Poland Becomes Member of the OECD DAC

At its meeting on 22 October 2013, the DAC invited Poland to join the Committee. Poland accepted this invitation the same day in a letter addressed to the OECD Secretary General in which it pledged to fulfil the obligations of DAC membership.

More information here.

In September 2013 representatives of DAC OECD visited the country and conducted meetings both with Polish authorities and CSOs.

Grupa Zagranica, the Polish platform of organizations involved in international development cooperation, democracy support, humanitarian aid and global education, had an opportunity to express its support for Poland’s membership in the DAC OECD, but also some critical views on the Polish official development aid system.
The main points of criticism circled around the fuzziness of Polish aid strategy and inadequate evaluation of aid. In fact, although Poland indicated priority countries to receive aid, there are still no Country Strategy Papers to deliver the aid in a systematic way. Similarly, the aid disbursed is not subjected to a meaningful evaluation, which could reveal in how far it contributes to the goals set out in the Act on Development Cooperation. Not to mention, that the CSOs strongly advocate for reformulating these goals to emphasize poverty reduction and explicitly refer to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and aid effectiveness principles.

Nonetheless, Grupa Zagranica appreciated the advances which Polish authorities made towards more structured aid, aligned with international good practices. Joining DAC OECD was called for by Polish CSOs since quite some time. Organizations gathered in Grupa Zagranica believe this can be a vital impulse for more effort towards improving system of development aid in Poland.


For more information please contact Magdalena Trojanek at Magdalena.trojanek@zagranica.org.pl

Information provided by Magdalena Trojanek, Grupa Zagranica