Czech Republic Becomes Member of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC)

On May 14, 2013 the Czech Republic has become a full member of OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and thus joined the world's 25 most developed donors which together provide as much as 95 % of total global development aid.

After 18 years of membership in OECD, the Czech Republic has completed its transformation from being a recipient to becoming a donor of development aid. Just in 1995, the Czech Republic joined OECD and renewed its national program of development assistance. Currently the Czech Republic provides 0,12 % of its GNI to aid.

The Czech Republic is the first country among the new EU member states which becomes a part of this prestigious club. “The decision of DAC to offer the Czech Republic full membership is wonderful news, a positive assessment of the transformation which the Czech development cooperation has gone through. Czech development cooperation is to a great extent professional. There is still a long way to go, but we are approaching the experienced donor countries“, says Šimon Pánek, the director of the Czech NGO People in Need. At the same time, becoming a full member of DAC represents further requirements for the Czech Republic on the effectiveness of its national development assistance program. “I hope that our membership in DAC will contribute to a higher quality of the provided aid, of its system and the way it is distributed, in accordance with the basic principles of development cooperation“, adds Šimon Pánek.

The recommendation of OECD in this sense focuses mainly on the issue of so called “tied aid“, meaning aid where the donors condition the realization of the development project by purchasing only goods and services from its own country. “The purpose of the Czech development assistance shouldn´t be a support of the Czech goods or services“, explains Jana Milérová, the director of FoRS - the Czech Forum for Development Cooperation. Šimon Pánek appreciates that: “the Czech programs and projects are mostly designed in order to really help and not to primarily support the interests of donor or implementing entities.“ The first step for the Czech Republic is to establish a monitoring of the tied aid, which will permit its reduction. By entering DAC, the main international forum for development assistance, the Czech Republic, so far an observer, can better profit from the shared international experience. The possibility to vote on the Committee decisions and become actively involved in the debate on the future of development assistance is another important gain.

Among other countries that initiated the preparation process of entering DAC or at least expressed an interest to do so, belong Slovenia, Slovakia and Poland. The last member which entered DAC was Iceland this March.

For more information, please contact Jana Milérová, the director of FoRS - the Czech Forum for Development Cooperation, jana.milerova@fors.cz

Source: Press Release from FoRS available here.