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Presentation of ifda
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Presentacion en español
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| 1. Goals. The International Foundation for Development Alternatives (IFDA) was set up in 1976 to contribute to the movement towards both another development and genuine international cooperation, defined as follows: • another development hinges on five interrelated pillars: satisfaction of human needs in their diversity; self-reliance; endogeneity; harmony with nature and ecological sustainability; non-violent democratization of societal structures. It is a systemic process, personal and social, cultural and technological, economic and political. It offers a project to every society, wherever located, North or South, whatever its space, global, national or local;• genuine international cooperation implies respecting differences and ensuring cultural pluralism. It calls for the restructuring of international relations through, among others, a global conception - at the same time political, ecological and social - of security , complete disarmament, non-alignment, Third World collective self-reliance as well as the emergence of new actors, especially those from the civil society. It is the transition from old and new hegemonies and the resulting unequal exchange to a world order supportive of another development. | ||
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| 2. Means. IFDA seeks to pursue its goals through publications, meetings and specific projects which all aim at facilitating:• the sharing of informations, ideas and experiences among citizens and citizens' associations constituting the third system*;• the expression of unheard voices;• the enforcement of the principle of accountability of all systems of power;• mutually educating dialogues between social actors, policy makers, researchers and communicators;• innovation, experimentation, communication and action. IFDA is not a funding agency. | ||
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* * Cf. "Neither
Prince nor Merchant - Citizen: An Introduction to the third system".
Development Dialogue (1987:1).
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| 3. Legal status. IFDA was established in 1976 as an international, non-governmental, non profit-making foundation under Art. 80 et ff. of the Swiss Civil Code which provides, inter alia, for the Federal Government to ensure that the resources of the Foundation are used in accordance with its purpose. It is registered at the 'Registre du Commerce' of Nyon, Vaud, Switzerland, where its legal seat and secretariat are located. IFDA is in consultative status with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). | ||
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| 4. Organization. The Steering Committee formulates IFDA's work programme and participates in its implementation. Members of the Council take part in, and/or provide advice on, IFDA's activities on an ad hoc and personal basis. The Council chairperson is a full member of the Steering Committee. Citizens of the South constitute the majority of both organs. The President of IFDA acts as its chief executive officer. | ||
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| 5. Funding. IFDA's capital amounts to Swiss francs 50,000. Its budget - currently some Swiss francs 250,000 annually - is financed by subscriptions to its publications; donations; fees and overheads from contractual activities; and grants from governments or public agencies. Its main sponsors are or have been Algeria, Canada, Finland, Italy, Kuwait, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Venezuela. | ||
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| 6. Method of work and activities. IFDA is primarily a servicing facility for a network whose members share the values outlined above. The network links individuals (starting with the members of the Committee and Council) and third system associations from all over the world (some examples are given below) as well as first system institutions (governmental and intergovernmental). Seeing its role as provisional, IFDA encourages direct relations among networkers.Besides its Dossier, projects and seminars constitute the most visible parts of IFDA's work. Its activities are always conceived, planned and implemented with and for members of the network so as to facilitate sharing of experiences and expand mutual awareness. IFDA's capacity for the unexpected and flexibility are reflected in the partial list of selected activities carried out | ||
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| 7.
The IFDA Dossier is the public instrument of
the network in its widest sense, receiving articles and informations from
those who have something to offer and making them available to all. The IFDA Dossier appeared for the first time in 1978. Initial circulation was around 2,500 copies. Published quarterly since January 1990, its Nº 81 (April/June 1991) has been printed in 26,000 copies and distributed in virtually every country of the world (two thirds of those to whom it is addressed are Third World citizens). The IFDA Dossiers audience is amplified by its policy of 'no copyright'. Papers are often translated, reproduced or mentioned in some of the 600 periodicals IFDA obtains from all regions on an exchange basis. The Dossier is not a journal in the conventional sense but rather a vehicle servicing the network of readers, especially those who often are unheard elsewhere. Only a selection of the materials received is printed, the editorial function of IFDA being principally to choose among them so as to ensure the global character of the publication by maintaining a certain balance between actors, themes, regions and languages (the Dossier consists of articles in English, French and Spanish). Dossiers 17, 26, 38, 50, 62 and 74 include indices, by author, theme and third system association, of published papers. The Dossier is available on request to collective and individual readers at no cost but subscriptions and donations are welcome, especially from readers in the North. |
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| Networking IFDA maintains cooperative relations with a number of third system associations all over the world, and, in particular, with the following:• Afro-Arab Cultural Forum, Asilah, Morocco • Asia-Pacific Peoples' Environment Network (APPEN), Pulau Pinang, Malaysia • Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA), Hong Kong • Association of African Women for Research and Development (AAWORD), Dakar, Senegal • Autonómia Alapitvány (Foundation for Self-Reliance), Budapest, Hungary • Centre for Arab Unity Studies, Beirut, Lebanon • Centre de estudios del desarrollo, Santiago dc Chile • Centre de estudios económicos y sociales del Tercer Mundo (CEESTEM), Mexico • Centro de estudios para el desarrollo y la participación (CEDEP), Lima, Perú • Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden • ENDA, Environment and Development in the Third World, Dakar • Fundacion CEREL (Centro de estudios de la realidad latinoamericana), Caracas, Venezuela • Ibase, Institute Brasileiro de Analises Sociais e Econômicas, Rio de Janeiro • Instituto latinoamericano de estudios transnacionales (ILET), Santiago, México y Buenos Aires • Inter Press Service Third World News Agency (IPS), Rome, Colombo, Harare and San José de Costa Rica • Lokayan Movement, Delhi, India • Marga Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka • Third World Academy of Sciences, Trieste • Third World Forum, Cairo, Egypt, and its regional offices in Colombo, Dakar and Santiago • Third World Network, Pulau Pinang • Vienna Institute for Development and Cooperation, Austria. |
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| Selected
activities 1976-1992Activities
(other than publications) carried out by IFDA include the following: 1976 Sweden in the world society, seminar with the Swedish Secretarial for Future Studies, Le Bettex, Haute Savoie, France.1977 • Technical cooperation among developing countries, support to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) seminar, Kuwait.1978 • The third system project (participation of the third system in the elaboration of the third United Nations international development strategy.) This project (1978-1980) involved the participation of some 60 institutions and 600 individuals from all regions of the world through 119 sub-projects. It was undertaken at the request of the Dutch and Norwegian governments, which covered its costs (some US$ 3 million) together with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Its report - including a list of participants, activities and supporting papers - was published in IFDA Dossier 17 and the full collection of papers is available on microfiche.1979 The new international development strategy, symposium for the United Nations Director General for Development and International Economic Cooperation, Scheveningen, The Netherlands.1980 South-North Conference on the international monetary system, with the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, ILRT, the Third World Forum, the Institute for Policy Studies (Washington), the Tanzanian Institute for Development Studies and the National Planning Agency of Jamaica, Arusha, Tanzania.1981 • The political environment of the New Round of Global Negotiations, private seminar, Nyon.1982 • The need for alternative development cooperation policies and practices: the Italian opportunity, private seminar for members of the Parliament, Rome.1983 • Development alternatives in Grenada, private seminar for Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and his Cabinet, Saint George's and Cariacou.1984 • Cooperation with the Council of African Non-Governmenlal Organizations for Development (CONGAD) in its seminar on development in the local space, Dakar.1985 • The Future of the United Nations System. The 40th anniversary of the United Nations was the main focus of IFDA activities in 1985, through meetings, writing, lecturing and consulting. In particular, IFDA organized a panel in the context of the 18th World Conference of the Society for International Development (Rome, July), advised the UN Director General for Development and International Cooperation on new relationships between the UN and the third system and prepared, on the basis of many discussions, a paper entitled The Future of the United Nations System: Some questions on the occasion of an anniversary which was published by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.1986 • Which way Africa? Private seminar at Rolle, Switzerland, with 17 African leaders, social actors, decision makers, writers and social scientists. The seminar adopted a Declaration on Africa: For Democracy, for Development, for Unity which was widely circulated in Africa (cf. IFDA Dossier 54).1987 • Participation in various meetings on, among others, The global crisis of environment and development (Penang), Popular participation in development (Niamey), North-South relations on the eve of UNCTAD VII (Vienna) and Peace, trade and development (Moscow).1988 • Expanding the autonomous budgetary capacity of Africa's poorest countries was the theme of a private consultation organized for the Director General of Italy's Development Cooperation (Positano).1989 • Between 1981 and early 1989, IFDA has published every working day a Special United Nations Service (SUNS) which covered, from an independent Third World point of view, the development and North-South debates in the UN system, especially the Geneva and Rome-based agencies, and the efforts of the Group of 77, the Non-Aligned Movement and the South Commission towards Third World collective self-reliance. Since April 1989 the SUNS is published by the Penang-based Third World Network in cooperation with IPS and the South Commission/South Centre.1990/92 • Chile in the 80s. With the return of democracy, IFDA completed a ten-year collaboration with the Centro de estudios del desarrollo, Santiago, in the search of another development in Chile (Cf. editorial, IFDA Dossier 75/76). |
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PublicationsPublications
- other than the Dossier and the SUNS - emanating from IFDA activities
include the following:• IFDA
occasional papers: Gilbert Rist, Towards a new United Nations development strategy. Some major UN resolutions in perspective, (1977, mimeo.) 73pp.Patrick Masette Kuuya, Another development for Uganda, (1980, mimeo.) 38pp.Cesar Cordova Novion and Céline Sachs, Urban Self-Reliance Directory (1987), 238 pp with 5 indices.Expanding the autonomous budgetary capacity of Africa's poorest countries, (1988, mimeo.) 32pp.Come aumentare la capacità finanziaria autonoma dei Stati africani più poveri? (1988, mimeo.) 34pp. • Reports from some seminars are available from the co-sponsoring institutions: Challenge to Sweden, Institute for Future Studies, Hagagalan 23A, 113 47 Stockholm, Sweden."Participatory development and dependence, The case of Sri Lanka", Marga Quarterly Journal (Vol 5, N° 3, 1978); POB 601, Colombo, Sri Lanka.Alternatives para el desarrollo de Venezuela, CEREL, Apartado 68369, Caracas 106, Venezuela.The Scheveningen Report, Towards the New International Development Strategy, United Nations document A/34/467, also available in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.• Available from the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation (Övre Slottsgatan 2, SE-753 10 Uppsala, Sweden): Nordal Akerman, "Can Sweden be shrunk?". Development Dialogue, 1979:2."The international monetary system and the international order", Development Dialogue, 1980:2." The automatic mobilization of resources for development", Development Dialogue, 1981:1."Alternalives for survivors: report from the third system project" (ibidem).• The Third system project paper's: A 2 volume-collection of 236 microfiches reproducing in 23,000 pages the IFDA Dossier (Nos 1-62) find all the supporting papers prepared in the context of the third system project. Available from Inter Documentation, Poststrasse 14, 6300 Zug, Switzerland. Price: Swiss francs 950.-. • Among the books resulting from, or reflecting, IFDA activities are the following: Marc Nerfin, "A new United Nations development strategy for the 80s and beyond: the role of the third system", in Anthony Dolman and Jan van Eitinger (eds), Partners in Tomorrow, Strategy for a New International Order, presented to Jan Tinbergen on the occasion of his 75th birthday (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1978), |
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