On the eve of the third millennium, we are living in a world full of paradoxes. Due to scientific and technological progress, we have acquired exceptional mastery over the world. Unfortunately most of the world's population is excluded from it. At a time when we are capable of sending out spaceships to explore Mars, millions of people do not have access to fresh water. In the field of education, the European countries spend on average € 8.000 per year and per child/young person to allow her or him to actively participate in our modern technology society. This enables us to be competitive and to maintain a high standard of living. In the Third World, this investment in people is not more than € 100, € 200, … € 500 per year. And the gap is widening year by year. For many years, development cooperation has been looking for ways to close this gap. This new way of international cooperation is dominated by public players: states, multilateral organisations, etc. This public aid is, of course, indispensable but it demonstrates its limits when trying to reach vulnerable groups efficiently, faced with bureaucratic obstacles put up by official institutions in southern countries. Creativity, flexibility and solidarity on the part of those involved in private initiatives have become indispensable to overcome the shortcomings of the public player.

ACTEC was set up in 1982 as a private association to promote development by supporting local private initiatives aimed at improving living conditions. It is up to us to share out our wealth so that a larger number may benefit from it by cooperating with the South and to ensure that it reaches the beneficiaries. ACTEC has offered to take part in this mission by promoting cooperation based on professionalism, sustainability and subsidiarity. After 25 years of work, we are able to demonstrate the effectiveness of these initiatives which gives us hope for the tremendous amount of work that remains to be done with the cooperation of everyone involved. We would like to thank all donors who have shown their trust in us and made our work of human promotion possible.

Guy Caeymaex
Chairman