THE LUSO HOME PAGE - DEDICATED TO PORTUGUESE SPEAKING COMMUNITIES
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Versão em português
actualizada em 28 de Julho de 2003 |
On 5 February, 2004 I was sworn in as President of the Tropical Research Institute in Lisbon (IICT)
where I had been director of the Center for Social Economics
(CSE) since 1985 - taking what may be called a lusophone (i.e.
Portuguese speaking) interest on the political economy of development in
Africa and Latin America. Wondering, in particular, how the prospects for the
Portuguese language as a vehicle of culture and business interest impinge on
the process of economic development. While the ideas go back much further, 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 University in late 1995 (the
preliminary version received useful comments from Philippe Schmitter, a
political scientist at Stanford, but was never revised). As mentioned in that
paper, the presentation benefited from my involvement during the previous two
years with the review of the Treaty on European Union by the parliamentary committee on European affairs. Several
interventions at the annual meetings in Divonne, France of the International Foundation for a European Civilization
also touched on Europe and lusophony as complementary allegiances of the
Portuguese.
A related activity is that of the Comittee of Lusophone
Communities (CCL) of the Lisbon Geographical Society
which I created in 1997 and where I began working on 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). The project carried out by IICT, Common memories: from
the slave trade to lusophone communities, involving a social and
economic dimension (for which CSE was responsible)
also helped carry out the book´s research agenda, as follows:
- A paper presented at the
economics session of the Brasil-Portugal year 2000 congress in Brasília,
23 Setember, 1999 is available here
. - A progress report presented
at a plenary IICT researchers meeting on 10 July, 2001, available here .
- A revised version of the paper presented at the Washington Workshop on East Timor, early August 2000, available here. A picture taken during the conference, held at the Swissotel, Watergate is available here.
- My statement as President
of IICT, available here
First congress of entrepreneurs from Portuguese speaking communities
At the opening session of the first congress of entrepreneurs from Portuguese
speaking communities, held at Hotel Ritz in Lisbon on 27 July, I made a
presentation drawing on the conclusions of the first congress of lusophone
communities held at Hotel Ipanema in Porto one month before (below),
especially those of the panel on Economics and
Entrepreneurial Ethics. I also mentioned the related efforts of Forum Portugal Global to promote the internationalization of
Portuguese business. The call for a code of conduct of the Portuguese
speaking entrepreneurs in their relations with governments, shareholders,
workers, customers and communities was enthusiastically echoed by the Minister
of Economy, Mr. Pina Moura, in his intervention. He also stressed the
importance of the internationalization of Portuguese business.
Conferences of lusophone communities
under the auspices of the Lisbon Geographical Society:
The first congress of lusophone communities held at Hotel Ipanema in
Porto on 18 and 19 June and titled Lusophony in the Information Age, had
been under preparation since late 1997 and was organized into two plenary
sessions and four panel discussions, e.g.:
The panels approved conclusions ratified
in the closing session, in the presence of the Portuguese Secretary of State
for Cooperation, Mr. Luis Amado. A
partial publication of the proceedings appeared in GEPOLIS Revista de
Filosofia e Cidadania, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Inverno 1999, nº 6
pp. 145-180. Due to an unfortunate typo on page 149, the list of
founders of the Comittee of Lusophone Communities
(CCL) left me out, together with António Pedro Vasconcellos (organizer of
the congress) and Mendo Castro Henriques (director of GEPOLIS)...
The second congress of lusophone communities, on the topic of democracy and
development, was to be held in Maputo, Mozambique in February 2000 but at
its meeting of 23 December, 1999, the CCL
decided to postponed it until further notice.
Teaching at Nova Forum
In November 1997, I organized an advanced course in the political economy of African cooperation,
directed towards officials of the Portuguese
Aid Agency (then called Institute of Portuguese Cooperation) and of similar
institutions in the Portuguese-speaking countries. This course, which was held
in the executive training center Nova Forum,
has also obtained the support of the Development Economics vice-presidency of
the World Bank
and of the Development Assistance Committee of OECD. A second course, on
Mozambique, was offered in January 1999, where I presented the global and
African background. One of the readings (in Portuguese) is available here.
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Jorge Braga de
Macedo © 7 August, 1996 Return to my homepage |
