CESVI, the Italian acronym for Cooperazione e Sviluppo (Cooperation and Development), embodies this AlertNet member's philosophy of working closely with recipients of aid and giving them leading roles in projects. Katherine Arie spoke to desk officer Ermes Frigerio about CESVI’s commitment to Central Asia, both before and after the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan. AN: When was CESVI founded and what are its goals?EF: The organisation was founded in 1985, in Bergamo, near Milan, with the goal of responding to emergencies and alleviating poverty overseas. Today, we are working in 30 countries, mainly in Africa, Asia, and South America.AN: And how long have you been with the organisation and what do you do?EF: I’ve been here since 1998 and I’m the desk officer for Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.AN: What, in particular, does CESVI do for those countries?EF: Mainly, we are carrying out emergency activities, especially in Afghanistan, and we are running a programme which supports the reintegration of refugees coming back in the northwestern provinces of Afghanistan. In Tajikistan, we are running programmemes on water and sanitation.AN: How long has CESVI been involved in Central Asia?EF: We started two years ago, in Tajikistan, and then spread to Afghanistan and Pakistan. AN: So you were in Tajikistan before the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan last year?EF: Yes, we were at the time already implementing our water and sanitation programmes.AN: It’s important to CESVI that aid not be given in "self-interest", or be connected to political pressure. How do you keep international politics separate from what you’re doing there?EF: It’s very difficult to answer this question to answer. You’re talking about the politics of donors.AN: There has been a lot of pressure to respond to the situation in Afghanistan. For example, aid from the United States to the surrounding Central Asian countries has doubled.EF: Without the military intervention of the United States and the defeat of the Taliban, it would not have been possible for CESVI to work on reintegrating people into society because people would not have been returning to their homes. So, of course, we cannot avoid involvement, or being connected, to politics. But we try to operate from the positive point of view of the politics that have created the situation. AN: What about CESVI’s project in Tajikistan?EF: In Tajikistan, we were running the water and sanitation programme last year, and we’re running the same programme now, completely independent of the international political situation.AN: What is your main concern in Afghanistan now? Is it still refugees and getting them back into society?EF: Our programme has a multi-sectoral approach, so we’re trying to produce an income for the people we’re helping to come back. We’re not just providing them with a roof, we’re trying to give them the dignity to gain their lives back in the country they left so many years ago. Not all of them, but most of them have been away for many years. Our goal is to make them self-sufficient, but one of the problems is that they’re not always welcome back. Even if there are only 40 families coming back, for example, this can be a real economic problem for a small village. So there is a great need for reintegration, otherwise these people will not be accepted. We have activities and training programmes in conflict resolution and those kinds of things. AN: What about the supposed re-emergence of al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Has this changed your work at all?EF: No, we’re going with the same programme and this doesn’t change anything for us. We’re not near the former training camps and we’re not near Pakistan, but we know -- you feel -- that there is still a war going on in Afghanistan.
