TUC Plays a Role in Enabling Effective Trade Union Development Cooperation

TUC Plays a Role in Enabling Effective

Global Trade Union Development Cooperation

By Gemma Freedman, Africa Programme Officer

'Having a set of Principles and Guidelines on Trade Union Development Cooperation to refer to at the beginning of any agreement is very important because it helps us to do things coherently from the beginning,' said Clara Boateng, African Labour Research Network (ALRN) Coordinator based in the Ghana TUC's International Research Institute.

Max Conteh, Head of Education at the Sierra Leone Labour Congress who leads on the TUC Aid/SLLC Organising project agrees 'The Principles and Guidelines will help to give us checks and balances and it will help us to reduce the duplication of our efforts'.

Max Conteh from the Sierra Leone Labour Congress and Clara Boateng from the Ghana TUC and ALRN who were two of 30 participants who took part in a consultation on the Principles of Trade Union Cooperation from 27-28 May 2010

Clara and Max are two of the 30 participants that took part in an ITUC African consultation on a draft document on the Principles and Guidelines of Development Cooperation created by the newly formed ITUC hosted Development Cooperation Network (TUCDN). The day and a half workshop took place in the ITUC-Africa headquarters in Lome, Togo that also saw the launch of the ITUC Africa chapter of the global ITUC Development Cooperation Network.

The documents define and address Principles of Democratic Ownership, Autonomy, Partnership, Transparency, Accountability, Coherence, Sustainability and Inclusiveness and Equality from a trade union development cooperation perspective. And by the time they are finalised at the end of 2010, they will also have benefited from consultations in Latin America and Asia. At that point, they will form the ITUC's contribution to the Open Forum on Development Effectiveness' recommendations to the fourth Governmental High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Seoul, South Korea in 2011, which will consider how civil society's accountability and effectiveness is measured.

ITUC Africa TUDCN members participating in the Network

Clara continues 'I expect the Network to assist us in improving our communication, so we share information and avoid duplication because if we lack information about what has been done before, then it's not necessarily dishonest but it does reduce our effectiveness. For me the guidelines, particularly on democratic ownership, are especially important because they will help us to demand that all trade union stakeholders are involved in project design. So if a potential Northern partner comes to us with funding for a project designed in the North, we will be able to refer them to the principles and we'll be able to avoid impositions of this kind'.

Fiacre Ninteretse, the General Secretary of COSYBU national trade union centre in Burundi, said that democratic trade unions in Burundi are very young and less experienced in the field of North/South development cooperation. However he committed to 'internalising the documents and discussing with his colleagues how we can put them into good practice and take part in the Network so that we can share experiences and learn from other African unions in order to improve our collaborations'.

Fiacre Nintereste, General Secretary of COSYBU, Burundi

TUC Programme Officer Gemma Freedman has represented the TUC at the TUDCN for the past 18 months and has played a very active role in the creation of the Principles and Guidelines draft documents. Travelling to Lome to observe the Consultation she commented 'It was really important for me to attend the consultation process in Africa, because whilst the ITUC Africa secretariat, through its Deputy General Secretary Adrien Akouete, has played a role in the drafting of the Principles, they had been drafted in Europe and because the ITUC does not have the resources to fly lots of southern people to Europe for Network meetings, it was important to me to personally hear more voices from the 'South'. During the consultation, I was reassured so see that no major differences or objections about the wording in the draft documents were raised.'

At the end of the consultation the ITUC Africa interviewed the ITUC facilitators Paola Simonetti and Mammadou Diallo as well as with Gemma Freedman for Radio Labour.

Caroline Mobolanle Ajayi from the Nigeria Labour Congress, another TUC project partner was also enthusiastic about the potential of the Network and Princiiples and summed up the mood of the consultation well 'The vision of the Network and Principles are a good move towards bridging the gap between northern and southern unions so that we are united together to take stronger and more effective actions'.

Caroline Mobolanle Ajayi, NLC (centre), Margaret Mandago, TUCTA Tanzania (left) and Clara Boateng, Ghana TUC (right) enjoying an evening buffet put on by the ITUC Africa

In final reflection, Gemma said 'It is estimated that annually over 1 billion Euros of trade union and government funding is spent on development cooperation within the Global Union Family each year. This sum is far greater than the sum gained through membership subscriptions and so it is vitally important that the money that is spent is done in a coherent and coordinated way. With trade unions from the USA to Russia, Japan to Scandinavia and Australia to Spain plus many other involved, this is no easy task. However, the movement, including the TUC, has a responsibility to the hundreds of millions of poor and exploited workers in developing countries, to ensure that our unique contribution to development is as effective as possible. Currently the TUC receives around £1.4 million a year for development cooperation work from its affiliates, their members and the Department for International Development. This is miniscule in comparison to many of our Northern peers who receive tens of millions each year, however, we remain committed to developing our systems so that our contribution is as transparent, coordinated and effective as possible. Initiatives such as the TUDCN gives the global trade union family a crucial route to collectively live up to our potential and for this reason, we will play our part in making it a success'.

Contact GFreedman@tuc.org.uk for more information