Annual Reports SAIDC

 

The year 2022 was simply different. Our team at SAIDC strived hard to work on its mission - despite and also thanks to all the challenges the past year has brought us all. The uncertainty of the pandemic had only just begun to slowly recede when war started raging right on our eastern border - in Ukraine – the closest our country has been to such events since the end of World War II.

Since the beginning of the year, we opened different calls for development cooperation projects, humanitarian aid and  volunteer placements. In addition to opening the first 9 calls in February, after the initial shock of the situation in Ukraine, we immediately started preparing an emergency humanitarian call in parallel to help the people of our eastern neighbour. We rallied and worked with maximum commitment, thus managing to already sign grant agreements for four partner projects in September, four months after opening the calls in May. The total project value was more than €1,300,000. At the same time, we prepared and opened two more calls for development cooperation projects in Moldova and for capacity building projects by Slovak development organizations. Thus, we are helping countries and their people to develop not only necessary infrastructure and governance, but also working with them to improve health care - both physical and mental - in the most remote regions. Together we strive to improve education and equal access to it for all, and to mitigate the impacts of climate change and enhance environmental management.

 

In 2022, we opened fourteen calls for proposals, at a total value of €6,603,831; 44 projects were approved and will be implemented in seventeen different countries by 24 partner organizations. We supported the funding of 76 microgrants in twelve countries at a total value of more than €660,000. We provided 27 financial contributions to eight countries totalling more than €2,260,000 and, after the COVID-19 induced break of almost two years, we supported three Sharing Slovak Expertise (SSE) projects with more than €20,000.

The war on the territory of our immediate neighbour is still raging, the Russian aggressor is unjustifiably and ruthlessly destroying the whole country. The winter season multiplies and deepens the excruciating suffering of defenceless civilians and we cannot turn a blind eye to it in Slovakia. Therefore, in December, we opened a second humanitarian call for proposals for aid to Ukraine with an allocation of €1,000,000.

 

For the first time in SAIDC’ history, we opened a call and subsequently approved a partner for an EU Delegated Cooperation project to be implemented in Moldova for promoting a more conducive environment for independent local media, with an allocation of €786,045.75, to support their capacity, independence, sustainability and professionalism, as well as their ability to produce quality, fact-based, balanced and reliable journalistic content. The project, funded by the European Neighbourhood Instrument, is both an important milestone and a challenge for SAIDC.

We realise that it is our duty to help those less fortunate than us in Slovakia. Our country must and wants to help, and it is through SlovakAid and its partners that we support the development of potential and opportunities in the countries of the Global South, providing humanitarian aid to war-ravaged regions.

Since “The peace that we are supposed to protect ceases to exist... we need to clearly side with the victim over the aggressor. We must choose an international rules-based order over the power of the gun... Sure, we can delay and compromise. But again, history teaches us that passivity and ignorance never solve crises, they only delay the moment of reckoning.” Zuzana Čaputová, President of the Slovak Republic, at the UN General Assembly in New York in September 2022.

 

Tomáš Bokor, SAIDC Director