June news from Slovenian development cooperation

In June, Slovenian development cooperation made a step forward; a yearly report on Official Development Assistance was adopted, the last national Call for NGO development projects proposals was evaluated together with the NGOs, and last but not least, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is preparing a new foreign policy strategy in consultation with the NGOs.

Following the 2009 call for proposals for Slovenian NGOs working in Western Balkan Countries, Eastern Europe and Subsaharan countries in March this year, the Slovenian Foreign Ministry organised an evaluation meeting to discuss lessons-learned of this call, as well as to define further steps. In the near future the MFA is planning to upgrade the current mechanism of public calls in terms of establishing special development programmes with the governments of Macedonia and Montenegro (being the geographic priorities of Slovenian development cooperation in the Western Balkan area). Another step forward will be the introduction of a multi-year calls for proposals system. According to the representative of the MFA, the next call will be published already during this summer. The Slovenian NGDO platform SLOGA and its NGO members will be part of the procedure when drafting the conditions of the call.

The Slovenian Government adopted the Report on Slovenian development cooperation and humanitarian aid in 2008. According to the report, Slovenian ODA in 2008 was set at 46,87 million EUR (0,13% of GNI). The majority of bilateral ODA was spent in the priority areas of Western Balkans and Eastern Europe (almost 80% of total bilateral ODA). Least developed countries of Sudsaharan Africa received only 3% of Slovenian ODA in 2008 and the percentage is even lower in comparison to the previous years. SLOGA, in cooperation with the ODA Working Group, is preparing a call to all ministries to raise their ODA as a follow up to the report.

The Slovenian Foreign Ministry started the procedure of drafting a new Strategy of Slovenian Foreign Policy for the period of 2010-2015. A special group of experts, nominated by the Slovenian foreign minister will be responsible for drafting main challenges, objectives and goals of the Slovenian foreign policy in the future. As stated, one of the main priorities is international development cooperation and humanitarian aid. SLOGA is currently working on an input to the strategy, which will be submitted to the MFA.

Information provided by Eva Pliberšek, SLOGA, http://www.sloga-platform.org