Former Aid Recipients in Europe
Become Aid Donors
FrontLines - June 2009
By Michelle Barrett
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USAID trainer Michelle Adams-Matson discusses strategy planning
with a participant at the Croatia development assistance training.
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BUDAPEST, Hungary—
Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania
are former recipients of assistance
from USAID, but they are
now starting to develop their own
foreign assistance programs.
Between February and April,
government representatives took
part in a series of workshops held
in Sofia, Zagreb, and Bucharest
on best practices in delivering
foreign aid, also called Official
Development Assistance (ODA).
The series was coordinated by
USAID’s Regional Services
Center (RSC) in Budapest as part
of the Agency’s engagement with
Eastern Europe’s emerging
donors, which began in 2006.
After graduating from assistance
in 2008, Bulgaria and
Romania joined the European
Union (EU). Croatia expects to
join in the next round of enlargement.
As part of their EU
obligations, each country must
establish a program for assisting
less-developed countries.
Upon request, the RSC determined
each country’s capacity to
provide aid and USAID ran a
workshop in each country explaining
how the Agency administers
aid. Attendees included government officials, civil society
representatives, and U.S. Embassy
officers. NGO representatives
came to the workshops to explain
their capabilities and perspectives
on how to work with donors to
deliver ODA.
“It was heartening to see the
level of interest and engagement
of these emerging donors,” said
RSC Director David Leong, who
participated in the workshop held
in Bucharest. “The countries are
grappling with issues that we, ourselves,
have had to deal with and
they are making a serious attempt
to achieve results, maintain procurement
integrity, and have a
story to tell their own citizens as
to why they are supporting projects
outside their own borders.”
One Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (MFA) representative in
Croatia said: “The workshop
was very interesting by combining
principles and experience
with concrete examples. It was
an excellent combination of general
principles of project management
in ODA with USAID
procedures and requirements.”
In Romania, an MFA official
said: “There are many useful
ideas that came out during the
seminar on how to deal with different
issues. I also appreciate
the standard approach of different
phases of implementing
ODA and there are some models
that we could also apply, adapting
them to our own needs.”
There is strong interest in
additional, in-depth training.
Other countries and USAID
offices have approached the RSC
with proposals for activities.
Bulgaria, Romania, and Croatia
officials say they are enthusiastic
about the possibilities of partnering
with USAID in their priority countries.
Many USAID offices are
equally interested in developing
partnerships with these emerging
donors in order to infuse the
donors’ experience—with political
and economic transition, accession
to the EU, and as recent recipients
of ODA—into USAID programs.
Other former USAID recipients
that have also established
foreign assistance programs
include Poland, Hungary, Czech
Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia,
all of which have worked with
the RSC to build their capacities
to deliver ODA.
★
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