It also offered the participants from NMS a more Government-like perspective on expert sending, by introducing topics such as Programming and Controlling of Country Programmes or Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. In the following years the German Government, with the technical support of DED plans to send 10,000 volunteers in developing countries. This dwarfs any possible initiative coming from not only NMS, but also from the other old member states.
Albeit very enriching and with so much useful information, the study-visit days in Germany were felt among the members of the group as rather overwhelming: the situation in the NMS is so far away from the German context, both in terms of scale of the programmes and of the institutional and legal framework, that any thought of comparison can only cause disillusionment.
Therefore, the last stop, at HORIZONT3000 office in Vienna brought more confidence among the participants as the Austrian case is definitely more similar to what could be achieved in the NMS at the moment, in terms of both resources and scope of the expert sending programmes. HORIZONT3000 presented to the participants its own system, more simple and thus flexible, as well as the Austrian Development Workers Act. Also in Vienna, the participants to the study visit had the opportunity to become engaged in the discussion on the f
uture of expert sending programmes during a Roundtable on European “Experts” in Development. Added Value or Time for a Change.It seems that NMS will have to face a double challenge: the challenge of establishing development worker sending programmes, but also the challenge to adapting them quickly to the changes of a new international context.
View the online documentation of the Study Visit and the Roundtable discussion in Vienna on the TRIALOG website at:
http://www.trialog.or.at/start.asp?ID=148&b=74
Information provided by Valentin Burada, Civil Society Development Foundation, Romania
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