Officials of the pan-African organization, the Foundation for Innovation for Democracy (FI DEMO) met with Togolese civil society on March 12, 2024 to present the institution, its actions and the opportunities it offers Togolese activists. Discussions allowed participants to better discover the structure.
After the two-day seminar on “Inclusive Governance and Rural Democracy” in collaboration with INADES-formation, the delegation from the Foundation for the Innovation of Democracy exchanged with Togolese civil society organizations to make the structure better known. , by specifying its objectives, its ambitions, its actions, its perspectives and in particular the opportunity that FIDEMO represents.
Dr. Jean-Marc Segoun, Deputy Director of the foundation in charge of operations and programs, discussed the establishment of FIDEMO, the initiatives carried out and the challenges to be met by inviting the actors of Togolese civil society to seize this opportunity for collective action to bring about an endogenous democracy drawing on African values. “Our objective is to contribute to reflection on endogenous democracy. The idea is to democratize knowledge through the introduction of reflection, the empowerment of young people, the co-construction of educational tools for reflection and the support of civil society actors. This meeting allows us to officially present the foundation to the actors of Togolese civil society, to show the programs, the scope of action, the challenges, the desire of the foundation to open up to actors with varied profiles and to collaborate together. , to co-construct. »said the manager.
Underlining the importance of the objectives that the organization has set itself, the Deputy Director explained that the endogenous democracy advocated by FIDEMO is “a local democracy, which draws its sources from knowledge, African cosmogonies, a democracy which is inspired by our African values and knowledge. The idea is to return to the sources, to dig into our reservoirs of traditions to nourish our so-called modern societies to create spaces of hope, life, community and walking together.”
The foundation expects Togolese civil society, in the words of Dr. Segoun, to collaborate and implement co-construction projects.
For Mr. Sena Adessou, secretary general of INADES-Formation who accompanied FIDEMO in its workshops, we must “move towards co-construction. Co-construction refers to the creation of spaces for dialogue and reflection with all stakeholders in life to reflect on issues that undermine society with a view to defining solutions that seem appropriate to respond to all the issues at stake. .
Created in 2022 in Johannesburg, FIDEMO is a non-profit organization which has branches, called laboratories in sub-regional Africa and in France to carry out discussions and popularize the concept of local democracy