Publications

Slovak Official Development Aid to the Republic of Serbia – is it time to phase out?

Slovak official development assistance (ODA) played an important role in the transition, democratization and modernization of society in Serbia. Slovakia’s assistance to Serbia started back in 2000 when it supported a change of regime in the former Yugoslavia in the so-called Bratislava process - program for democratic Yugoslavia. Undoubtedly, the Bratislava process is a “pioneer project” of Slovak ODA and the first successful transfer of Slovak experience and know-how in the process of peaceful democratization of society in a country in transition. Yet in 2003, Serbia became one of priority countries and Slovak ODA recipient of the Bratislava - Belgrade Fund and later Slovak Aid fund. 108 development projects of 13 million euro have been implemented in Serbia throughout the period from 2003-2012. But already in 2011, the Republic of Serbia loses the priority country status that leads to a significant decrease in the volume of Slovak ODA despite the fact that Serbia, according to “Slovak ODA mid – term strategy for 2009-2013”, was still a priority/program country. The loss of the position as a program country we observe as a consequence of several circumstances and hence we identified four critical points: Serbia’s status as an EU candidate country, impact of influenced Slovak NGOs on programming the Slovak ODA directed to Serbia, contradiction between strategic, programming documents of Slovak ODA and foreign - policy goals of Slovak government, and difficulty to measure effectiveness and efficiency of Slovak ODA in Serbia due to lack of monitoring and evaluation procedures that would impartially assess the real effect of Slovak ODA in Serbia. To counter these challenges, the areas where we see prospect intervention from the part of Slovak ODA are following: 1. Slovak’s ODA role as a diplomatic tool; 2. Slovak’s ODA role in strengthening economic cooperation; 3. Slovak’s ODA role in the EU integration process; 4. Slovak’s ODA role in strengthening regional cooperation; Serbia, with no doubt, was the largest recipient country of Slovak ODA throughout these years. Despite the fact, no representative from Serbian government or parliament was invited to discuss the effectiveness of Slovak ODA in Serbia at the International Conference “10 Years of SlovakAid: a Vision of Development Cooperation for a Changing World” where representatives of all sectors from 17 countries met including Mr. Andris Piebalgs, European Commissioner for Development. We understand contribution of non – governmental sector to political, economic and social change in our country, however, when programming and discussing about the vision of Slovak ODA for the upcoming period, stakeholders and counterparts from Serbian government and parliaments shall have been involved as well. Following up on what has been said earlier, reducing the participation of Slovak ODA in Serbia, from our point of view, may have a negative effect on Serbia and Slovakia, the country that for its comparative advantage was respected within the donor community in Serbia. The "phase out strategy" rather weakens the position and influence of Slovakia on political and economic development of Serbia as a key player and leader in the Southeast Europe. This opens the territory for new development aid actors who are waiting for such an opportunity.