Estonia’s Development Cooperation from a Civil Society Perspective

The Estonian Foreign Policy Yearbook 2010 includes an article "Estonia’s development cooperation from a civil society perspective". The piece written by Evelin Andrespok, the Policy Officer of Estonian Roundtable for Development Cooperation evaluates the progress made during the first five year implementation process of the Estonian national strategy for development cooperation and humanitarian aid.

The article offers the civil society perspective on the successes and shortcomings of implementing the plan. The first part gives an overview of where and how Estonia has been doing development work and the second part discusses the quality of the development activities. The article argues that increased funding for improving the conditions of women and children living in poverty and improvements in aid transparency are great indicators that Estonia’s development cooperation is advancing in a positive direction. However, there is still low political will to deal with this topic and there is also a dire need for improving aid effectiveness by starting qualitative evaluation of aid activities, finding better alternatives to TA and signing bilateral agreements with priority partners.

Read the article here (pdf)

For more information please contact Evelin Andrespok evelin@terveilm.net

Information provided by Evelin Andrespok, Estonian Roundtable for Development Cooperation