1. WHAT IS DESCO?

DESCO is a Peruvian non-gobernmental organization founded in 1965
for the purpose of contributing to the country's development. Its
general goal is:

     To contribute to building democracy and to development in
     Peru, by encouraging the formulation of alternative policies
     and projects for promoting the organization of the country's
     majority social sectors, and consolidating their presence in
     the areas of economic production, culture and knowledge, and
     democratic participation.

DESCO considers that the existence of efficient grassroots
organizations is an essential requirement for development.
Therefore, it aims to maximize the grassroots organizations'
potential for action and negotiation so that they may solve their
problems efficiently and, thus, contribute to achieve
development.

DESCO assigns approximately 70% of its resources to promotional
field work. Therefore, its main task is tha promotion of
grassroots development. DESCO's work is thus the result of
permanent creative interaction between its two main activities:
direct promotion of grassroots development and research. On the
basis of these two activities, it has a fourfold approach to
Peruvian society:

     a)   Reprocessing its experience in promotion work and
          conducting social research on both urban and rural
          social, political, economic and cultural reality.

     b)   Collects, systematizes and reproduces information
          relevant to Peruvian society and its actors.

     c)   Collaborates with other local and international
          entities in devlopment cooperation.

     d)   Coordinates with other national NGOs joint actividies
          allowing to enhance thier capacities and performance.


2. DESCO'S DATA BANK

DESCO's Data Bank is a computerized archive with information
regarding the actors, topics, and places of Peruvian national 
political events, on a daily basis since July 1980. The most
relevant information on economic policies, ministries, sectoral
policies, political violence, human rights, programs of political
parties, elections, strikes, that is, all the subjects that
become central issues of the political conjunctures, are
registered here.

The information is processed by DESCO's Data Bank to produce 
three important publications, with subscriptions in Peru and
abroad.

     * Resumen Semanal (Weekly Summary)
     * Reporte Especial: Political Violence in Peru Today
     * Peru Hoy (Peru Today): Coopertation for Development.


3. DESCO's "Resumen Semanal"

This publication offers every week:

-    An accurate synthesis of the facts, decisions, and comments
     on the week's nation political events.

-    It is prepared by DESCO's Data Bank on the basis of day-
     today updates information.

-    It is one of the first publications available on
     subscription in Peru, and endorsed by sixteen years of
     uninterrupted publication (more than 775 issues since 1978).


4. "Resumen Semanal" in RCP's Gopher

This is a subproduct of our publication "Resumen Semanal"
distributed usually by subscription (US$ 150 a year). Each
Wednesday in the afternoon you might ask for the most recent issue.

    


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