ASA program
| ASA program | |
|---|---|
| purpose | Development education and practice |
| Chair: | Chris Boppel, VENRO (Chairman of the Board of Trustees) |
| Executive Director: | Jens Kreuter (Global Engagement) |
| Establishment date: | 1960 |
| Seat : | Berlin |
| Website: | [1] |
The ASA program (originally for work and study stays ) is a non-profit and politically independent development education and internship program sponsored by Engagement Global gGmbH (on behalf of the BMZ). The program was started in 1960 on the initiative of students and has been institutionalized over the years. More than 200 students and young professionals between the ages of 21 and 30 take part in the ASA program every year.
history
The content orientation, financing and organizational structure of the ASA program have changed several times in the past. From 1982 the program was supported by the Carl Duisberg Society , which was merged into InWEnt gGmbH in 2002. After the merger of InWent, DED and GTZ on January 1, 2011 to form the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), the latter temporarily took over the sponsorship. Since 2012, the ASA program has been part of the newly founded Engagement Global gGmbH based in Bonn.
A special feature of the now largely state-funded program is the participation of former ASA participants in the organization of the program. The ASA projects and thematic priorities are decided in democratic bodies in which former ASA participants are involved. The ASA program is financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development , a number of federal states and other institutions. The scope of the work therefore also depends on the political focus of the BMZ in terms of content. Networking has become particularly important in recent years, which has resulted in the establishment of a development policy network of European partner organizations ( GLEN - Global Education Network of young Europeans ).
In the German development cooperation scene, ASA, as an entry-level program, is often a building block in the biography of many GTZ , DED (now GIZ ) and other organizations.
Since 2014, ASA has only called itself ASA -Programm as a proper name and no longer uses the original declaration as work and study stays .
The projects
The projects differ greatly from one another: while some projects aim to obtain information and research, others focus on practice. In addition, ten to twelve so-called south-north projects are carried out every year . Scholarship holders from the south come to Germany for three months and participants from the north travel to the host country for three months as an exchange. This is intended to exchange knowledge and skills, competencies and know-how.
A project stay with ASA usually lasts three months. ASA's project countries include many countries in Africa , Asia , Latin America and Southeast Europe . The fundamental characteristic of a project country is its membership in the DAC list of the OECD .
Co-determination
An important feature of the ASA program is the participation of the participants. Elected participant representatives have 50% of the votes in the program committee. In recent years, the program management of the ASA program has made increasing efforts to transform co-determination into "participation". For this purpose, the participant representatives have been renamed volunteer representatives. This designation is controversial.
The office and the program structure are financed from a portion of the grants awarded by the Fianzies. Without this, the management structure of the program would not exist in this form. This construction means that the scholarship holders have an inherent participation.
criticism
On September 9, 2019, Engagement Global announced internal plans to largely abolish voluntary participation in the ASA program as part of a structural reform. Among other things, the program commission of the ASA program, which is half made up of volunteers, is to be dissolved. The ASA network resisted, among other things, with a public petition.
Award
In 2015, the project was awarded the “Werkstatt N-Projekt” seal of quality by the German Council for Sustainable Development .
Web links
- Detailed presentation of the projects ( Memento from February 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- GLEN-Europe.org - Homepage of the European network for development education initiated by ASA
Individual evidence
- ↑ ASA program (Engagement Global gGmbH) - SustainableJobs.de. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 27, 2018 ; accessed on December 27, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Petition: Preservation of civil society participation in development cooperation | Change.org. Retrieved September 13, 2019 .
- ↑ ASA program, the development policy learning and qualification program ( Memento from April 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Werkstatt N, 2015
