[Frères des Hommes--actions with grass roots participation aimed at satisfying priority needs: from theory to...

Brothers of All Men (Frères des Hommes) is a group of the two objectives of which are concrete direct action in the Third World, where the underdevelopment situation is most crucial, and an information and sensitization action in Europe. The primary health-care concept is fashionable presently, and this is all well. In the light of Brothers of All Men's practical experience in the field, at the grass roots, and on several continents, the author, however, wants to call attention, among the current enthusiasm, to serious difficulties, and certain failures, encountered in primary health-care projects undertaken with the participation of the concerned communities. He does it in particular on the basis of efforts in Sahelian Africa and Bangladesh. He also recalls that it is not the Third World partner who is supposed to assist in pursuing the goals of a foreign cooperation agency, but the latter which proposes its collaboration to the former. Consquently, projects must be formulated by the local communities and controlled by them. The implementation of primary health-care programmes requires the conjunction of two flux, a real popular dynamics locally, at the periphery, and a clearly defined national political will. It appears that, for the time being, those conditions are more easily found in congress halls than in the field.