Cooperation: making good practices worthy

Cooperation is carried out at different levels. In order to avoid a fruitless assistance, we should not narrow down to the idea of giving help upon a request for it, this would mean that there was an emergency. We all know that ACP countries are very rich of natural and mineral resources. A conscious citizenship thus represents a fundamental for sustainable development. Education and training are instruments that can guarantee certain sustainability, stemming from patterns of democratic governance. Updated training schemes in the field of agriculture could transform weak systems into more competitive ones. In Brazil only a small part of the fertile soil for agriculture is effectively exploited. Huge plantations production falls within the monopolistic and oligopolistic schemes of the globalised world. A suitable alternative is represented by the development of the agricultural SMEs, especially getting through the professional training in the field of agriculture, and the support measures to the distribution channels of the products run or partook by the small producers themselves. This will strengthen local communities as well as associative networks to trigger small-scale distribution, factors that can contribute the goal of a greater autonomy and a better participation of the local communities. In Brazil similar experiments proved to be successful and they have been fostered by the State, which acknowledged the enormous imbalances  between the different areas of the country as an obstacle to development. The good practices arisen from such modest experiments could be “transferred” and implemented in other countries. Nevertheless,  the risk in exchanging practices is that of failing in the identification of the different needs for intervention and to provide “prepackaged” solutions. For this reason, measures for local developments should be adapted in terms of planning and taking into account what has already been experienced as well as what still needs to be done, reshaping and redefining from time to time the project deliverables. This entails policies of cooperation between developing countries themselves, through the involvement of public and private entities from developed countries which can take part in such cooperation projects. The framework of international cooperation would, thus, be enriched of pro-active instruments and would not be restrained to the mere exportation of local development models conceived and working elsewhere. [Alessandra Ortenzio / Vincenza De Tommaso]