Czech platform FoRS has a new director Since April 1st, the Czech NGDO platform -Czech Forum for Development Cooperation- FoRS has a new director, Mr. Pavel Přibyl. He has replaced Mrs. Jana Miléřová who is taking maternity leave. The new director has a long and an interesting carrier in the NGO sector, mainly connected with environmental issues, but also touching the development and global ones. We thus believe that he will bring new interesting views into FoRS work as well as into the discussions and cooperation within TRIALOG.
Photo credit: FoRS (in the photo: Pavel Přibyl).
The Czech platform’s study on sustainability of development projects
FoRS recently published an inspiring study “Sustainability of Czech Development Cooperation Projects”. The study addresses different aspects of sustainability, including internal and external factors that influence it. The study presents current examples of Czech good practices and provides a series of practical recommendations to development stakeholders. The need to increase sustainability has repeatedly been among the key recommendations identified in the majority of external evaluations of Czech bilateral projects commissioned by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). The study serves as contribution to ongoing debates on the quality of the Czech bilateral development projects and responds to the needs of both the implementing actors, Czech Development Agency (CZDA) and MFA.Based on the study, the Czech Development Agency together with FoRS organised an internal expert workshop on March 13th in order to forward the debate on the possible steps for increasing the sustainability of Czech bilateral projects. The participants (MFA, CZDA, NGOs, private sector) agreed in general on the findings of the FoRS study: for example, the need to focus on sustainability from the early stage of identification of development topics.
The publication is available here.
Czech public support helping people in need and in the poorest countries, the fresh FoRS public opinion poll shows
The Czech NGDO platform FoRS commissioned the very first own representative public opinion poll on the Czech citizens’ attitudes towards humanitarian aid and international development cooperation. The survey focused on four main areas of publ
ic awareness: on perception of the Czech development NGOs, fundraising and donation willingness for development and relief, on the Czech governmental ODA program and on perception of the global interdependencies.
The Czech public is in general supportive to development and humanitarian issues, more than one half of the population donated to humanitarian aid or development cooperation projects during the past year. About 75 % of the public thinks that the Czech Republic should keep the current level of financing (and not cut the aid) or better: increase aid budget according to the international aid commitments. The main priority should be helping people hit by humanitarian crises and in the poorest countries. The priority region is Africa. The Czechs are rather passive information receivers – they are interested in the issues, they lack information however are not actively seeking them. This is a challenge for both NGOs and the Czech government. More than 60% of public agrees that its lifestyle has an impact on problems in other parts of the planet and is willing to buy more expensive products if it can be guaranteed that they were produced fairly and with a minimum impact on the environment. The unprecedented majority of public supports that pupils and students should be taught about the global interdependencies at schools.
The survey sample was more than 1200 respondents, 36 survey questions were jointly elaborated by the FoRS members. The survey was carried out by the company NMS Market Research. The financing was provided and supported by a grant from Switzerland through the Swiss Contribution to the enlarged European Union.
For more information, please contact Adela Stiborová at adela.stiborova@fors.cz.
Information provided by FoRS
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