Conference “Time Zones”

Time as an off-topic factor in development cooperation

The working groups established that the factor time was mostly seen as an off-topic factor in development cooperation, a factor determined mostly by the donor, often in the framework of the financing. The factor time is the kernel of an eminent control from abroad. Time should be adjusted much more strongly to the needs of development cooperation and its projects, in order to tone down the effects of foreign control, for example:

• through a clear awareness for the multi-dimensionality of development processes. “Our concept of project is only an artificial aspect of processes”, says Martin Bröckelmann-Simon (Misereor).
  
  
• through a common agenda setting together with the partners locally, whereby time planning has to be a real part of the agenda. “It is especially the task of development cooperation to bridge the different time-zones and act as an intermediary”, so the argument of Stefan Helming (GTZ). This way development cooperation could also contribute its experiences to a discussion of time structures in German organizations.
  
  
• through the conscious search for new partnerships, that widen the own time horizon, for example by binding a short term initial project locally to a long-term or even permanent partner.

The participants noticed that the budgets of donors were following a rationality sui generis that could not be ignored.

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