Paper short abstract:

To promote the development of the third world the UN fostered the creation of technical assistance programmes. This paper studies the experience of Africans who were granted fellowships from the ILO during the 1950s-1960s and were sent to France to study the functioning of the sécurité sociale.

Paper long abstract:

In order to promote the social development of the emerging third world in the 1950s and to contain the « spread of communism » in the context of the Cold War, the United Nations and its agencies (Food and Agriculture Organisation, International Labour Organisation, World Health Organisation) fostered the creation of technical assistance programmes all over the world. On the one hand European and american experts were sent to Asia, South America and Africa to support economical growth and social development in the visited countries. On the other hand local young executives and workers, who acted as counterparts of the experts, were granted fellowships to study in Europe. This contribution aims at understanding, from a historical perspective, the experience of the Africans who were granted fellowships from the ILO during the 1950s and the 1960s and were sent to France in order to explore the functioning of the french welfare state. We’ll show, in this contribution, how international funds and technical assistance, while increasing the mobility of young Africans to Europe, reinforced the french position of dominance in Africa and contributed to export the french model of social security across the continent. This work is based on the archives of the French ministry of Work and Social Security (The subserie AN/19760145) and the archives of the technical assistance programme of the ILO in Geneva (the subserie TAP).