development assistance concerns us


In July 2009 Pontis Foundation began to implement the project Development Assistance Concerns Us. The project will run until February 2011. The aim of this project is to increase awareness and involvement of the three main target groups, whose activity can significantly contribute to the improvement of Slovak official development assistance. These target groups include: political parties, media and universities.


Pontis Foundation believes that the reason for the low involvement of the great majority of these players is on the one hand, the low awareness of the issue of development aid, on the other hand, the absence of accurate and timely statistical data on the real awareness of Slovak citizens on development aid. Therefore, in the first stage of the project Pontis Foundation will focus on the creation, execution and analysis of opinion polls in Slovakia as well as on the content analysis of political parties in the field of development aid and on the creation and evaluation of the questionnaires for the political parties, which will reflect their perceptions of development aid. In the second stage of the project Pontis Foundation will organize briefings on development aid and a presentation of the results of the surveys carried out for Members of the Parliament, media, and university students, but also for other interested parties.

Besides raising awareness among relevant actors in the domestic arena the project aims to ensure that also the wider public becomes aware of the need and meaningfulness of the provision of development assistance by the Slovak Republic. Provision of development assistance is connected to the idea of solidarity, the phenomenon of globalization, and the results from obligations of Slovakia, which is a member of international groupings. The acquisition of such attitudes is the first and necessary step towards improving the development assistance, and to the following increase in participation and engagement of the three target groups, as well as of the wider public.

The project freely builds on the previous projects of Pontis Foundation: Global Education and Development Aid Education.


Project Development Assistance Concerns Us is supported by Slovak Agency for International Development Cooperation (SAMRS) from the SlovakAid resources.