On June 17, 2026, the French Development Agency (AFD) in Martinique hosted a co-design and capitalization workshop for the CORÉOM program. Alongside the AFD and La Guilde, four Martinican associations shared their experiences to draw lessons useful for future cooperation projects in the Caribbean.
How does one move from an idea of cooperation to a concrete relationship with a Caribbean partner? What needs to be anticipated before crossing the border? How can progress be made when administrative, financial or logistical constraints disrupt the initial project?
These questions arose during the discussions between ZOFI, KONBIT, F'KREYOL and Caribbean Cetacean Society, Four civil society organizations supported by CORÉOM met at AFD Martinique, facilitated by La Guilde, and agreed to reflect on their journeys, successes, difficulties encountered, and adjustments that enabled them to continue their cooperation.
Revisiting the experience, beyond the project assessment
The workshop was not intended to evaluate the projects or measure their results. It offered a different perspective: starting from the lived experience to understand what the participants learned along the way and what could be passed on to other organizations.
The participants thus revisited the different stages of their journey: the meeting with the partner, the construction of the project, the travel, the implementation of the activities, the unforeseen events and the solutions imagined to continue moving forward.
The discussions made it possible to represent the routes taken, but also the detours, the obstacles, the resources mobilized, and the lessons learned. This approach brought to light dimensions that rarely appear in administrative reports: emotions, relationships of trust, and misunderstandings.
Objects to tell the story of cooperation in a different way
Each organization was invited to bring an object symbolizing their experience. These objects paved the way for particularly personal and engaging stories.
For ZOFI, the chosen symbol is «"the passport"» : the one that allows movement, encounters and crossing borders, but which also reminds us of everything that needs to be prepared before leaving.
F'KREYOL brought «"The chabeta brought back from Cape Verde"», an object linking artistic practice, cultural heritage and transmission between territories.
Caribbean Cetacean Society has chosen «"The orca of Saint Vincent"», representation of the links created around the knowledge and protection of marine mammals in the Caribbean.
KONBIT summarized his career with a particularly evocative expression: «"A hurricane of creativity."»
This image conveys the intensity of the experience: the collective energy mobilized, the ideas circulating, the unforeseen events that force reorganization, and the creativity needed to stay on course.
Behind the stories, a common reality emerges: solidarity is not just a project to be managed. It is a human adventure, made up of encounters, travel, negotiations and constant adaptations.
Cooperation requires time and trust.
Despite the diversity of projects and partners, the discussions revealed several common lessons.
Cooperation doesn't begin with the signing of an agreement. It's built well beforehand, through mutual understanding, clarifying expectations, and comprehending each other's constraints. Partners don't always have the same resources, don't always operate on the same timescales, and don't necessarily interpret the commitments made in the same way.
In particular, the partnership relationship must therefore be considered as a process in its own right. Time must be taken to define roles, clarify responsibilities, identify stakeholders, and establish sufficiently regular communication methods to prevent misunderstandings.
The difficulties encountered do not necessarily mean that cooperation has failed. When they can be expressed, analyzed and addressed, they themselves become a source of learning.
Anticipating the very concrete realities of regional cooperation
The accounts also served as a reminder that geographical proximity does not guarantee easy trade. In the Caribbean, reaching a neighboring territory can require multiple connections, generate significant costs, or involve complex formalities.
In addition to these mobility issues, there are questions of financial transfers, banking operations, co-financing, availability of partners and differences between administrative or legal frameworks.
For organizations undertaking their first regional cooperation project, these obstacles can quickly become destabilizing. One of the workshop's key takeaways is therefore the need to better secure the start of projects, emphasizing practical information, useful contacts, and points of vigilance in the following areas:
- administrative and legal; ;
- banking and financial; ;
- logistics and customs; ;
- partnerships and intercultural; ;
- related to travel and regional mobility.
This preparation, however, should not be limited to a toolbox, nor can it replace experience gained in the field. It benefits from being combined with peer-to-peer sharing of experiences, in a space that can help project leaders interpret the difficulties they encounter and find solutions adapted to their context.
Don't face difficulties alone
The discussions highlighted the importance of being able to rely on several forms of diverse support throughout the project: a mentor, a territorial network, a resource person familiar with the partner country, but also other project leaders who have already experienced similar situations.
Support therefore does not only concern the technical aspects of the project. It can also facilitate relationships between partners, connect organizations with the right contacts, and create spaces for exchange.
The workshop itself illustrated this function. By exploring in greater detail the experiences conducted since Martinique, participants identified common concerns and knowledge that could be shared. A contact, a method, or a solution proven by one organization can become a valuable resource for another.
AFD Martinique in contact with field experiences
The presence of Luc Migozzi, from AFD Martinique, made it possible to establish a direct dialogue between the organizations carrying out projects and the partners who support the program.
By hosting this workshop, AFD Martinique helped create a space where associations could share not only the results of their actions, but also the concrete realities of their implementation. This listening is essential for understanding the needs of organizations and reflecting on the challenges of future support mechanisms.
The experiences presented also highlight the role played by civil society in Martinique's regional integration. Through their cultural, educational, environmental, and civic projects, associations create lasting links with neighboring territories and help to integrate Martinique into its Caribbean environment.
A touch-sensitive map to extend the experience
The stories, symbolic objects, and lessons gathered during the workshop have been compiled into a sensitive map Large format. Designed as a visual and collective presentation, it retraces the paths taken by the four organizations, the obstacles encountered, the resources mobilized and the main lessons learned from their cooperation.
It allows you to discover the experiences of ZOFI, KONBIT, F'KREYOL and Caribbean Cetacean Society (CCS), but also to open up discussions with other actors wishing to build cooperation in the Caribbean.
→ Download the sensory map of the Martinique workshop – A2 format [PDF]
KEY TO READING: WHAT IS CAPITALIZATION?
Capitalization is a process that consists of revisiting an experience with those who lived it, in order to identify useful practices, difficulties encountered, solutions found, and lessons learned. Unlike evaluation, it does not primarily seek to judge results, but to understand how the actors acted and what they learned along the way. These lessons are then transformed into shareable resources to inspire other initiatives and improve future regional cooperation projects.