Editorial
 
Mobilizing expertise

Whether to gain a higher level of proficiency in a system, technique or organization, to meet the requirements of a partner or client, or to guarantee choices and comply with norms and standards, expertise has become a benchmark method used in both developing countries and developed countries.

Expertise, an essential tool for international cooperation, works in terms of time, level and nature of the support measure. It is usually a core component of a project, on a par with investments, operating methods, training, facilities and equipment.

In France, throughout the post-independence periods, expertise tended to take the form of longer term assignments for technical assistance and was mainly targeted towards the former colonies. This gradually gave way to short- and medium-term expertise (less than six months).

The expert must have technical and linguistic skills and a culturally open mind, and must also integrate his/her work into a project or a programme. The method of selecting, appointing and managing experts is critical. On it will depend the quality of the work.

Finding and selecting experts, situating them in context and managing them through to their reinstatement in their original professional and personal context is thus an activity in its own right, requiring qualities that go beyond logistics alone.

Through a few examples of programmes managed by Isted on behalf of its members and partners, this issue of La Lettre shows the thematic and geographic diversity of the expertise activity. The success of these programmes derives from the quality of the experts in charge of implementing them.

Jean Smagghe,

Contents

• Mobilizing expertise

• Feature: Mobilizing expertise . Administrative cooperation with CCEE, road safety in Africa, rehabilitation of Pochentong Airport in Cambodia, financing of cities in Latin America, Franco-Moroccan cooperation on roads. All these cooperation programmes, managed by Isted, illustrate perfectly the thematic and geographic diversity of expertise activity.

• Information Update : News-Events-Training sessions-Publications 

Return to the last issue