Fritz Erich Anhelm
EED quo vadis? Or: How to ditch a global partner network
To understand it is not. The responsible bodies in charge of the Evangelical Development Service in
Germany (EED) have cancelled completely the funding for the worldwide network of church acade-
mies and lay centers. Moreover, for the current year.
If they knew what they were doing, it is bad. If they did not know, it is even worse. Inquiries from
those who agreed with this decision seem to indicate something worse. The reason of the EED-board
for the deletion of the recent grant of 230.000 Euro per year consists of two "arguments": The fund-
ing has already run long enough. In addition, the network of academies and lay centers was not able
to submit alternatives. Substantive reasons were not to know. The message of the deletion of the
funding consisted of two lines. Discussions with the parties concerned were not held.
Who are these parties concerned? They are 234 member centers, which are organized into six re-
gional associations, including 71 in Africa, 38 in Asia, 23 in Latin America, 20 in the Middle East, 66 in
Europe (including 14 in the eastern part) and 16 in North America. These regional associations are
working together worldwide under the name "Oikosnet. “ The coordination currently is done by the
Latin American Association.
It is worthwhile to take a closer look (www.oikosnet.org). One will discover that the centers do de-
velopment work in their countries and churches, such as the Center for Nutrition in Benin, training
centers for girls in Ghana, the Nakuru-Community Centre in Kenya, the youth and women's organiza-
tion in Nigeria, the Centre for Regional Development in Colombia or the Association Against Rural
Poverty and the Institute for Development Education or the Vellore Institute of Development in India
or the Institute for Social Counseling in Indonesia, and many more. All these institutions are multipli-
ers for the churches' development cooperation. At the same time, many of the centers are acti