Intervention by our collegue and member of the Steering Board of ACPP, Xohana Bastida, in name of our organization

Madam President of Liberia, Madam Prime Minister of Mozambique, Madam First Vice-president of the Government of Spain, Ministers, authorities, and especially the representatives of women’s social organizations.

We have been given the task in this 2nd Summit of Women in Africa and Spain of presenting the Convention from the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation that ACPP will carry out in the 2006 - 2010 period.  If in fact this Convention will be headed by ACPP, we feel the need now to express our indebtedness to all Spanish NGOs and to act as representatives of them, in some way. We feel that it’s important to point out that in the world of cooperation, with all of its different levels – bilateral, multilateral, decentralized, etc. – we strive to provide something essential:  a shared responsibility and joint effort between the civil society in the North, in this case Spain, and the civil society in the South, in this case Africa. We recognize that it can be challenging to understand this, for their institutions as well as out own, however, it is important not only for the physical results, but also is fundamental in joining ideas and values. This can be manifested when two societies spontaneously join together in a collaborative effort, and as such, mutually benefit.

We aren’t a bank, we aren’t big business; what we are is a civil organization based in sociopolitical philosophies in which women are not viewed only as oppressed, vulnerable individuals, but rather as people who are especially creative and a  fundamental component in reaching development through a vision of equality. Along theses lines, there is a clear link to gender equality, however, there is also an important  connection to equality in interests, cultures, and societies. We know undoubtedly that together, we can make the world a better place.

This Convention presented by ACPP is a mid-range agreement of four years (2006-2010), which in some way symbolizes the aspiration and the day to day tasks of African and Spanish NGOs as a representation of their respective civil societies.

Importantly, this is an agreement, which also requires the collaboration of public institutions – in the North through the agreement presented by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation, and in the South through various civil organizations – which understand that public and civil interests should be at the fore front of collaborative cooperation, as the first priority in the entire cooperation process.

As an organized civil society, we should not be afraid to join forces with local governing public institutions, so long as we don’t lose sight of the need to question the ‘global order’. That is to say that the governing body does not posses the potential to invade, murder, or massacre the population nor to impose reactionary tariff laws. It must be clear that the North is not, and does not assume the role of colonizer, and the civil society in the South shall never permit itself to be colonized.

some moments of ACPP's intervention

We would like to present a Cooperation Agreement which is derived from experience, perhaps not very ample in Sub-Saharan Africa, but which includes seven years of work on behalf of our organization in Senegal and the Casamance Region.

We have been working in this region for some time now, with a vision that consciously combines not only the aspirations of the population, but also their potential to develop technical experience, culture, and the design plans for the public institutional which represent them. Clearly, our pledge has always been to work in a non paternalistic manor, without believing that the conception of progress of our counterparts in Africa is better, without ever thinking that out conception was superior.  On the contrary, we base our actions on a vision of mutual vision, from which comes the true meaning of ‘cooperation’. Above all, returning to the basis, from a which the reality is one civil society, working with another, without a character of paternalism nor compassion, but rather one which assumes that development is, substantially, the extension of social justice for all mankind.

As such, from the accumulated experience derived from the ninety projects carried out in the Department of Oussouye, we arrived at the new proposal for the project launch in the Department of Ziguinchor. During these seven years of collaboration, we have touched on points which both the organizations of Oussouye and Assembly of Cooperation for Peace consider to be the most essential for development and which we believe have been successful.

That is why we have decided to consider a new vision of our development model. We have discovered – though perhaps we should have discovered it before—that horizontal mainstreaming of gender equality and empowerment is not sufficient. We found that in fact women are the key to creating equal gender participation and play an integral part in cooperation for development. From these assumptions, we are reformulating our efforts to reflect this extended vision in the Department of Ziguinchor and in the projects already underway in the Department of Oussouye. It is from this that the Agreement came about; from the practical application and the experience of what has been carried out, enriched by what we have come to consider necessary in order to achieve more. It has been observed that the majority of the photographs that have been presented to this point have depicted images of women; it is not mere coincidence. If women are a crucial element in all of our interventions in Oussouye, how could we not make them the central axis in our interventions in Ziguinchor? If women have been at the origin of a large part of the proposals generated in the North, and they also make up a substantial source of answers in the South, how could we not have put women as the central axis in our amplification of interventions in the area?

It is for the above mentioned reasons that we consider this Agreement, which doesn’t exclude anybody, but rather is accessible to all, is a catalyst for development which counts on women as the agent for change, but does not serve only women. Because we understand that by assuming the position of representative, we should serve all people, both men and women.

This is why this Agreement places women as the focus for development, but, although we all know that words are important, I believe that we are all conscious that the reality says much more. That is why I wanted to present the reality of this modest Agreement: eleven groups of woman’s cooperatives to manage agriculture cultivations, another five female cooperatives to process rice and millet, seven mixed cooperatives for artisan fishery, three mixed cooperatives for agricultural production, seven mixed livestock cooperatives, and three mixed cooperatives for product transformation.

This Agreement also provides for the construction of two markets, five fresh water dykes, ten rural maternity centers, six healthcare stations, two healthcare centers, two evacuation centers for the infirm, five systems to dispense potable water along with 200 outhouses, the restoration or construction of twenty four primary schools, one daycare center and one library, and the support of seventeen women’s associations and seventeen cooperatives.

Concretely, economic development, maternal and infant health, education, basic services and social organization, organization of women.

Because, colleges, aside from making up half of the population, and more than half of the sky – any sky—we are more than half of development. We are the principle and, though frequently we are not recognized, we are development, we are the violated, the marginalized and the oppressed; but above all we are the future. A future, my African colleges, my Spanish colleges, that by being shared, will bring hope, and a changing of the rules. A future that has come late but that is now advancing as openly and innovatively in  societies of the North and South., and that means a shift in life, this life that we, at least us, know that we generate the day to day and permanently, and without which humans would not exist.

Or if you prefer, mankind and womankind, because even the rules of language need to be changed.