We are interviewing Ms Angela Filote, the Head of the European Commission Representation in Romania. In the context of the European Year for Development (EYD2015), our discussion is touching upon the role of the EU as the biggest development donor in the world and Romania’s profile as a new donor in the field of international cooperation.

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Alexandra: A special survey dedicated to the #EYD2015 has been carried out at the end of 2014 in all the 28 Member States of the European Union. At a European level, 85% of the citizens consider that helping people in developing countries is extremely important and should be a priority for the EU (64%).

However, more than half of the Europeans (55%) do not know where the EU aid for development goes and lack knowledge on the way the EU operates in partner countries where development work is conducted.

Having a look at the way Romanians answered, we discovered that 55% of the population does not know where the Romanian ODA goes; nevertheless, almost the same percent of respondents (54%) consider that tackling poverty in developing countries should be a priority for the national government. About 70% agree that tackling poverty in developing countries is a moral duty of the European Union.

Now when the EYD is about to end, how would you describe its legacy in terms of enhancing knowledge and spreading good practices in the field of international cooperation across the EU and more specifically in Romania?

Ms Filote: Going into this campaign, we always knew that 2015 would be a key international year for enhancing knowledge with a follow-up framework to the recently approved Sustainable Development Goals, this December’s Climate Change Conference in Paris and the ongoing financial and now refugee crisis. The timing of 2015 for the European Year for Development (EYD2015) was therefore crucial as it created a unique communication platform and momentum to raise awareness and bring global issues such as climate change, natural and man-made disasters, trade, migration, radical extremism, outbreaks of epidemics and security issues closer to EU citizens.

An effective EYD2015 communication campaign was needed to show and involve EU citizens in the reality of international cooperation. Thanks to a decentralised, innovative and engaging approach with an emphasis on the young (15-24), the EYD2015 has brought about widespread support from our partners and a new and better way to communicate the narrative on international cooperation’s current and future global challenges affecting our everyday lives via co-owned social media channels, an interactive website and a thematic campaign toolkit in all languages.

Like the majority of the Europe’s Member States, Romania has contributed to the year’s legacy and ran a very ambitious campaign for the year through music and art festivals, youth exhibitions and EYD Days on 19-20 September as part of our broader campaign taking place across 17 European Member States. The EYD Days involved youth volunteers, local NGOs, the private sector and national media targeting the broader public.

Alexandra: 2015 is the European Year for Development. However, if we had dedicated a thematic topic to be celebrated by the entire world this year, 2015 would have been the Global Year for Development. What are your hopes and your doubts about the new post-2015 agenda and how does it influence the EU’s role as the biggest development donor in the world?

Ms Filote: The Millennium Development Goals have guided EU development policy for 15 years and the EU has made the biggest contribution – the EU and its Member States are collectively the world’s largest donor by far, providing €58 billion in 2014.

However, progress has been unequal around the world, and there remains unfinished business as we reach the MDGs 2015 deadline.  Furthermore, the world is a very different place to what it was in 2000 when the MDGs were put in place, with new challenges that call for global and integrated solutions across a wide range of policies. The new set of Sustainable Development Goals reflects that.  The EU is determined to fully implement the 2030 Agenda, across the range of its internal and external policies. In doing so, the EU remains committed to global solidarity and will support the countries most in need.

Alexandra: We are going to slightly change the topic and discuss the fact that since 2007, Romania’s role in development cooperation has changed. From a beneficiary country, it has become a donor of official development assistance (ODA). While providing ODA through multilateral channels (i.e. UN agencies, EU, OSCE, etc) might give us less visibility in the field, bilateral assistance is perceived as a very efficient way of exporting our transition experience. What are Romania’s comparative advantages as a donor and how can it enhance its role in the development cooperation, from your perspective?

Ms Filote:  The transition experience of Romania is definitely a valuable asset for its development policy. Its comparative advantage consists in the multitude of  development and transition similarities with the partner countries we try to engage with at the moment. The fact that Romania succeeded in achieving important results during the transition process towards democracy and an open economy might benefit to our partners in development. Moreover, Romania’s knowledge of the economic, political and social context of the Eastern neighbourhood and the South Caucasus region should give us a leading role in promoting the European agenda and several development projects and programmes.

Since its integration in the EU in 2007, Romania has provided bilateral development assistance (i.e. country-to-country) and has also joined the European Commission’s efforts in the field. Currently, from a geographic perspective, Romania’s focus is on 12 countries: in the Black Sea extended region (Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) and in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region: Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Irak, Palestine and Afghanistan. Amongst its thematic priorities, we should mention i) the transition to democracy, good governance, support for the Civil Society, ii) the support to agriculture and economic growth, iii) the environment protection and the promotion of the renewable energy sources in the Climate Change context.

Last, but not least, I would also add the fact that recently Romania made significant progress in increasing its aid transparency. In July 2015, Romania became the first country from those that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007 to publish data related to its development cooperation activities according to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) requirements.

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With over 20 years of experience in institutional communication management, Ms Angela Filote worked in Romania, Turkey and Egypt, and in 2010, she started to work at the European Commission in Brussels as one of the spokespersons responsible for the EU Enlargement and the Neighbourhood Policy. One year later, Ms Filote joined the Directorate General  for Agriculture and Rural Development as the Head of the Communication Department in charge, amongst others with the information campaign on the EU-wise Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In January 2014, she became the Head of the European Commission Representation in Romania.

Ms Filote studied economics, political science and European affairs. She holds a Master’s Degree in Philosophy, with a Major in International Relations from  VU University of Amsterdam.

As one of the most important global players in the field of development with more than 160 country offices around the world, UNDP acknowledges the growing role of the middle income countries as emerging new donors. In the context of post-2015 agenda, the Busan conference (2011) highlighted the importance of South-South cooperation in the field of development and the increasing role of MICs, both as ODA recipients and donors.

In order to find out more on this topic, we interviewed Ms Anca Stoica who works for the UNDP Regional Center for Europe and Central Asia, serving as Romanian ODA Project Manager. 

Alexandra: The UNDP has been in Romania for over 40 years now. Anca, what are the main development areas in which the UNDP has played an important role in this country?

Anca: That is correct, the UNDP established a Country Office in Bucharest 42 years ago, in 1972, and it was actually the first UNDP office to function in a former Warsaw Pact state. That was nearly two decades before other offices opened in neighboring countries. After Romania’s 1989 Revolution, UNDP assumed a dynamic role as a partner of the Government and civil society. For over 25 years, it has identified gaps and areas of vulnerability in human development, it has demonstrated local solutions to these challenges, and has helped integrate strategies in government programmes.

From the beginning, the UNDP country programmes had focused on assisting Romania to establish national capacities in three core areas: strengthening democratic governance, reducing poverty and deepening social inclusion, and protecting the environment. Our main objective has been to align the country programmes to Romania’s national priorities linked to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and EU integration, and at the same time to stay close to the UNDP corporate priorities of fighting poverty, protecting the environment and building democratic societies.

In fighting poverty and deepening social inclusion in Romania, for instance, the UNDP has implemented programmes that tackled the social inclusion of Roma citizens, the challenges faced by people with disabilities, young people leaving institutional care, women and other potentially disadvantaged groups. These measures have helped to address labor market imbalances, reduce the impact of economic downturn and build civic activism. To protect the environment, the UNDP has critically contributed to improvements in national laws, practices and strategies on issues concerning biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation and energy efficiency. Cross-border measures have been geared towards expanding sub-regional cooperation in managing natural resources. Also, in deepening democratic governance, the UNDP has helped Romania to strengthen an independent and effective judicial and administrative system properly equipped for fighting corruption, so necessary for sound public finances and well rooted socio-economic development. It has also supported institutions like the Permanent Electoral Authority, to develop its capacities to organize independent, free and fair elections for Romania.

Alexandra: The UNDP has taken a leading role in local coordination efforts of advocacy, monitoring and implementation of MDGs. Taking into account your professional experience within the UNDP, can you describe UNDP’s role in supporting new ODA donors (such as Romania since its integration in the EU) in their efforts of tackling the MDGs? 

Anca: Interest in Official Development Assistance (ODA) has increased drastically over the last 15 years and this has been largely generated by the international attention towards the MDGs. The UN Millennium Declaration had explicitly recognized the role of ODA in the development process and stated that a substantial increase in ODA, among others, is greatly needed to achieve the MDGs. In this context, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has a formal mandate to help turn into reality the “Global Partnership for Development Cooperation” agreed upon in Busan and the MDG 8. It also assumed a big role in promoting development cooperation between emerging donor countries and recipient countries and in strengthening the new ODA donors’ capacities to effectively deliver development assistance. Moreover, the UNDP is an important partner for and facilitator of transition experience sharing and South-South development cooperation, providing structures and frameworks for innovative partnerships such as triangular initiatives.

Alexandra: How would you evaluate the implication and support of UNDP Romania in strengthening the capacity of local NGOs in implementing ODA projects and programs?

Anca: Legislation shortcomings in Romania are preventing the MFA in granting ODA funds directly to civil society organizations. This is the main reason for which our organization had to step in and help the MFA channel the funds through the UNDP programme frameworks. However, this context has enabled us to strengthen the partnership and work with NGOs and to support their capacity building efforts along the way. We have involved NGO partners in most of the UNDP capacity building initiatives, we have boosted the use of results based management at a larger scale in Romania and we have used our UNDP network of country offices and regional centers to support and facilitate the Romanian NGOs’ transition experience sharing with civil society in our ODA partner countries.

Alexandra: Drawing from the UNDP’s experience in leveraging its core competencies for the achievement of MDGs, which are the lessons learnt for the international development agenda after 2015?

Anca: First of all, we should stress once more that the implementation of the MDGs is still fundamental, despite the significant progress that has been achieved so far. The MDGs have proven to be a very powerful instrument in creating a shared global vision and development framework to address poverty and advance human development. Nevertheless, their implementation has generated during the last 15 years important lessons for the international community. For instance, the MDGs did not really have a focus on good governance issues, thus failing to tackle important areas of development such as the fight against corruption and public service delivery which are important enablers of poverty reduction efforts. Also, the MDGs did not adequately address issues of social protection, inequalities and complexities related to demographic dynamics, peace and security and human rights. Nor did they consider the vulnerability to natural hazards or to other external socks which has caused setbacks in MDG achievements overall. But all these lessons seem to have been well learned by the international community that is now more committed than ever to fix remaining challenges within the new framework of the Sustainable Development Goals.

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Anca Stoica, the Romanian ODA Project Manager, is responsible for the implementation of the New ODA Cooperation Partnership with Romania, providing overall technical support to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the development assistance project planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Moreover, she provides partnership and project development services in view of supporting Romania’s South-South cooperation efforts and its contribution to the global development cooperation scene. Anca joined the UNDP in 2007, having previously worked for the UNDP Romania Country Office as a Programme Manager for the Democratic Governance Portfolio. In this position she has contributed to the build up and implementation of two UNDP Country Programmes in Romania by providing strategic advice, conducting analysis of the development situation, designing concept notes/projects and mobilizing financial resources for the successful delivery of developmental results. Anca’s experience in project management spans a diversity of thematic areas, from development cooperation and electoral assistance to public administration and rule of law. She holds a B.A in Political Science at the University of Bucharest and a Master Degree in Political Science and International Relations at the same university.