Meeting Habitat for Humanity

A house in Yerevan, Armenia

I have met Lucija Popovska from Habitat for Humanity Regional office for the Europe and Central Asia in Bratislava today. Lucija understood immediately my concern about the connection between youth and development and humanitarian aid and raised some issues to think about.

Do you know, what impact do natural disasters and war have on youth? Young people participate in wars themselves many times; not only in Africa, but also in Kosovo the average age of soldiers was far under 30. One of many worrying examples showing that youth-specific policy is needed.

Humanitarian aid is generally aimed to 3 areas and thus places suffering from poverty, post-war and post-natural disasters. Development aid is in contrary mainly about building economic system and fighting corruption.

The objectives of Habitat for Humanity are mobilizing resources and enabling access to affordable housing, which is done in 3 ways:
1. Building/renovating houses and providing resources to do that
2. Mobilizing resources and people – volunteers, donations and loans (micro-loans, youth entrepreneurship)
3. Changing the housing policies on the national level, advocacy

Housing policies are rather poor in “new Europe” – let’s exclude Western Europe now - housing as such is normally cut between more authorities, as land, social affairs, Youth department and other. On the top of that, housing policies are rarely youth-friendly. In Hungary, a change of these policies has been proposed, hopefully it will move to a good direction in a short time. And Hungary is not so far from Slovakia.

If you want to know more about Habitat's activities, visit their website here. Big thanks to Lucija for her time!!

Introduction at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

"Slovakia is a small country, but sometimes better perceived in Africa than the big ones."

Today has been a motivating day, with special thanks to Ms. Wursterova, the director of Development and Humanitarian Aid Department, who gave me a positive insight on the issue. It has become clear that what matters is the way how the aid is directed and not exclusively the financial aspect. Is the crucial to listen to what the developing countries exactly need - that's why so called "Country Strategy Paper" is produced.

Slovakia is directing its official aid to 3 program countries: Afghanistan, Kenya and Serbia.

How is the Slovak youth involved and informed? A nice example, which caught my attention, is one high school which played "an Afghan day": the pupils dressed in Afghan way, lived their tradition, as well as the Afghan school played Slovak day, staying connected through Skype.

Secondly, there was an essay competition on the topic, motivating students with 1. prize Internship at UN HQ in Geneva, 2. prize internship at UNDP Bratislava and 3. prize internship at Ministry of Foreign Affairs. See the winning essays here (in Slovak).

Thirdly, there are efforts to cooperate closely with the Ministry of Education and implement the development aid topic to the educational contents in Slovak schools.

I am curious to find out more during my internship in the department 23.8. - 3.9. 2010.

Meeting UNDP Regional Centre in Bratislava 1

I used to go long 8 years to school on the same street - Grosslingova - and during so many hours looking out of the window, I never thought deeply about the blue flag waving on the next building. Some years later, I learned that

in Bratislava we have a Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) which serves 28 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including those in Central Asia.

If you click on the picture above, you can find a publication called "UNDP for beginners", I highly recommend to read it, it is very clear and informative.

UN Advocacy meeting in Utrecht, 25-27 June 2010

Jens (DE), me (SK), Clara (DE), Jonas (CH), Rodaina (AT), Minke (NL-NGO)

The goal of the meeting organized by European Youth Forum was to get to know each other as Youth Delegates from different countries, share our concerns and objectives and agree on joint actions planned for UNGA. The schedule was much busier than it looks like on this ice-cream eating picture. The tasks were successfully divided - and a video is to come!

Development and humanitarian aid

Atar, Mauritania, November 2008

will be my core topic. I am convinced me that this is the thing, which should move up in the list of popular topics. Just have a look at these numbers:
ODA/GNI i.e. Official Development Assistance/Gross National Income


Official Development Assistance 2007 2006
Czech Republic ......................... 0.11 0.12
Hungary ................................. 0.08 0.13
Poland ................................... 0.09 0.09
Slovak Republic ....................... 0.09 0.10

Source: MANAGING AID: PRACTICES OF DAC MEMBER COUNTRIES – ISBN 978-92-64-06021-0 – © OECD 2009
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/58/29/42903202.pdf page 183

But how much 0.09 really is? It is hard for a chemist to imagine what it exactly means in practical terms. In Slovakia, it is 12 euro/person/year. 2 drinks less on Friday night.
How much should it be? The members of the UN committed that a developed country would contribute with a minimum net amount of 0.70 percent of its GNI.

Numbers say a lot, but not everything. The real question is about how is this money used and whether it is good at all to influence development in every corner of the world? Let's think together...

Once the good days start...

21 June 2010 - Visit to the UN in Vienna
12 June 2010 - The elections in Slovakia
9 June 2010 - I got a Bachelor degree in Biochemistry and therefore can start my Master Program in "Environmental Technology and International Affairs" at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna. The first year ever that I am looking forward to -after the summer-.

24 May 2010 - a good day!

In the final round of the selection procedure, we were 4 and an academic debate was planned in order to decide upon the Youth Delegate to the UN for 2010.
We were 2 vs 2, discussing about non-formal education. I was supposed to arrive in the night from Yerevan, but on the place I decided to rebook my flight and prepare for the debate and the interview. It was worth it - I got the chance to be a Youth Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Not only that, but to meet many talented people, youth delegates from other countries, people working in different organizations, a former Slovak ambassador in the United States and not least, great people from the Slovak Youth Council. Thanks to them for this chance.

The next selection process will take place in March 2011. To read more about procedure, please visit the Youth Council's website (in Slovak), to read my Essay on Youth and Environment, click here.