In 2010, Slovakia will not fulfill its obligations to help the poor. According to the OECD report on last year's support to developing countries from members of the organization, Slovakia reported 0.08% of gross national income as development aid, which put it, together with Poland, in last place in the club of the 29 richest countries in the world. Within the EU, the situation is somewhat better - Slovakia, Poland, Latvia and Romania each reported 0.08% of the gross national income, followed by Bulgaria. The April report of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) optimistically says that in 2009, despite the financial crisis, donor states increased the amount of aid to developing countries. In reality, however, only a few brave ones can boast of this. In addition, the figures on the development aid provided in the world are often artificially inflated. They do not say much about how rich countries really helped to mitigate the impact of the crisis in poor countries, or how they continued to create better conditions for their development.

The fact is that development aid in the world has increased slightly only virtually - by the decline in economic growth, including inflation and changes in exchange rates - that is, in terms of the gross national income of donors, and not in real numbers. "Development aid, which is generally considered to be a fundamental tool in the fight against poverty, has simply stagnated during the global crisis," commented Bodo Elmers of Eurodad, a network of European non-governmental organizations focused on development policy and the debts of developing countries, in the OECD report.

The largest donor in the world in terms of the volume of funds is the United States, which actually slightly increased development aid last year - more money from the American treasury went to the least developed countries in the world, sub-Saharan Africa and Afghanistan.

Of the three largest European donors, France and Great Britain increased their aid. Paris increased its "number" by a larger volume of bilateral loans to developing countries and partly by larger contributions to international organizations. London has strengthened bilateral aid. Germany fell in overall numbers. It has a similar problem to Slovakia - the possibility of forgiving countries' debts, which could be included in development aid according to OECD rules, is running out.

Japan traditionally rounds out the world's top five aid donors. Tokyo also gave a tenth less to development aid than the year before. The previous included forgiven debts of Iraq were not even balanced by the increase in contributions to international organizations.

Of course, everyone gives according to their possibilities and the strength of their economy. The willingness of individual states to share part of their own wealth is indicated by conversion to the country's gross national income (GNI). From this point of view, five European countries are among the most generous in the world - the Nordic states of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, plus Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

How is Slovakia doing?

As a new member state of the EU, Slovakia is committed to increasing the amount of aid provided to 0.17% of GNI by 2010 and to 0.33% of GNI by 2015. Last year, it reported 54 million euros as development aid, which translates to 0.086% of the gross national income. Among the OECD countries, it is in the last place together with Poland, and in the EU together with Poland, Latvia and Romania in the penultimate place.

A year earlier, Slovakia reported 65.4 million as development aid. €, converted to 0.102% of GNI. The drop in the development aid provided by Slovakia was caused by the fact that since last year it has no longer counted forgiven debts, while the volume of actual development aid did not increase significantly. In 2008, the last forgiven debts - to Libya and Liberia in the amount of 17 million were counted as development aid. €.

"The certificate issued to Slovakia by the OECD is not surprising. For a long time, we warned the past and current governments that if they count non-existent money from forgiven debts as development aid and do not increase the volume of real aid, it will become clear over time that Slovakia is not fulfilling its obligations," the former chairman of the Platform of Non-Governmental Development Organizations, Marián Čaučík, responded to the report.

The proposal of the National Program of Official Development Assistance for 2010 does not indicate a big change in terms of the volume of aid. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is trying to mitigate the sharp cuts in the bilateral aid budget for 2010 from its own, already reduced, resources. "Slovakia declares its commitment, but the volume of funds that can be allocated for development aid has been affected by the global economic crisis. Nevertheless, we are looking for ways to ensure that the volume of aid does not decrease at this stage and can be increased in the future towards fulfilling our obligations - of course, depending on the development of the state budget," said the spokesman for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Peter Stano.

Increasing the volume of aid will be a challenge for the new government. "Also considering the results within the OECD, we will urge the government and the opposition that will emerge after the June elections to take Slovakia's international obligations seriously and at the same time respond to global challenges," said the new chairperson of the Platform of Non-Governmental Development Organizations, Nora Beňáková. It is also important that the development aid provided by Slovakia helps effectively. As stated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miroslav Lajčák - so that "with the amount of resources we have, we can really influence something and contribute to improvement".

From Serbia to the poor

The vast majority of the package of 54 million euros reported in 2009 as development aid went to Slovak contributions to international organizations. Just under 14 percent of all funding (7.5 million euros) goes to bilateral aid under the SlovakAid brand, in which Slovak entities carry out projects in developing countries. It is this part of aid and its use that Slovakia can influence the most and at the same time build a good name in the world.

The platform, which is part of the European CONCORD network, in the AidWatch 2009 evaluation report on development assistance. i. calls on the government to focus bilateral aid on the poorest or poor countries of the world.

"We think that at least half of the funds allocated to projects should be allocated to poor countries. At the same time, development aid should respond to global issues, such as mitigating the effects of climate change in developing countries," said Nora Beňáková.

In recent years, most of the money within Slovakia's bilateral development aid projects went to Serbia, which is one of the developing countries with a higher per capita income. Since 2009, however, Afghanistan and Kenya have also become program countries of Slovak development aid.

"We welcome the fact that in the new proposed National Development Assistance Program for 2010, the volume of aid for Serbia will be significantly reduced and will not be focused on infrastructure projects, which prevailed in the past," added N. Beňáková. Last year, almost half of all funding for projects (49%) was allocated to the construction and renewal of infrastructure.

According to NGOs, projects in the countries of the Western Balkans and countries that belong to the EU's Eastern Partnership (Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova) should focus more on those sector areas in which Slovakia has advantages compared to traditional donors. As she added, meaningful knowledge projects can be implemented even for smaller amounts of funds, within which we can offer our transformation and integration experience. Knowledge of the region is also our comparative advantage.

In order to make effective use of a small package of money, development aid should focus on a smaller number of countries. Funding for projects from the Slovak budget package of €7.5 million was distributed to a total of 19 recipient countries last year. However, the number of countries will be reduced in the 2010 development aid program.

Political parties and development cooperation

However, funding will remain a big issue. Maintaining the volume of bilateral aid at least at the same level within the internal resources of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not sustainable in the future. Especially if development cooperation is to be as effective as possible. Support for development aid should therefore become a priority for the entire government.

From this point of view, the positions and pre-election programs of political parties were examined by the Pontis Foundation as part of a project supported by SlovakAid. In the period December 2009 – February 2010, the Foundation approached seven political parties with a questionnaire and later with personal meetings - SMER-SD, ĽS-HZDS, SNS, SDKÚ-DS, KDH, SMK, only Sloboda and Solidarita responded from non-parliamentary parties. As the Pontis Foundation's analytical study states - "among the main parties of the Slovak political scene (SMER-SD, SDKÚ-DS, KDH, SMK) there is a broad consensus that development aid deserves political support." On the other hand, politicians lack a more concrete idea of ​​how Slovak development aid should be profiled. They perceive it too abstractly. Personal responses also revealed that politicians lack deeper knowledge and information about past results.

As the Pontis Foundation also pointed out, almost all political parties planned to include the topic of development aid in their election program, but only in a minimal space. "The KDH, SDKÚ-DS and SMK, and to some extent also SMER-SD and ĽS-HZDS plan to devote themselves to this topic in the next election period," adds the study.

Development cooperation will certainly not be a hot topic in the election campaign. However, it is essential that Slovak politicians start taking it more seriously. After all, it seems that ordinary people are increasingly aware of the topic of aid abroad. If only the results of the collections in Haiti are added together with this year's proceeds from the Good News carol event for projects in Africa, the resulting amount will almost equal the budget for development projects approved by the government in the fall of 2009.

Sources used: OECD, MFA SR, http://www.nadaciapontis.sk

The article was published in the Development Aid - Spring 2010 newsletter. It is published by Platforma mimovládnych rozvojových organizácií (MVRO), which is an association of legal entities - an umbrella organization of 31 (23 regular members and 8 observers) Slovak non-governmental organizations that deal mainly with foreign development and humanitarian aid. http://www.mvro.sk