ASCL to conduct five new country studies for CNV Internationaal

For some years now the ASCL has been one of the knowledge partners of CNV Internationaal, the international department of the Dutch trade union CNV. CNV Internationaal supports trade unions in several African countries, with a focus on West Africa. Since 2013, CNV Internationaal has commissioned the ASCL to conduct a series of so called country context studies in, among other countries, Ghana, Benin, Senegal, Togo, Niger, Cameroon and South Africa. CNV Internationaal and their trade unions partners in Benin and Ghana are also societal stakeholders in the project on ‘Increasing the political leverage of informal workers organizations; the cases of Ghana and Benin’. 

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  Moroccan doctors on strike, 2011.
  (Magharebia via Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

Lately, CNV Internationaal has commissioned the ASCL to conduct explorative studies in five countries: Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mali. The major aim of these studies is to make an inventory and assessment of the roles, strengths and weaknesses of civil society actors (including trade unions) in these countries when it comes to labour issues (youth employability, decent work, gender, social dialogue, etc.). Also an assessment of their roles, positions, and interrelationships in the current political economy of these countries is part of the assessment. The studies should support CNV Internationaal in making an informed choice on its possible expansion of its activities in Africa, notably Northern Africa. The commission comes at the right moment for the ASCL collaborative research group ‘Trade Unions and Labour Issues in Africa’ (TULIA), whose members have increased interest to know more about trade unionism and labour issues in North African countries.

The studies will be conducted between February and June 2016, and will primarily be desk studies supplemented with interviews through skype talks with key informants. The studies are coordinated and supervised by ASCL researchers Mayke Kaag and André Leliveld. Two researchers have been employed to do the data collection and writing. We are very happy that we found former ASCL Research Master’s student Rafael Verbuyst and our ASCL colleague Paul Lange prepared to do this job. Rafael has already started, Paul will join from mid-March on. Ursula Oberst from the ASCL Library and Documentation Centre completes the team and will support the researchers by conducting literature searches.

André Leliveld, Convenor Collaborative Research Group TULIA