With the Académie des Sciences in 2013-2014

FOSteRinG inteRnAtiOnAL cOLLABORAtiOn

Groupe interacadémique

pour le développement

Putting knowledge to work for development: Gid

The Groupe interacadémique pour le développement [Interacademic Group for Development] was created

in 2007 by ten academies of Southern Europe and the African continent. It is committed to boosting a true

codevelopment Euro-African programme. In order to reach this goal, GID is backed up by two important

networks of academies, whose creation it did bring about: GID-EMAN (the Euro-Mediterranean Academic

Network) et GID-ESAN (the Euro-Sub-Saharan Academic Network). With André Capron as President until

2012, it is now chaired by François Guinot, the Honorary President of the Académie des Technologies.

With strongly support from the Académie des Sciences, GID assumes three key missions:

• acting through education - by means of one of its flagship programmes, the

Women Health Education Program

, which focuses on health education by and

for women -, through training - by means of its

Sciences, Métiers et Sociétés

workshops, which are aimed at leaders involved in the formulation of public

policy in their countries - and through information - by means of its publications,

which are available on its website

;

• being a think tank and driving forward: Euro-Mediterranean conventions

(

Parmenides

) gather every year scientists, technologists and other stakeholders

involved in development for a specific field under consideration, in the aim to

reveal and bring to the fore the real development needs, reflect on the knowledge

that is either available or requiring further exploration, identify the impediments

to marshalling such knowledge, and, finally, draw up recommendations to

overcome them. It is planned to build on this model and organize Euro-Sub-

Saharan conventions

(FastDev, Forum africain des sciences et technologies

pour le développement);

• catalyzing initiatives for development: when it is necessary, GID acts as a catalyst

for furthering the training and actions of groups who, in their operations, are

best qualified to achieve the projects stemming from the recommendations.

In November 2013 in Malta, was held the 6

Parmenides conference, which laid the

foundations for the creation of an

Observatory for Development in the Mediterranean

, as

recommended at the 2011 4

Parmenides

conference in Rabat, Morocco, whose theme

was:

Water and Sanitation: Risks and Issues in the Mediterranean

. The Mediterranean area

indeed experiences a fast population growth, in particular on its Southern banks, together

with an uneven spread of seasonal tourism inflow on

its shores. The Mediterranean countries thus have

to manage an expanding demand for infrastructures

adapted to such evolutions while ensuring that natural, especially halieutic, resources are

preserved. GID’s academies deem it essential to create an observatory that, building on the

steadfast cooperation of marine research institutes and on the sharing of skills and data

gathered from scientific publications, shared experiences and observation systems, would

become a genuine decision aid tool for political leaders and stakeholders involved in the

sustainable development of the Mediterranean.

In February 2014, Ahmadou Lamine Ndiaye, the President of the Académie nationale des sciences et techniques du Sénégal (National

Academy of Sciences and Techniques of Senegal), and François Guinot, the President of GID, have invited the African Academies

to meet in Dakar and put in place the tools for Euro-Sub-Saharan development - the GID-ESAN network and the 1

edition of the

FastDev convention, which shall be organized in 2016 - replicating what works in the Euro-Mediterranean zone.