"Development progress over recent decades has been unprecedented in human history. In the early 1950s, when large-scale development assistance began, most people outside the developed countries lived as they had always lived, scraping by on the edge of subsistence, with little knowledge of and no voice in global or national affairs, and little expectation of more than a short life of hard work with slight reward. Since then, many countries have achieved truly dramatic improvement in overall indicators of human welfare."

Whose agenda, whose history and whose reality does this reflect. In my view this represent an extremely eurosentric perspective!

Before entering into the substance of my contribution on this issue, I have to point out that my experience – as a coordinator of a network of Norwegian Development Education NGOs (the RORG-network) - is mainly with development education – and not the broader range of issues covered by the term global education.

In the last ten years, our main efforts to improve development education carried out by NGOs in Norway includes the following:

1. As NGOs, to a large extent funded by the government, we´ve been struggeling for our independence – for our right and duty to criticise the policies of the government. Level of conflict on this issue has shifted through the years, but today our minister of development publicly encourages national NGOs to act as Watchdogs, criticly monitoring the policies of the goverment.
2. As NGOs, funded through the goverment aid agency, NORAD, we´ve been struggeling to escape the narrow perspectives on development education that – at times – have been promoted by NORAD. We´ve been struggeling for the understanding that development education is not primarily an effort aimed at increasing public support for ODA and levels of ODA. As you heard from state secretary Kjoerven yesterday, this is a position shared by the current government.
3. As a network of a wide variety of NGOs, we´ve been struggeling against the temptation inherent in many NGOs to reduce development education to narrow organisational self-interest linked to fund-raising and PR-activities.

This year we´ve embarked on a very different effort in order to improve our development education. We´ve commissioned a South evaluation of our development education in the North. We´ve asked for their assessment – from a southern perspective - of our current work in the field of development education and their guidance and advice on how to proceed in light of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This evaluation is still taking place – and we look forward to the final report and its recommendations to be presented early next year. I´ll be happy to share it with you when its ready. At this point in time I´ll share with you some of the experience we´ve had so far in the process.

One of the first issues to be raised by the southern evaluation team was, perhaps not suprisingly, that of suspicion – an issue underlining the relevancy of the our above-mentioned efforts to improve developement education.

A Work-in-progress report from the evaluation team this summer reported that one of the initial questions asked in the team was: "is this not some superficial ‘ploy’ to get legitimacy for some ‘northern agenda’ and by ‘some typically northern organisations’?" and the report further stated that "A strong notion of suspicion exists as part of the overall communication gap and trust gap between north and south that this process could be seen as a way to buy legitimacy for ‘local propaganda work’ and ‘fundraising’".

Another issue that was brought to our attention at an early stage was that the term development education – and global education for that matter – was new to the South. Few people within southern NGOs and networks were familiar with the term.

In my view, these two issues brings a clear message, that I would like to bring forward and present as a suggestion for this congress: Development and Global Education practitioners in Europe in general – and perhaps the North-South Center in particular – have a huge task ahead: to build – together with southern partners – a global network for improved north-south relations and cooperation in the field of Development and Global Education. Or perhaps it should be put the other way: There is a great challenge ahead for the South to find ways to engage in, monitor and influence the Development and Global Education efforts being carried out in the North.

I believe such development is crucial for the improvement of Development and Global Education. It would have been great if we had achieved the MDGs within 2015. But to be honest, I know it will not happen. I think most of us know that. The consequences are continued inustice and suffering for billions of people. I firmly believe, however, that progress would be faster if Development Education in the North could substancially improve its ability to reflect global realities – as well as the understanding and analisis of these global realities - as they are percieved, experienced and understood by the South. Thus, I was pleased to note that in the draft document for "A European Strategy Framework" – that was made available on the Congress web-site – there was a point stressing that "co-operation between North and South needs to be expanded considerably". I´d like to suggest that the South Center in Geneva should be part of that effort.

However, in the process of current South-evaluation the evaluation team has made a number of other challenging and disturbing observations and interesting suggestions.

Some of these observations should be of particular concern to this Congress, for instance:

1. The evaluation team observed that the term development education was new to NGOs and networks in the South. However, the evaluation team also observed that even among Norwegian Development Education NGOs the understanding of the term Development Education showed great differences that "seemed to reflect diffusion and disagreement rather than complimentary differences".
2. The evaluation team observed that the interest in and knowlegde of the MDGs was low among southern NGOs and networks as well as among the Norwegian DE NGOs.

In my view, these and other observations clearly backs the need for the commitment suggested in the draft "European Strategy Framework" prepared for this Congress; to improve national structures for funding, support, co-ordination and policy-making in global education.

Finally I would like to mention an intriguing question raised by the evaluation team in their Work-in-progress report, a suggestion inspired by the already mentioned Brazilian adult educator, Paolo Freire, who developed "the pedagogy of the oppressed". Fighting poverty is often said to be our main task, focussing on the rights and the needs of the poor, as well as the need to empower the poor. However, the main obstacles for the achievement of the MDGs is probably to be found within the communities of the rich, the powerful and the comfortable, on the local, the national and the global level. The evaluation team posed the question: