Thanks to the European project, Slovakia joined the EU countries that want to link migration policy with development aid policy. The goal is to increase the effectiveness of development aid, as well as to better use the potential offered by migrants from third countries. The European Union is based on the assumption that migrants know the conditions in the country of origin better than external workers from non-governmental organizations, who often visit third countries only a few weeks or months before the actual implementation of the project. Another assumption is that migrants can not only prepare better projects, but also implement them more efficiently. It was a common practice for non-governmental organizations to hire local organizations to implement project activities, because they either did not have the capacity for field work themselves, or they could not convince enough local residents to actively participate in the project and thus bring the project to a successful end. The EU sees the greatest advantage of involving migrants in development aid in their better knowledge of local conditions.
The COMIDE European project, in which four European countries are involved, wants to link migration and development policy to implement better projects and policies. As Henna Knuuttila from the Embassy of the Republic of Finland in Bratislava said at a meeting on the topic of cooperation between migrants and development organizations, the intertwining of migration policy and development aid is intended to help reduce poverty in developing countries. "Finland allocated 0.56% of GDP for development aid this year. A lot of development aid is implemented through embassies in third countries. However, organizations that bring together migrants are very active here. Migrants make up 3.1% of the population, most of them are Russians, then migrants from the Baltic countries and Somalis. It is the Somalis who are most actively interested in helping their country of origin," said Henna Knuuttila.
Andrej Stančík from the VIRTA organization for the development of human resources thinks that Slovakia could use the experience and support of the so-called expats, i.e. people who temporarily or permanently live outside their place of origin. The foreign police are already using the potential of permanent migrants, for example, as interpreters or as mediators in communication with foreign students and refugees.
Slovakia should use their potential and interest in events in the country of origin to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of development aid. As Afghan Mohammad Azim Farhadi, coordinator of two development projects in Afghanistan, says, several development aid projects prepared by migrants have been implemented in Slovakia over the past 7 years. "Whether it was a project of the Slovak Technical University or the Society of Good Will, which also successfully implemented projects in Afghanistan, they were managed by migrants - Afghans who have lived in Slovakia for several decades. They used their language skills, professional qualifications and contacts, prepared meaningful projects and successfully completed them," said Farhadi. Regarding the implementation of his two development aid projects, he adds: "Basically, we restored television in my hometown of Kunduz. We trained Afghan journalists both in Slovakia and in Afghanistan. I think that all of this was more beneficial than if I had returned home."
In Slovakia, the situation in the field of migration is different from Western European countries such as Germany, France or the Nordic countries. According to a survey by the Institute for Public Affairs (IVO), Slovakia is home to mainly highly skilled and qualified migrants, although they often do not find adequate employment and work as cooks, waiters or drivers. Involvement in the implementation of development aid would thus also help them in more qualified application.
Linking migration and development policy can be achieved by two goals, namely by determining migration as a key topic of development policy and by determining development cooperation as a fundamental area in migration policy. Representatives of the third sector, as well as government institutions and embassies, agreed on this at a joint meeting in May of this year. The goal was to find effective management of development aid and to present the possibilities and advantages of connecting with migration policy, as well as the exchange of experience between individual EU states. This meeting, organized as part of the COMIDE project, brought together representatives of the third sector, especially development aid organizations, state institutions and universities. The meeting took place within the European project COMIDE (Initiative for Migration and Development).
Jana Murínová More information: Institute for the Development of Society www.sdisk.eu COMIDE www.comide.eu