Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation
DGDC - Directorate-General for Development Cooperation
DGDC Annual Report 2005
The DGDC Annual Report 2005 is a publication of the Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation.
Free distribution. Available in English, Dutch and French.
The DGDC Annual Report 2005 can be consulted on www.dgcd.be
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Foreword 3
A landmark year for international cooperation 5
Overview of the DGDC in 2005 9
Building a future for everyone 15
Governmental cooperation with partner countries 23 Multilateral cooperation making aid more effective 31 Humanitarian aid to relieve suffering caused by crises 39 Community building and aid to post conflict states 45 Non-governmental cooperation supports civil society in the South 49 Support for social economy initiatives and the private sector 55 Belgian Survival Fund for greater food security in Africa 61
Annexes 67
Organisation chart 76
List of abbreviations inside cover
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Contents
When writing the preface to an annual report, it is always tempting to focus on the quantitative results of the year in question. Don’t we say that figures speak for themselves and as such 2005 will have been a particularly productive year for Belgian Cooperation. According to OECD figures, Belgian Official Development Assistance (ODA) totalled
€1.58 billion in 2005, which represents an increase of 17.2% compared to 2004. There was also a considerable increase in the proportion of ODA in the Gross National Income (GNI), which totalled 0.53% of GNI in 2005 compared to 0.41%
in 2004. This increase bears witness to the government’s resolve to reach the target of 0.7% of GNI by 2010, as it undertook to do during the Monterrey Conference in 2002. Approximately €383 million was earmarked for the debt relief, but Belgian Cooperation’s actual budget has increased by €97 million or 12,6% from 2004 to 2005 and will increase by €30 million in 2006.
Therefore, whilst the figures are more than encouraging, they also represent a far less positive picture, one of a world in which over 3 billion people still live in abject conditions on less than $2 a day. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that aim to halve extreme poverty by 2015 and considerably improve the conditions of developing countries in terms of education, public health, the fight against pandemics and the respect for a sustainable environment, may not be achieved. In September 2005, the United Nations formally reminded the world of the importance of the MDGs and the urgent need to implement them. However, in reality the international community, which grants about $65 billion a year to development cooperation, will only be able to honour its commitment to reach the MDGs by 2015 if it doubles the amount currently spent on development cooperation per year.
Since the European Union and its Member States, whose annual contributions for development account for 55% of ODA at global level, are aware of this need, the European Council decided on 16 and 17 June 2005 to increase the aid provided by the European Union to 0.56% of GNI by 2010 for the 15 old Member States and 0.17% of GNI for the new Member States (the targets for 2015 are 0.7% and 0.33% of GNI respectively). As I mentioned earlier, Belgium is well ahead of this objective. Europe’s commitment is important since it will account for over €20 billion of additional aid per year by 2010. Development assistance provided by the European Union will therefore increase from €46 billion in 2006 to €67 billion in 2010. The new Member States will contribute just under €1 billion, which is a small percentage of the total effort but more than double what they currently pay.
Moreover, the suggestion by the European Commission to make Africa a priority has been accepted. The EU General Affairs and External Relations Council stated that over 50% of the additional resources for development assistance would be earmarked for the African continent. This is an extremely positive commitment and one for which Belgium has fought long and hard.
In Washington, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank approved the G8 proposal to cancel the debt of the poorest and most heavily indebted countries. This move was accompanied, in large part thanks to calls from Belgium, by the commitment to maintain the funding capacities of the international financial institutions by requiring the donors to compensate ‘dollar for dollar’ the amounts that would not have been reimbursed as a result of the can- cellation of debt. This decision to compensate these amounts is vital since it will enable the financial institutions to continue their efforts to provide assistance whilst still having the necessary amounts available to grant new loans.
The World Bank also adopted an Africa Action Plan which acknowledges the continent’s core role in global develop- ment policies.
Last year has therefore been a landmark year as regards the awareness of the need to increase ODA and reduce the debt of the poor countries. It also witnessed debates that focused on the need to find additional innovative means of financing. This new dimension of collective solidarity efforts will certainly be accorded an important place in develo- pment cooperation policies in the future, above all in the areas of public health and education.
In addition to the need for supplementary financial resources to meet the challenges of the MDGs, 2005 also highli- ghted the fact that development cooperation policy must be addressed as a whole. During the United Nations Millennium Summit+5 in September 2005, several decisions were taken regarding reform. I particularly welcome those decisions relating to the link between peace and development, which is vital for preventing the spread of inter- nal conflicts and for making peace-keeping operations the basis of genuine peaceful and democratic reconstruction in crisis states. Whilst all these reforms are important, the reform I believe to be the most promising for the future is the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission. This Commission will make it possible to achieve more coherent com- mitment, better supported by the international community during the transition period, which is the time when countries in the aftermath of a conflict often plunge back into violence. Belgium considers that the creation of this Commission is particularly important for the Great Lakes region, above all for Burundi where presidential and legisla- tive elections in 2005 completed its democratic transition and also in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which should finally see its democratic transition complete in 2006. As was the case in 2005, the Great Lakes region – above all the DRC and Burundi – will also be the focus of our commitments and our development policies in 2006.
Development is highly dependent on a certain number of fundamental prerequisites, including good governance, free and fair trade and above all, peace and security, education, the establishment and maintenance of a health sys- tem, basic infrastructures and growth and research, all of which are impossible to achieve during a war, in which young people are usually the first victims. The Africa Action Plan adopted by the World Bank in 2005 and the Strategy for Africa adopted by the European Council in December 2005 are in line with this approach. They do not just offer Africa the opportunity to consolidate the democratic transition processes currently underway but also enable it to
Foreword
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rehabilitate its infrastructures and create real economic development, in which private investors and the develop- ment of small and medium-sized enterprises will certainly be invaluable tools.
The aim of getting the private sector and civil society more involved in development was a core element of our action in 2005 and will remain a core element in the future. A conference held in Brussels in June 2005 entitled ‘Doing business in Central Africa’, which I chaired, did not merely provide an opportunity for European and African business leaders and investors to share their experiences, but also enabled the authorities in the DRC, Burundi, and Rwanda to approach discussions on regional economic cooperation in a more positive way. Regional economic cooperation is also a key aspect of European efforts within the framework of negotiations on the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) launched between the European Union and the ACP countries (Africa-Caribbean-Pacific).
I could not mention 2005 without referring to the major efforts made by Belgium and Europe in the multilateral fra- mework of the United Nations to enable better aid effectiveness and make our activities more coherent.
In Belgium, the preparation by the DGDC of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Peer Review of Belgium’s cooperation policy helped us to pinpoint our achievements and fine tune the policies that need to be pur- sued in order to achieve better concentration of our resources, more efficient cooperation with our bilateral and mul- tilateral partners, better continuity of our activities and the coherence of our policies. The current reform of the pro- ject cycle should use this exercise as a springboard and enable us to boost our efficiency in the field in 2006, mainly by rationalising our procedures.
It is with these same aims in mind that we were actively involved in the creation and adoption of the European Consensus on Development by the European Council, which is a genuine action plan for the future, drawn up by the European Union in a bid to define the joint lines of action between the Union, the Commission and the Member States for boosting the effectiveness of our aid. The aim for Belgium, as well as for the European Union in general and the European Commission in particular, is to define policies that mobilise all our resources: peace and security, good governance and a state of law and democracy and decentralisation cannot be dissociated from the conventional sec- tors of aid in the areas of agriculture, education, infrastructures and public health, moreover, technical assistance can- not be dissociated from budget aid, and similarly, measures to foster the development of trade cannot be viewed in isolation from those to boost cohesion and social protection.
I could not conclude the introduction to the DGDC annual report 2005 without mentioning three final points.
The first is that our cooperation policies can only be justified amongst the population in Belgium and in our partner countries if they benefit from a large amount of support from civil society. We believe that the decentralisation in our partner countries is vital in this respect, as is the involvement of different associations, in particular women’s associa- tions. I hope that in 2006 our partner countries will to continue with the efforts they started in 2005 to encourage all players to get involved in development in a completely transparent way. I also think that better understanding should be possible in Belgium between the DGDC and the associations. The reform of co-financing, which began in 2005 and will be concluded in 2006, will undoubtedly make it possible to strengthen the links that exist naturally between my administration and the associations active in the field of development. I think that things are looking promising in this respect for the months ahead.
The second reason to conclude this introduction on a hopeful and optimistic note is that the efforts I have been making since September 2005 to set up a voluntary service for development cooperation will bear fruit in 2006. The response of the young people in our country, characterised by their spirit of generosity, solidarity and enterprise, has met our expectations. The law creating the voluntary service was passed by the Parliament, the Royal Decree speci- fying the practical details has entered into force and several hundred young people have signed up for the prepara- tory courses organised by Belgian Technical Cooperation. The first volunteers will leave Belgium to go to our partner countries this autumn.
Finally, I would like to mention – and this too is particularly pleasing - the high degree of motivation of all the Belgian players active in the field of development, and especially the officials and civil servants from Directorate-General for Development Cooperation and the Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC), both in Belgium and abroad. Whilst money is still the sinews of the war in favour of development and whilst the policies we define in Belgium, Europe and the United Nations together with our partners constitute the framework for action, it is the men and women who work hard each day that are the life and soul of the fight in favour of development. After all, neither figures, nor political debates, nor theories can shape tomorrow’s world, instead it is the men and women who, come what may, perma- nently strive to shape it and help it to forge forward.
Armand De Decker
Minister of Development Cooperation
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a landmark year for international cooperation
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n Millennium Summit 6
n Improve aid effectiveness 6
n Trade and development 7
n European Development Cooperation Policy 7
n Review of Belgian Development Cooperation 7
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The international community was particularly active in 2005. Many important meetings were held and ambitious agendas were set in this year designated by the United Nations General Assembly as the International Year of Microcredit. Belgium wanted to stand out from the rest by implementing a whole range of initiatives at both national and international level.
Millennium Summit
Out of all the important international meetings on the development agenda in 2005, the one which received by far the most media attention was the General Assembly of the United Nations held in New York between 14 and 16 September 2005. This event was named the Millennium +5 Summit after the Millennium Summit that set the Millennium Development Goals for 2015. Five years later, the heads of government met to evaluate the progress that had been made towards reaching these goals. Belgium was represented by a high-level group, composed of the Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Development Cooperation.
One of the main achievements of the Summit was that the Millennium Development Goals were accepted by all participants as the framework for international cooperation. States’
responsibility for their own development was reaffirmed, as was the need to respect principles of good governance. Particular attention was accorded to Africa, sustainable development and gender issues. The concept of collective security was endorsed, which was put forward by the Secretary-General and brings together security, development and human rights.
Improve aid effectiveness
The Minister for Development Cooperation also attended the High Level Forum organised by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and held in Paris from 28 February to 2 March 2005. During the Forum, the international community, donors and partners reaffirmed their desire to make development aid more effective.
Over one hundred ministers, heads of aid organisations and other senior officials representing over sixty partner countries and more than fifty multilateral and bilateral institutions together adopted the Paris Declaration. This ambitious yet concrete
international agreement encourages countries and organisations to be mutually accountable and transparent in the effective use of aid resources.
Five key principles for the effectiveness of aid resources
Ownership:
The partner countries themselves define their poverty reduction strategies and their development priorities.
Alignment:
Donors align their development aid with partner countries’ priorities and strategies. The partner countries undertake the necessary reforms to gain the trust of the donors in their procedures.
Harmonisation:
Donors rationalise and harmonise their policies, procedures and cooperation practices.
Managing for results:
Partner countries adopt principles of results- driven management with the support of the donors.
Respective accountability:
Donors and partner countries must be held accountable to each other, their citizens and parliaments for their development policies, strategies and performances.
(Source: DAC/OECD)
(www1.worldbank.org/harmonization/
Paris/ParisDeclaration.eng.pdf).
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Trade and development
Development is the leitmotif in the multilateral trade negociations launched by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Doha in 2001 in order to achieve better market access, especially access to agricultural markets, for the developing countries. The Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration at the WTO-meeting in Hong Kong (13 to 18 december 2005) confirms the progress made in areas such as access to duty-free and quota-free markets for all products from the least-developed countries (LDCs), support for cotton producers in West African countries and developing countries’ access to generic medicines.
European Development Cooperation Policy
2005 drew to a close in Europe with the adoption of the European Consensus on Development by the European Parliament on 22 November 2005.
This act bears witness to the desire of the EU Member States to incorporate their development aid into a common European Union Development Policy. As a result, the European Union is now the largest aid donor, providing 55% of the world’s development aid. The European Commission reaffirms its efforts at coordination and harmonization to contribute to increasing aid effectiveness. The declaration sets out the objectives, as well as the values and means of action that will be implemented by the 25 EU Member States and the European Commission.
The declaration contains key concepts such as partnership, political dialogue, civil society and fragile states.
During the European Summit held in December 2005, the heads of state and government approved the European Union Strategy for Africa, an ambitious strategy with a long-term perspective. The Strategy defines the framework for the funding from the EU Member States for actions to help the Africans to reach the Millennium Development Goals.
The Revision of the Cotonou Agreement, which governs cooperation between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States, plans greater flexibility for procedures, better political
dialogue with the ACP countries and effective cooperation incountering proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, a common commitment to the International Criminal Court and the fight against terrorism. An agreement was also reached on the budget for the 10th European Development Fund (EDF) which increased the budget to €22.68 billion for the period 2008-2013. Belgium will contribute €841 million (3.53%).
Review of Belgian
Development Cooperation
In 2005, it was Belgium’s turn for a detailed analysis of its development cooperation policy by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee. This so called Dac Peer Review, which takes place every four years and is conducted by the other Dac members, performed a detailed analysis of the volume, programmes and policy coherence for development for the years 2001-2004. Belgian humanitarian aid got special attention.
The examiners, Portugal and Austria, appreciated the dynamic for change that aims to adapt Belgian aid to the new international context regarding development cooperation. The legislative and institutional framework is particularly conducive to commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. The fact that responsibility for development cooperation was kept at federal level received high praise. Belgium is invited to consolidate and stabilise its development cooperation architecture by adapting the existing instruments in such a way as to strengthen synergies and improve complementarity. Moreover, it needs to persist with its policy of educating people in development matters and step up its information policy with a view to securing greater public backing for international development goals and government action in this area. Institutional solutions should be adopted in order to ensure the coherence and effectiveness of Belgian aid. As regards the last point, the Minister for Development Cooperation, Armand De Decker, announced his intention to set up a Federal Development Cooperation Council very shortly.
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overview
of the DGDC in 2005
n Increase in Belgian Official Development Assistance 10
n Additions to the budget 10
n Greater attention for women’s and children’s rights 11
n A special interest in fragile states 11
n Enhanced follow-up and evaluation 11
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The DGDC works in a spirit of partnership to facilitate the implementation of local development policies and to boost the capacities of institutions and society as a whole. It is also responsible for helping to reduce all forms of poverty using the Millennium Development Goals.
Increase in Belgian Official Development Assistance
In 2005, Belgian contributed €1.58 billion in Official Development Assistance (ODA) which represents a 17.2% increase on the €1.17 billion paid out in 2004 and corresponds to 0.53% of gross national income (GNI). The increase in spending on ODA is mainly due to the growth in the federal budget for development cooperation and to debt cancellation totalling €383 million in 2005.
The DGDC budget increased from €721 million in 2004 to €854 million in 2005, an increase of 18%.
Multilateral cooperation was by far the most important channel of aid provided by the DGDC.
Compulsory contributions paid to international partner organisations within the framework of international agreements, to which Belgium is party, accounts for approximately 74% of the DGDC’s budget.
Annex 1: Belgian Official DevelopmentAssistance (ODA) for 2001 - 2005
Additions to the budget
Three new lines of credit were added to the DGDC budget in 2005. The first is for governmental cooperation and will make it possible to fund budget support and contribute to common funds over several years.
The second will be used to pay for transporting equipment required for small emergency operations, mainly in the area of development cooperation in Belgium’s partner countries. The third line of credit is for providing support to educational activities in Central Africa by providing over 1,500 African or foreign children with access to high-quality education in schools that follow a Belgium curriculum.
Annex 2: ODA expenditure by the DGDC by partner country for 2001 - 2005
Annex 3: ODA expenditure by the DGDC by sector for 2001 - 2005
Reorganisation development cooperation budget
Since 2004, spending for a certain number of areas has been added to the development cooperation budget. The new additions mainly include loans to foreign countries, interest rate subsidies and some contributions to international institutions.
During the same period, the development cooperation budget was incorporated into the budget of the FPS Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation. The responsibility for managing part of the development cooperation budget was then transferred to other FPS departments:
personnel and operating costs, conflict prevention and emergency aid.
These changes were made as a result of the government agreement signed in 2003. The agreement planned to create a horizontal budget line that would group together spending on official development assistance for all departments of the federal authority as well as all efforts in this area without impinging on each department’s management responsibilities for the credits in question.
Greater attention for women’s and children’s rights
The 1999 Law on international cooperation defines a range of topics, such as gender, the environment and the social dimension of the economy, that must be taken into account in Belgium’s development cooperation strategies. The respect of children’s rights is a new high-priority theme for Belgian development cooperation since the Belgian Senate approved an amendment to the aforementioned Law on 3 May 2005. It should be noted that Six Millennium Development Goals are directly linked to children and the respect of their rights.
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More attention is also given to gender equality and women’s rights in development activities.
Some specific activities receive funding, such as the programme to combat family violence in Peru and the multilateral programme to combat sexual violence towards women, young people and children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The latter is implemented by three Organisations of the United Nations. Belgium also supports the UNIFEM pilot programme which aims to get women’s interests taken into account in government budgets in twenty developing countries. In 2005, a gender network was set up within the DGDC in a bid to facilitate the systematic integration of the gender issue at all stages of Belgian assistance. NGOs and universities will also be involved in the network’s activities from the beginning of 2006 onwards.
The Commission on Women and Development (CWD) in 2005
This advisory body on gender equality, which was founded in 1994, ensures gender equality is respected in development cooperation policy.
The CWD is composed of women’s organisations, NGOs, universities, the DGDC and BTC.
During 2005, the CWD helped to define Belgian positions for the important international meetings: Beijing+10, ten years after the World Conference on Women and the Millennium+5 Summit.
The CWD produced a brochure entitled Women go beyond the Millennium Goals which contains the proceedings of the International Conference held in 2003 in order to take a critical look, from a female perspective, at the topics of the MDGs and the means used to achieve them.
The CWD also collaborated with the publication of the brochure entitled Belgian Development Cooperation and Equality between Women and Men published in March 2005. The publications are available in Dutch and French.
They can be accessed via the DGDC website:
www.dgcd.be/en/topics/gender/cwd_
publications.html
A special interest in fragile states
Belgium is committed to taking active part in the international development cooperation initiative in countries emerging from a crisis or conflict in order to ensure that development assistance has a greater impact on the root causes of the fragility of the country. The DGDC is a member of the Fragile States Group of the OECD’s DAC which groups together specialists in governance, conflict prevention and reconstruction.
In January 2005, a Senior Level Forum on Development Effectiveness in Fragile States formulated 12 principles aiming restore the state’s ability to provide basic social services to its population. Belgium, which was one of the nine countries selected to test these principles, offered to lead the pilot mission in the DRC with the support of the American Development cooperation USAID.
Enhanced follow-up and evaluation
In 2003, the DGDC set up the internal direction for Follow-up, Evaluation and Statistics to help promote a result-oriented policy. This new department has a dual task: managing data on official development assistance so that it can be accountable to the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee and fostering a culture of evaluation within the administration. At the end of 2005, the DGDC set up a reference framework on the enhancement of internal capacities for follow-up and evaluation. The document, which was drawn up in a participatory manner, responds to a desire to modify and reorganise the management techniques by focusing the organisation on processes rather than functions.
Moreover, an electronic toolbox was created to make it easier to disseminate the evaluation reports and to share practices and methods used for follow-up and evaluation within FPS Foreign Affairs.
The internal evaluation department helps the other DGDC departments to organise evaluations and makes it easier to provide feedback and ensure that the results of the
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evaluations are put to good use. The department conducts thematic evaluations so that a strategic approach can be adopted in the search for greater effectiveness of development aid. The creation of international consortiums and research consultancies with consultants from the North and the South is encouraged so that their expertise can be harnessed and issues can be examined in an objective and critical way.
Together with the FPS Foreign Affairs’ Special Evaluation Department, the internal evaluation department is also involved in leading joint evaluations conducted by the European Commission on policy coherence, coordination and the complementarity of the activities being conducted in the Member States of the European Union. Within the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee, the internal evaluation department is involved in a joint evaluation on budget aid conducted by 14 bilateral and six multilateral donors.
Five evaluations missions were concluded in 2005.
Seven missions were launched and are currently being implemented.
Evaluations in 2005 :
• the programme for raising awareness of North-South relations Annoncer la couleur/
Kleur Bekennen;
• 1% of the funding provided to NGOs’ five-year programmes used for evaluation;
• the Migration and Development programme which aims to involve migrants living in Belgium in the development of their country of origin;
• the Capacity Building and Institutional Support to the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation of the Palestinian National Authority project;
• the OXFAM project – Belgian Survival Fund, Soil and water conservation – Management of natural resources and food in Burkina Faso.
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Voluntary Service for Development Cooperation
The Minister for Development Cooperation, Armand De Decker, decided to set up a voluntary service for development cooperation.
This service will enable young people aged between 20 and 30 to acquire initial professional experience in a developing country and to demonstrate their solidarity with the world’s poorest people. The initiative will also help to raise Belgian’s awareness further about development issues.
Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC) is responsible for recruiting the young people and allocating them a post. The first young people to take part in the initiative will leave for their respective countries during the second half of 2006.
www.btcctb.org
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Building a future for everyone
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n Development education for a wide public 16
n The Bridge of Solidarity 17
n Development education for a wide public 18
n Support for civil society 19
n Development cooperation on television 20
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One of the Peer Review recommendations, in which the DGDC is intensively involved, refers to enhancing communication with the Belgian population about development cooperation. 2005 was a unique year in this respect. This is why this core mission of the DGDC is included at the beginning of the annual report. The DGDC has made use of all means of communication available to better inform the public about Belgium cooperation’s contribution to the Millennium Development Goals and to raise public awareness about solidarity between the North and the South. The Belgian government has also released more funds for awareness raising activities. In 2005, the DGDC had a budget of €18 million for funding its own awareness raising activities and for subsidising the global education and awareness raising activities of other parties, including Belgian NGOs.
Development education for a wide public
2005 saw serious thought given to the objectives, target groups and strategic approach of awareness raising activities. Over the next few years, the DGDC wants to increase public involvement in development-related matters by participating actively in worldwide citizenship and rooting democratic values in our society.
We are considering educational activities that will help to change behaviour for the better at different levels and in the long-term. This in turn will help to achieve results such as greater tolerance and the purchasing of fair-trade products. We made a conscious decision to gear the awareness raising action towards supporting development education. To this end, the DGDC is focusing its actions primarily on the public at large and, in particular, young people. A certain number of initiatives pursuing this objective were already launched in 2005. A entire edition of Dimension 3, the Belgian cooperation magazine published by the DGDC, was dedicated to raising awareness and development education. The DGDC supported the promotion of fair-trade products by organising Fair Trade Week between 5 and 15 October 2005. This year it was coordinated by Belgian Technical Cooperation. At the launch of Fair Trade Week, Frans Vanderhoff, the Dutch founder of the Max Havelaar label and the founding father of the concept of fair trade, was awarded the Commander of the Order of the Crown by the Minister for Development Cooperation.
Global education is education that opens people’s eyes to the realities of the world and awakens them to bring about a world of grea- ter justice, equity and human rights for all.
Global education includes development edu- cation, human rights education, education for sustainability, education for peace and conflict prevention and intercultural education, which are the global dimensions of education for citi- zenship.
Definition of global education taken from the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe (2002)
On the DGDC’s initiative, the first European conference on Public Awareness and Development Education for North-South Solidarity, organised together with the European Commission, was held on 19 and 20 May in the Egmont Palace in Brussels. Delegations from the 25 EU Member States, a number of delegations from EU candidate countries, European Parliament representatives and European NGOs attended the conference. The large number of speakers from the North and the South coming from a wide range of fields such as development cooperation, civil society, culture and the media, gave interesting speeches where they called for greater public involvement in development cooperation.
The governments of the new EU Member States and those of the candidate countries were particularly encouraged since, as a result of their accession to the European Union, they have undertaken to implement a development cooperation policy. At the end of the conference, a list of 15 recommendations were compiled and
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handed over to representatives of the European Parliament, the European Council, the European Commission and the national governments. One of the most important recommendations concerned integrating development education into the curricula of formal and informal education systems in a bid to raise awareness amongst all social classes and people of all ages about solidarity between the North and the South. The national and European authorities should ensure that enough funding is made available for development education. It has been suggested that at least 3% of official development assistance (ODA) is earmarked for development education and awareness raising activities. The recommendation regarding the role and place of development education and awareness raising activities in the European Union’s common development Policy statement has been taken seriously since it is now included in the European Consensus on Development which was approved in November 2005.
The DGDC also believes it extremely important to meet the public and inform them directly about Belgian development cooperation. These meetings take place during events subsidised by the DGDC that attract a large amount of public attention. For this reason, the DGDC was present at events in 2005 such as the Selor job fair, the Brussels book fair organised by French-speaking editors, the Couleur Café music festival that brought together music from all continents and the film festivals of Namur, Leuven, Bruges, Mons and Turnhout.
The Bridge of Solidarity
The most ambitious awareness raising activity in 2005 was the Millennium Campaign. Prior to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit held in September 2005, the DGDC organised a national awareness raising campaign in order to inform the general public about the eight Millennium Development Goals and Belgium’s contribution to achieving these ambitious Goals. In preparation for the campaign, the DGDC launched a general call for tenders in 2004 for the production of information and awareness raising material on the Millennium Development Goals.
The official opening of the mobile information exhibition entitled The Bridge of Solidarity in the Brussels Warande Park marked the launch of the Millennium Campaign on 18 May 2005, the day before the European Conference on Public Awareness Raising. The Minister for Development Cooperation, Armand de Decker, Princess Mathilde and the United Nations Executive Coordinator of the Millennium Campaign, Eveline Herfkens, placed the final logs on the wooden bridge, which symbolises the partnership and solidarity between North and South. The Bridge of Solidarity, building a future for everyone mobile information exhibition, which is in both French and Dutch, is still making its way through the country. In 2005, no less than 25 towns, schools and organisations used the Bridge of Solidarity for their awareness raising activities about the Millennium Development Goals.
In a bid to reach as many people as possible, the Millennium Campaign was shored up with awareness raising messages in the audiovisual media and the printed press. Since September 2005, a few days before the Millennium +5 Summit, the Flemish and French-speaking radio stations and television channels started broadcasting awareness raising advertisements about the Millennium Development Goals as requested by the DGDC. Articles on the topics of the Millennium Development Goals were published in Belgian magazines and newspapers on World Days. The DGDC also had a set of eight posters produced in French and Dutch with information about each Millennium Development Goal and the slogan Belgium is supporting the Millennium Development Goals (La Belgique soutient les Objectifs du millénaire pour le développement). The posters were handed out in all our diplomatic posts and in all Belgium municipalities. A special section entitled The Millennium Campaign was created on the DGDC website to follow up all the DGDC’s awareness raising activities. The Millennium Development Goals were the leitmotif in the articles published in Dimension 3, which has a print run of 20,000.
The two monthly information letters, DGOS-Info and DGCD Contacts, also keep the public up-to- date about the Millennium Campaign and other news on Belgian development cooperation.
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Development education for young people
The public programme for raising awareness about North-South relations, Annoncer la Couleur/Kleur bekennen, which is funded by the DGDC and coordinated by Belgian Technical Cooperation, is gradually being integrated into formal education systems. In 2005, approximately 700 Dutch-speaking primary and secondary schools used the 600 activities offered by 150 educational organisations, either for a development education project or for a means of achieving worldwide citizenship (trajet à la citoyenneté mondiale). In total, 153,000 pupils benefited from the Dutch version of the educational programme, Kleur bekennen. The training days for using the pedagogical tools in the Annoncer la Couleur programme were recognised by the Vocational Training Institute of the French Community (Institut de la Formation en cours de la Carrière de la Communauté française) in 2005. Over 1,200 teachers took the training, which is a 50% increase. Approximately 25,000 pupils benefited from Annoncer la Couleur in 2005.
www.annoncerlacouleur.be www.kleurbekennen.be
Young people are expressing more interest in the General Information Cycles on international development cooperation. The residential training is designed for young adults who want to get involved in international cooperation and who need a basic understanding of development cooperation. The training adopts a multi- disciplinary approach of the issues pertaining to North-South relations in order to provide an overview of international cooperation. Sharing opinions, ideas and experiences between is also important. In 2005, 18 information cycles were organised and 782 people – with fairly even number of French and Dutch speakers – took part. The information cycle is managed by BTC.
Further information can be found on www.btcctb.org.
The DGDC finances a number of multicultural activities in order to raise awareness amongst school pupils, students and young workers about
development cooperation and to get them personally involved in the solidarity between the North and the South. These activities are much appreciated by the target groups. Examples of activities are the Mano Mundo festival in Boom, Couleur Café in Brussels and the Esperanzah music festival in Floreffe, which received support for the first time in 2005. For several years now, the DGDC has been sponsoring film festivals in Flanders and Wallonia that raise the profile of interesting cinematic works produced by film- makers from the South. Financial support is also accorded to Globelink’s Youth Parliament, which encourages pupils to come together to discuss and think about globalisation and development cooperation. Financial support is also given to activities that children enjoy, such as Drums for Peace which gives some 40,000 Belgian children the opportunity each year (21 March) to beat drums for world peace at the same time as other children throughout the world.
Support for civil society
The majority of the DGDC’s budget for awareness raising activities is earmarked for co-funding a large range of informative and educational activities organised by several non-governmental organisations and scientific and socio-cultural institutions that contribute to development education for the Belgian population.
In 2005, €11.6 million was earmarked for co- funding 48 reputable NGOs that raise awareness amongst the Belgian population by organising cultural and art activities, study and training days, activity projects in schools, world festivals, educational and audiovisual materials and so on.
A privileged partner such as the Royal Museum of Central Africa receives €2.5 million in subsidies each year as part of the co-funding provided for its educational activities for children and the organisation of exhibitions for the general public.
The two exhibitions on Congo are among the major success stories of 2005 as regards public awareness. The private view of Congo, Nature et Culture (Congo, Nature and Culture) was held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris parallel to the International Donor Conference to raise funds for the five Congolese national parks that are classes as world heritage sites. Over 150,000 people
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More people visiting the DGDC website www.dgcd.be
The increase in the number of visitors on the DGDC website in 2005 is a good indication of growing interest amongst the public about Belgian development cooperation and North- South relations.
In 2005, a great deal of work was undertaken to turn the www.dgcd.be website into the DGDC’s electronic newspaper, weekend sup- plement and family television. New headings, such as The Millennium Campaign and News from the Field were added to the site. Our own photo reports provided numerous photos for the site which give a flavour of the interna- tional conferences and events organised on the initiative of or together with the DGDC. In Focus, we concentrated on the Belgian deve- lopment cooperation programmes and on the issues and actions relating to the themes of the various World Days. In the News section, we kept track of the latest developments in the field of Belgian development cooperation and a calendar has been added which provides an overview of the actions organised or funded by the DGDC.
These new additions have already borne fruit.
At the end of December 2005, 67,924 people had visited www.dgcd.be, which is 50% more than the monthly average at the end of 2004.
Wider circulation of DGDC publications
In 2005, the Communication Department of FPS Foreign Affairs, which is responsible for the www.dgcd.be and the publications on Belgian cooperation, increased the print run for the DGDC’s publications with a view to boosting their circulation. In accordance with the new information policy on Belgian cooperation, all publications are systematically distributed to all municipalities and municipal libraries in Belgium.
visited the exhibition La Mémoire du Congo. La période coloniale (Memory of Congo. The Colonial Period), that was open between 4 February and 9 October 2005. The exhibition offered a fresh look at Congo’s complex colonial history by using artefacts, works of art, films and photographs from the collections of the African Museum that had never before been seen by the public.
The Belgian scientific institutions and universities involved in the awareness raising activities also receive financial support from Belgian development cooperation. The coordinating bodies of the Flemish and Walloon universities, VLIR/UOS and CIUF/CUD, for example receives subsidies for their actions in the North, grants for Belgian students who want to focus on development-related matters and congresses and discussions.
The DGDC also supports the trade unions. They earmark approximately 5% of their budget to raising awareness amongst Belgian employees about development issues and solidarity between workers in the North and those in the South.
The DGDC also sponsors socio-cultural organisations that aim to generate greater public interest in the North-South issues by using a range of different activities. For example, the DGDC sponsors Message in a Bottle. This is the project that the sailor Fons Oerlemans wants to use to draw attention to the protection of children’s rights. The letters expressing African children’s desires that he will collect during his trip around the world in a boat shaped like a bottle, will be presented to the United Nations headquarters in New York in 2007. Issues related to women and women’s rights are addressed in the multi-disciplinary programme Voix des Femmes (Women’s Voices) which takes place every two years in different Belgian towns. The multicultural events in the Zuiderpershuis centre in Antwerp, the photo exhibition entitled
‘Kinshasa, imaginary town’ in the Bozar in Brussels and the photo exhibition on Senegal in Sint- Niklaas are a few examples of the many activities that receive DGDC funding.
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Development cooperation on television
The DGDC increasingly uses audiovisual media to ensure that its awareness raising messages reach as many people as possible. In 2005, just over
€500,000 was allocated to the co-production of television programmes, reports, documentaries and fiction films aiming to show people what life is really like in developing countries, to inform them about Belgian cooperation projects and to raise awareness of the solidarity between the North and the South.
In 2005, the DGDC helped to fund eight reports, documentaries and works of fiction produced by television production companies. The productions are made for both television and cinema. The RTBF made a documentary on the life of Ousmane Sy, the Malian man behind decentralisation and the winner of the King Baudouin International Prize for Development in 2005. The DGDC also provided financial support to a series of reports made by the VTM called Sterke Vrouwen (Strong Women), where six remarkable women from different cultures tell their personal stories. The VRT children’s channel, Ketnet, also received support to produce four episodes of a multicultural programme for children.
In 2005, the DGDC launched a public call for tenders for the production and broadcasting of eight television programmes – four in French and four in Dutch – that examine development topics and North-South relations in respect to the Millennium Development Goals. In this way, the DGDC is trying to encourage people who work in television to select issues that are important for development-related issues. Child labour, the situation of women, the problem of drinking water, the fight against AIDS and the promotion of fair-trade products are some of the current development-related issues that concern the public, both young people in particular and society at large. It is interesting to note that a certain number of programmes that have been co-funded by the DGDC for the first time, are initially being broadcast by the commercial channels Vitaya and Liberty TV.
The DGDC helps to cover the travel costs of journalists who report on Belgian cooperation projects or matters relating to international cooperation on the radio, on the television and in the printed press. The DGDC paid the travel costs of a certain number of journalists from the South who attended the Millennium +5 Summit in New York. It also covered the travel costs of 150 professionals from the South who took part in about 20 congresses on various aspects of development both in their own countries and abroad.
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Africalia
Every year, the DGDC provides €2 million in subsidies for the activities conducted by Africalia. The organisation was founded in 2001 to promote African culture, not just in Belgium but mainly in Africa itself. Africalia supports a wide variety of cultural and art projects that contribute to sustainable deve- lopment and democratisation.
In 2005, out of the 165 requests submitted, 58 projects were selected to receive subsidies, including:
• the audiovisual project Allumez les étoiles (Light up the Stars) in Benin, which aims to introduce children in primary and secondary schools to the language of film using video and IT lessons;
• the local educational programme Boundless Art of Movement in South Africa which teaches underprivileged and handicapped children from the townships how to dance and move and contributes to their artistic development;
• The Mobile Plastic Arts Gallery which is travelling through West Africa for one year with paintings and photographs by six West African artists.
Further information on all Africalia projects can be found on www.africalia.be.
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Governmental cooperation
with partner countries
n A range of aid instruments 24
n Aid concentration in Central Africa 25
n Support for rural development in West Africa 26
n New commitments in East and South Africa 27
n Support for the water sector in North Africa 27
n Institutional support for the Palestinian Territories 28
n Support for the health sector in Latin America 28
n Governmental cooperation in Asia 29
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The DGDC provides administrative and budgetary monitoring of governmental development coo- peration programmes for 18 of Belgium’s partner countries, together with the cooperation atta- chés present in the field. Whilst helping the partner countries to implement their poverty reduc- tion strategies, the DGDC respects the principles adopted in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. An action plan is currently being draw up in a bid to simplify and harmonise our pro- cedures.
A range of aid instruments
Traditionally, governmental cooperation mainly entailed technical assistance projects. However, in recent years this form of cooperation is being challenged by new aid instruments that give the partner countries more responsibility for the actions whilst respecting their poverty reduction strategies, supporting their good governance efforts and boosting their capacities to solve development problems themselves. Belgium is following this trend and every year awards budget aid to its partner countries. In 2005, the DGDC defined the criteria for granting budget aid, which were approved by the Minister for Development Cooperation and the Minister for the Budget. Budget aid should not exceed 50%
of the aid granted to a partner country, nor may it exceed 20% of the entire resources of
governmental cooperation. A vade mecum for use by the DGDC, BTC and the attachés has been updated and will be tested during the three-year period between 2005 and 2007.
Governmental cooperation also includes loan and debt relief operations in developing countries that are not necessarily included on the list of our 18 partner countries. Within the framework of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, the DGDC funded three debt relief operations in 2005 for Ghana and Senegal with a budget totalling €1.49 million. €19.5 million was contributed to debt relief operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo via the National Ducroire Office.
1 2
5 3 4
6 78 15 9
16 17
10
13 12 11
14 18
North Africa:
1. Morocco 2. Algeria
Latin America : 15. Ecuador 16. Peru 17. Bolivia
Middle East : 14. Palestinian Territories
18 partner countries for governmental cooperation
13. South Africa West Africa:
3. Mali 4. Niger 5. Senegal 6. Benin
Central Africa : 7. Democratic
Republic of Congo 8. Rwanda 9. Burundi
East Africa : 10. Uganda 11. Tanzania 12. Mozambique
Asia18. Vietnam
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In 2005, loans to developing countries totalling
€28.4 million were granted to Senegal, Algeria, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Kenya and Ghana. The loans were used to finance economic and social projects.
Other aid instruments have a more direct impact on their beneficiaries. The Micro-intervention programme can be used to encourage groups, civil society associations, local government authorities, towns and municipalities to contribute to the development of their own communities. The programme is managed on a decentralised basis and is implemented completely by the partner country. The Non- project scholarship programme enables scholarship applicants to follow a university study programme or training course in Belgium, or a higher education programme in an approved establishment in the partner country.
Aid concentration in Central Africa
The majority of governmental aid is earmarked for the Great Lakes Region in Central Africa.
Current cooperation with the Democratic Republic of Congo is not based on an indicative cooperation programme but instead follows the guidelines set out in the Congolese government’s provisional poverty reduction strategy and the Belgian government’s transition action plan for the Great Lakes Region for 2004-2005. These plans dovetail perfectly with the Minimum Partnership Programme for Transition and Recovery, which was prepared by the Amis du Congo in 2003 and is used as a strategic document for the transition process. The preparation of the final version of the national poverty reduction strategy continued throughout 2005. Until the document is complete, government actions will be mainly planned in dialogue with the Congolese authorities in such a way as to ensure that the actions are spread out evenly across the country.
In 2005, new agreements were signed for six actions. There is the water and sanitation project to provide 340,000 people in Kinshasa, Kindu and in the rural areas in the south of Kivu with
better access to drinking water and hygiene services. A project to provide support to the Studies and Planning Directorate of the Ministry of Health will help to improve public health in Congo by setting up health zones. Further contributions were made to the national HIV/
AIDS programme for antiretroviral medication.
A programme for strengthening society aims to support community development initiatives to improve the local social, economic and administrative services in the provinces of Bandundu, Bas-Congo and Katanga. Another project will provide manuals for primary education and training for teachers across Congo. In addition, Belgium contributed to the Trust Fund managed by the UNDP to support the elections in the country.
Two provincial round tables on agriculture were organised in Lubumbashi in Katanga (May 2005) and in Mbandaka in Equateur (December 2005).
The conferences followed up from four national round tables on health, education, basic infrastructure and food security that were held in Kinshasa in 2004.
In Rwanda, Belgian governmental cooperation is provided within the general framework of the country’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. At the request of the Rwandan authorities, Belgium has taken on the role of leader in the process for harmonising donors in the health sector.
The indicative cooperation programme for 2004- 2007, which is currently being drafted, is planning new activities above all in the rural areas. The construction of hydroelectric micro power plants in the Kayove region should help to overcome the significant shortage of electricity in the rural areas. The drinking water supply programme in the Butare region will help to improve access to drinking water for over 400,000 people. A programme providing support to the decentralised national agricultural advisory service system should make it easier to collect and disseminate information on agriculture, boost capacities of the organisers and farmers and encourage the creation of decentralised agricultural advisory service systems. In the education sector, a vocational training project will be launched to help unemployed adults or those wanting to improve
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their qualifications. By the end of 2005, Belgium had contributed €7.5 million to a programme offering support to the magistrature, the Ministry of Justice and the network of traditional people’s courts, the so-called gacacas. By the beginning of 2005, within the framework of the technical, logistic and financial support provided to the 9,000 people’s courts, the Minister for Development Cooperation had given 1,545 bicycles to the coordinators of the gacaca courts.
The bicycles should improve communication within each sector, with the National Service of Gacaca Courts and with the elected people’s judges. www.inkiko-gacaca.gov.rw
In Burundi, governmental cooperation has continued to support the priorities defined during the round tables held between the country and its partners. 2005 was a year of change as regards cooperation activities.
Moreover, in political terms, the presidential and legislative elections represented an important step towards restoring peace using participative democracy. Exceptional budget aid was provided to pay one and a half months of salaries for civil servants of the Republic of Burundi. After 10 years of civil war, the Burundi transition government was experiencing cash flow problems in 2005 which it could not overcome without considerable help from its main donors.
The programmes that were selected in 2005 mainly deal with governance and state structures. One programme will provide the Burundi state with the necessary expertise and logistic support for administrative structures.
Another programme providing selective support for state institutions should boost the capacity for implementing the relevant sectoral policies, processing technical dossiers and drawing up policies. This will help to improve the quality of and access to public services. As regards security, a project to help with the training of the national police force in Burundi should improve the basic knowledge and attitudes required to work as a police officer in service of the citizens.
Support for rural development in West Africa
2005 was a difficult year for some countries in the sub-region. The drought and the locusts caused an exceptionally high level of land degradation. In some areas, a shortage of cereals coupled with an extremely severe shortage of fodder hit the people living in the rural areas extremely hard and jeopardised the security of their food supply. Governmental cooperation arrived in the sub-region through structural actions that aimed to establish the necessary conditions for agricultural and rearing activities gradually and for the long term.
The cooperation programme between Benin and Belgium for 2004-2007 focuses on health, agriculture, fishing, animal rearing and strengthening society. A new support project was approved in 2005 for improving the accessibility and quality of care in the Comé health zone. In December 2005, a committee for monitoring the decisions made by the 2004 Joint Meeting met in Cotonou to review the progress of the approved projects and to draw up a list of their strengths and weaknesses.
The core elements of Belgian governmental cooperation with Mali for 2004-2007 were established during the Joint Meeting in 2004. In February 2005, three new projects were approved: the programme to support the decentralisation process in the Koulikoro region;
the acquisition of equipment for the Mother- Child hospital in Bamako; and extra financial support for the sanitation of the town of Sikasso and for the removal of solid and liquid waste.
When the President of the Republic of Mali visited Belgium in November 2005, the second phase of the project to help with the selection and breeding of the Azawak zebu in Mali was signed. This project helps farmers in the northeast of Mali who have been hard hit by the droughts over the last three decades and by the social and political problems which, in some cases, have forced certain farmers to give up their breeding activities.
