Program for Global Development (DES) followed from Center for Social Economics (CSE) becomes cross cutting activity at Tropical Research Institute (IICT)

Last updated 7 October, 2012

Click here for a more detailed version in Portuguese  Carregue aqui para uma vesão mais detalhada em Português

The Program for Global Development which followed from its Center for Social Economics in 2003 became a cross cutting activity in 2012 as IICT became part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with by-laws approved by Decree-Law n.º 18/2012 of 27 de January. The statutes were to be approved in February, with a consolidation of both research departments coming under the umbrella of DES, but only came into force in August. Nevertheless, in January dispatch 4/2012 regrouped the twelve existing research units into four and closed down three with suffix DES, especially GOV-DES which was the successor to CSE. Activities continue under the overall DES umbrella even if researchers are not assigned to one of the four existing units.

Last activities of CSE (also described in the luso home page)
On 10 March, 2003 I presented a paper on Public Private Partnerships for Development at the International Academy of Macau (IIM) in China, earlier versions of which had been presented at the I Business Forum of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) held in Lisbon by ELO - Portuguese association for economic development and cooperation in June 2002, at a conference in Luanda organised by the Portuguese Embassy on the theme "Development in Portuguese" in September and at a PPP seminar in Maputo promoted by the OECD Development Centre (DEV) in October. The IIM text is available here and the CPLP powerpoint presentation  is available by clicking on the flag .

Common Good and Common Memories
The ideas presented in a co-authored book titled Common Good,History and Prospects for the Portuguese people (approximate translation into English of Bem Comum dos Portugueses launched at the Lisbon Academy of Science on May 13, 1999) evolved over several years. In particular, keeping the process of economic development in the background, I have taken what may be called a lusophone (i.e. Portuguese speaking) interest on the prospects for the Portuguese language as a vehicle of culture and business. The identification of European and lusophone allegiances for the Portuguese was first described in Multiple allegiances as fate, presented at a conference on Regional Integration and Democracy sponsored by the Luso-American Development Foundation and Brown Univeristy in late 1995 (the preliminary version received useful comments from Philippe Schmitter, a political scientist at Stanford, but was never revised).
A related project, carried out by the Department of Historical, Economic and Sociological Sciences of Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical (IICT), is Common memories: from the slave trade to lusophone communities, which involves a social and economic dimension for which the Centro de Sócio-Economia (CSE) is responsible. A progress report presented at a plenary researchers meeting on 10 July, 2001  is available here.

· A revised version of the paper presented at the Washington Workshop on East Timor, early August 2000 is available here. A picture taken during the conference, held at the Swissotel, Watergate  is available here.

· A paper presented at the economics session of the Brasil-Portugal year 2000 congress in Brasília, 23 Setember, 1999 is available here.

History
On 23 October 1985 I was appointed director of the Center for Social Economics (CSE) at IICT. There I have sustained my interest in African economies and societies.

In early 1986 I led a mission to Guinea Bissau sponsored by UNDP, and another to São Tome, joint with the Bank of Portugal. I participated in the first World Bank mission to Angola in 1987, and CSE contributed the chapter on the colonial economy to the accession report. The possiblity of fixed exchange rate agreements with Guinea Bissau and São Tome was also studied at CSE, under sponsorship of the Institute of Economic Cooperation, now Instituto da Cooperação Portuguesa (ICP).

In December 1986, I was invited to the first Presidencial visit to São Tome and Cape Verde of Mario Soares. Following up on this visit I promoted in the premises of CSE between 1986 and 1988 a series of meetings of Portuguese entrepreneurs interested in Africa which culminated in the creation of ELO. I also negotiated the involvement of the Confederation of Portuguese Industry (CIP) in ELO, which represents Portugal in the so-called Group of Seven, an association of similar agencies from various European countries.

Francisco Mantero, who was also involved in the creation of ELO, intervened in the 1992 Plenary Meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Lisbon to report on the Charter of Principles whose observance the European private sector deems essential for sustained economic and social development in Africa. The charter covers government macroeconomic policy, commercial policy, tax policy, and exchange regulations. It stresses adequate infrastructures, public adminsitartion and legislation, together with the importance of clear and attractive foreign investment codes, of joining institutions such as MIGA and proper functioning of local courts. This Charter was unanimously approved by the Group of Seven and remains a basic document for business operation in the tropics.

In a joint venture with IICT's Center for African and Asian Studies and with African specialists at ISCTE, CSE organized an international conference on "Development and Underdevelopment in Africa: Theories, Ideologies, Policies and Processes". Bloc II, on policies, which was my responsibility, was published in the International Journal of African Studies, nº 10-11, 1989, pp. 129-202 (entry nº 102)

CSE also promoted the reprint of José de Macedo's Autonomy of Angola, published in 1910, with a preface by Jorge Borges de Macedo.

I was on public service leave from 1988 to 1994. After my return there were evaluation missions of European institutions to IICT in which CSE participated actively. In 1996, I was asked by ICP to explore cooperation possibilities with Zaire involving a combination of bilateral and multilateral institutions but the mission never got off the ground.

During these years I carried out a research project on the allegiances of the Portuguese which was later published in a book titled Bem Comum dos Portugueses with the partial support of IICT.

Common memories: from the slave trade to lusophone communities
This new project, carried out by the Department of Historical, Economic and Sociological Sciences of Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical (IICT), involves a social and economic dimension for which the Centro de Sócio-Economia (CSE) is responsible. A progress report presented at a plenary researchers meeting on 10 July, 2001  is available here.
A revised version of the paper presented at the Washington Workshop on East Timor, early August 2000 is available here. A picture taken during the conference, held at the Swissotel, Watergate  is available here.
A paper presented at the economics session of the Brasil-Portugal year 2000 congress in Brasília, 23 Setember, 1999 is available here.

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