A little reminder…
The ‘Laboratoire de Dialogue Centrafricain’ project aims to make the country’s academic archives more accessible and to promote strategic reflection and dialogue in the Central African Republic, based on three main activities:
- Facilitating access to and the reappropriation of the country’s academic archives;
- Organising debates on major societal topics;
- Accompanying civil society organisations in drawing up constructive proposals.
The project was launched in May 2022 with activities in two areas:
The organisation of thematic debates, known as ‘Dialogues’, with civil society
In order to improve and reinforce the quality of dialogue between civil society organisations and political and economic decision-makers, the project aims to create an exchange platform that allows constructive debates to be organised. The objective of this experimental approach is to help civil society to be a driving force for change by increasing its voice and its credibility.
Debates on youth and the environment took place in August 2022, and led to:
- The production of two papers to raise awareness about environmental issues:
- A report to share lessons about the main points from the seven dialogues on environmental issues
- A report to share lessons about the main points from the three dialogues about the issues specifically facing young people in the Central African Republic and about finding work.
Two new dialogues took place on 7 February in Bangui, on the following subjects:
- The central role of transhumance in relation to war and peace in CAR;
- What lessons were learned from the COVID 19 pandemic ? What should be done to prepare for future major health crises ? (report coming soon).
The creation of a documentary database accessible to all
Access to knowledge is a challenge in the Central African Republic. Not because of the amount of knowledge produced, but because it is not easily accesible. Written documentation about the country is scattered between a number of archives within CAR and outside the country, in Europe, the United States, Canada and Russia. There is a risk that some of this knowledge will be lost – in some cases, there is only one copy left of a piece of research, and this is the case in many fields.
It seemed essential to preserve this knowledge by scanning it, to make it accessible by creating an online database, and to reproduce printed versions that can be consulted within certain institutions in CAR. Access to this documentary database and the reappropriation of this knowledge will contribute to dialogue between actors and will help to find solutions to the challenges facing the country.
Training was provided in how to scan documents, thus allowing a large number of documents to be scanned:
2 PARTNERS WHO PRODUCE KNOWLEDGE IN CAR
ENAM and the University of Bangui
24 PEOPLE TRAINED (STUDENTS AND ARCHIVISTS)
4 from ENAM, 14 from Bangui University and 6 archivists from different bodies including the Presidential archives
360 HOURS OF DIGITALISATION
Including 128 hours at the ENAM and 232 hours at the Health Sciences faculty
1568 DISSERTATIONS AND THESES DIGITALISED
Including 798 at the ENAM and 770 at the Health Sciences faculty
On 28 January 2023, the conference ‘Regards croisés sur la production intellectuelle centrafricaine au service de la paix et du développement ‘ (How intellectual production in the Central African Republic could contribute to peace and development) was held at the ENAM (Ecole Nationale d’Administration et de Magistrature) in Bangui. It brought together numerous civil society organisations, the French Embassy, the US Embassy, the European Union, the MINUSCA, UNESCO, academics and students.
With presentations from Pr. Richard FILAKOTA (General Director of ENAM), Pr. Georgette KOYT-DEBALLE (General Secretary of the National Commission for UNESCO), Dr. Paul Crescent BENINGA (Lawyer, Political Analyst and Commentator) and Valérie Blandine TANGA (Assistant Professor of Anthropology – Bangui University), the conference reviewed the project’s activities so far, and debated the following topics:
- the importance of the Central African Republic’s intellectual heritage, and more generally, the concept of cultural and intellectual heritage;
- the preservation, promotion, access to and, above all, use of this heritage by the different actors in CAR (civil society, NGOs, international institutions, the government and public institutions, private actors, etc.) ;
- ideas for ways to use this knowledge to promote peace and development.