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GRET:
an International Solidarity Association Working at the Interface
between Research and Development in Dialogue with the Government
Authorities
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An international solidarity
organisation uniting activist professionals, GRET is a non-profit association
that obtains most of its resources from contracts. Created 25 years ago
around appropriate technologies, GRET has always placed (and continues to
place) considerable emphasis on experience
analysis and documentation and communication for development, in particular
through its publications.
We have been developing field projects for a dozen years that are systematically
undertaken in partnership with local organisations or that lead to the creation
of such organisations. Today, these projects represent two-thirds of our
activities. Through
network moderation
and support for development and cooperation contracting authorities, we
also contribute to elaborating public policies in developed and developing
countries.
For this work as interface between research and development, the French
Ministry of Research provides us with structural support (7% of our turnover
today) that allows us to implement a policy of experience analysis/documentation
and publishing.
We work for fair and sustainable development through projects and programmes
that aim to increase the incomes of rural and urban populations, reduce
their vulnerability, improve their access to infrastructures and quality
utilities, and strengthen their ability to be heard. We support local intermediary
practitioners that share this ambition. Our activities endeavour to combine
commitment, quality, and the constraints of the aid system.
Thus, we are a professional NGO, an associative consultancy firm, a delegated
practitioner for public service missions, a place where knowledge and methods
are produced and disseminated, and an interface between development stakeholders
and cooperation stakeholders all at once. For us, this hybrid identity,
this interface situation, is a strength in the face of the current reconstruction
of the very notion of development. |
