■ I received my
higher education at the University of Geneva, in history and
pedagogics. I worked at that time in Geneva,
Switzerland
for seven years as a teacher in
secondary schools and received a live long tenure appointment.
■
From 1980 to 1990 I lived in
Managua
where I coordinated the SAH
programme (a Swiss trade unions based NGO) and worked in several
adult education programmes in rural areas and women promotion. I
specialized in the preparation of printed teaching materials for
recently alphabetized adults and I published on that subject in
Spanish a handbook
taken from my experience in Nicaragua
and Honduras
as well as
numerous pamphlets. Sharing with so many people in the Nicaragua
of the 1980 the hope for a better world as been for me an
irreplaceable experience.
■ From
1991 to 1995 I lived in La
Paz, Bolivia where
I coordinated a SDC
programme (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation) aimed to
support Bolivian national NGOs in the fields of rural development,
urban micro credit and education reform among others.
■ I was called in 1995 to Berne, Switzerland to head the SDC departement in charge of relations with Swiss NGOs.
■ During my stay
in Switzerland, I followed through distance online education an
extensive programme of training on online teaching at the UCLA
(University of California). I also conducted a seminar on the role
of NGOs in international cooperation at the IUED
(Graduate Institute for Development Studies) in Geneva, and
coordinated two online courses on the same issue, which are
presented on this website.
■ From
2000 to 2005 I lived in Havana,
Cuba where I
started a SDC cooperation programme, centered on local
development, knowledge sharing, culture and sustainable economical
projects.
■ From
2006 to 2009, I have been working with SDC in Berne
and Geneva on
partners training, information and communication technologies,
knowledge sharing and culture issues.
■ From 2009 to 2013 I was secretary general of the Fédération genevoise de coopération in Geneva. I retired by end 2013.
■ From the early
1990ies on, I have been interested in the possible use and impact
of the new information and communication technologies on adults
training, on sustainable development and on citizen movements, and
in an users friendly approach to the new digital media. I am an
sympathiser of the open source approach, because I believe in
collaborative work for creating common goods.
■ In two
of my three major assignements in international cooperation, I am
quite proud to have left in charge of the task very suited local
staff without any other expat comming in from abroad to pursue the
job.
Olivier Berthoud
You can find some of my writings at: www.edinter.net/docs
This
work is licensed under a Creative
Commons License.