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An editorial supplement by GlobalFocus Center, produced with the support of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania, from its Official Development Assistance budget.

Coordinator: Oana Popescu, Director GlobalFocus Center/ Project Manager: Maria AnticăEditors: Ana Ianuș, Simona Catană, Rufin Zamfir/ Contributors: Bogdan Mureșan, Bogdan Nedea, Leyla Muțiu, Manuela Mihalache

Disclaimer: Opinions presented in this special section are entirely their authors’ and do not represent the official position of the MFA or of any partner institutions and organisations.

Romania as an International Donor

What kind of international development aid does the Romanian state have to offer?

Once an EU member, Romania has become part of the world’s most important development assistance donors’ group. It has since gone a long way itself from being a recipient to a giver of aid. There is still huge potential - given the long

and winding road it has travelled so far. Public institutions, NGOs and individual experts are already in a position to tell others, in countries going through similar transformation, how to humanise their child protection systems, for instance,

or how to implement anticorruption policies. And so much more, as you’ll be able to see in the following pages - which end with a few recommendations on how Romania’s international assistance strategy can be improved. We’ll also show

you how giving is receiving: international prestige, international influence, economic opportunity.

context: how can a solid state be built while also effecting regime change? how can the economy be reformed? how can institutions be built that will ensure rule of law, efficient, modern public adminis-tration, in countries suffocated by corruption and nepotism? how to organise free and fair elections? On many of these points, we are still struggling at home. However, even where we have not

gone all the way at national level, we have a rich reservoir of experts and expertise in organisations and institutions (public or private, as well as civil society) and thus the conclusions of Romania’s recent transition can already be passed on to others.

We also have another rather paradoxical advantage. We had a more difficult start as compared to our neighbours’, which makes our experience all the more relevant to states in our region which are currently facing problems closer to those we faced than to the Czechs’ or Poles’ and

From the Black Sea and the Balkans, to the north of Africa, southern Asia and the Middle East, more and more states are going through

democratisation processes, regime change, post-conflict reconstruction or just fledgling transitions to an uncertain future.

Exactly 25 years ago, Romania was embarking on a similar process. In 2007, once it joined the EU, after having become a NATO member already, it completed it successfully. GlobalFocus Center and Foreign Policy magazine are proposing a look at how Romania can become a more powerful and relevant player on the international scene by capitalising on its own development expertise and putting to work not just its state institutions, but also its already mature civil society, the business and academic sectors. To this end, we have discussed with some of those who have managed Romanian transition within some public institutions or NGOs (of whom some have already begun exporting abroad the knowledge thus acquired), but also with their counter-parts in Poland, the Czech Republic, Baltic states or Norway, to learn how others have done it. We have spoken to Romanians in high positions in the EU External Action Service, UN or NATO; with young people who already have significant experience in development, from Yemen to Bolivia.

We are still in the midst of a demo-cratic consolidation phase, but the success of the first stage and even the lessons learnt from failure have enriched us with an experience that nowadays places us in a privileged position - that of being able to respond to one of the most pressing questions of the current global

To Give Your Cake and Eat it!

Our own transition qualifies us to help address one of the most pressing needs globally: how to embrace transformation and

achieve a genuinely democratic regime. BY OANA POPESCU

also relevant to Middle Eastern coun-tries, given Ceausescu’s affinity to the likes of Ghaddafi or Mubarak, which makes the respective transitions somewhat comparable.

Passing on the expertise Romania has acquired to states that need it today is, on the one hand, a moral duty to assist others as we have been assisted. “It is also Romania’s interest to have stable, democratic, prosperous neighbours”, says Florin Nita, a diplomat in the EU External Action Service. But at the same time, it is a powerful foreign policy instrument. “The benefit is in visibility and association of Romania with the image of a country with a positive international role”, explains Filon Morar, a diplomat who until recently was Head of Regional Office UNEST at the UN Support Mission in Libya. In other words, international prestige, influence, visibility, the ability to erase some of the negative image caused by the problems we are still facing and instead direct attention to the progress made (often in the very same areas!) and shared with others: anticorruption policies, rule of law, justice reform, electoral assistance, national minority rights, reform of child protection systems etc. “At the same time, foreign policy openings are made, there is political dialogue, intelligence gathering, because you can identify the economic sectors which offer the greatest opportunities and to some extent it’s money you give, which then comes back in the form of contracts if your intervention is backed by an economic strategy”, continues Florin Nita.

Romania starts out with the benefit of being favourably regarded by many of the target states, because it was never a colonial power, so it is not suspected of vested economic and political interests, but also because of the good relations before 1989, when

It is essential to map out existing expertise, especially within civil society, in an integrated database available to all beneficiaries and donors, in order to clearly identify available resources, give professionals access to career opportunities, further specialisation and training and facilitate international institutional partnerships.

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GF: What is the profile that Romania wishes to build as an international development assistance donor?

Bogdan Aurescu: The key elements are rule of law and good governance, sustainable development, education, social development and coping with climate change.

We show our solidarity with developing countries through a responsible and results-oriented foreign policy, but also through sharing Romanian expertise and the lessons learnt along the democratic transition process, as well as through an integrated approach to global development assistance.

I would like to emphasise that Romania, as a donor, is not a state that claims to be teaching others, but rather shares the lessons it has learnt itself, some even the hard way, some more easily, and this is something which our partners appreciate.

What is the strategic impact Bucharest seeks to make? What were the criteria by which beneficiary states and priority areas were selected?The need to integrate these efforts within the regional context was obvious

from the very beginning. From that perspective, Romania supports bilateral, regional and thematic initiatives dedicated to the Wider Black Sea region, to the Middle East and North Africa and will seek to create opportunities for synergies with regional processes in its neighbourhood, especially with the Danube Strategy, Black Sea Synergy and Eastern Partnership.

It is in this region that we feel we have an important say and it is from here that we receive most of the requests for assistance, particularly from the Republic of Moldova - understandably so, as our top partner in development cooperation, given the geography, cultural kinship and the special relations between us.

The states in the Wider Black Sea area have a lot of shared challenges: the consequences of a centrally planned economy, transition processes to other models of development, an agriculture that lags behind that of the EU. Through its foreign policy, Romania actively supports regional engagement bilaterally, but also at EU level, in order to contribute to confidence building and removing obstacles on the way to the stability, security and prosperity of its neighbours. Regional strategies present opportunities for development through investment aimed at generating economic growth and security, by putting shared resources to good use (transports, energy, water).

In the Middle East and North Africa, we support states dealing with political instability. We have reached out to these states upon their direct request for assistance, given the similarity between their transitions and our own. The

topical areas we cover are institutional reconstruction, electoral assistance, public services and security.

Which are Romania’s strengths as an ODA donor? As I said, Romania aims to share its expertise and lessons learnt along its

25-year old walk to rule of law and a market economy. Romania’s strengths lie very much with its status as a ‘new type’ of donor, which allows a common approach to development assistance, the sharing of its own experience and using limited funds in innovative ways. We essentially try to do more with less (resources).

The assistance granted by Romania takes into account the priorities and needs defined as such by each of the recipient states. Besides, most projects are implemented in partnership with different types of actors (international organisations, civil society, other donors).

We also take special interest in security and conflict prevention. For a number of years, the MFA has organised numerous trainings in this field and has dispatched Romanian personnel in EU and UN missions in various parts of the world that are affected by conflict.

What is the value in becoming a donor rather than a recipient state?EU accession has brought not only rights, but also obligations, among

which that of making our own contribution to the development of other countries. However, this is not really a new status for Romania. Many of the Romanian programmes have been in existence since before 2007 - for instance a lot of the scholarship programmes which Romania has offered to foreign citizens. At present, these are multiplying, while also diversifying in terms of areas of expertise.

We now offer 85 scholarships a year, granted on a competitive basis, following analysis of applicants’ submissions, for undergraduate and graduate study in Romania. The grantees come from all around the world, except the EU. We give priority to states that don’t have formal partnerships with Romania in culture and education. We also give preference to candidates applying to study political and administrative sciences, education sciences, Romanian culture and civilisation, journalism, technical studies, oil and gas, agricultural sciences, veterinary medicine, architecture and the arts. Studies are entirely carried out in Romanian, in order to promote the study of the language among foreigners. A supplementary preparatory year is granted to those who don’t speak the language. Also, the MFA and the University Francophone Agency manages a PhD and postdoctoral research programme for francophone researchers. Candidates from southern francophone

“Romania doesn’t lecture others; we only

share lessons learnt“

Foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu:

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countries are given preference, the aim of the programme being to contribute to the sustainable development of this region.

In 2007, the MFA organised its own specific development assistance programme, through the establishment of a specialised structure and adoption of a strategy. At global level, there is also a clear trend among non-EU emerging economies to build their own development and interna-tional cooperation systems and agencies. Therefore, even in the absence of an EU requirement, we would have had to develop our own system too.

Which are our first achievements, in the short time since Romania has been a donor?Ever since 2007, the MFA has financed a series of capacity-building

projects for public institutions in fields as diverse as law and order, fighting discrimination, anticorruption and education. In the field of antidiscrimination, the MFA has given assistance for the legislative framework building and institutional capacity support to good governance in the migration and asylum system of the Republic of Moldova, it has contributed to national institutions capacity-building for the organisation of the population and home census in the Republic of Moldova, it has financed confidence-building projects between Kishinev and Tiraspol to foster dialogue between the two, as a first step to the enlargement of the political stabilisation process. In the field of diplomacy and international relations, the MFA has organised training programmes for civil servants in the Republic of Moldova and diplomats in partner countries in the North of Africa. In the same region, the MFA supports electoral assistance, administrative reform and integrity programmes.

To help consolidate civil society, Romania has financed fora dedicated to Ukrainian, Republic of Moldova and other Black Sea region NGOs.

In recent years, Romania has started to raise its profile in the field of child protection, where we have accumulated significant experience and expertise which are important and relevant to ODA partner countries. To this end, the MFA has financed a project named “ Together for children: a stronger coalition of Black Sea region NGOs”, to facilitate the transfer of Romanian expertise in

children’s rights and child protection to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and the Republic of Moldova. The project has already met with great success in these countries, where the feedback we are getting via our embassies is positive.

Does the MFA have a plan/strategy to somehow recuperate the large number of experts working on individual contracts within international organisations or civil society, in international missions/projects, to integrate them in a national ODA intervention framework, that can harness their knowledge and prestige?Increasing the volume of resources is essential in reaching the goals that

Romania has undertaken as part of its international commitments. The MFA offers continuous learning and training programmes to its staff in order to increase the professionalism in development cooperation.

At present, we are making abundant use of Romania’s institutional expertise in various sectors, to consolidate our own projects. Many of these experts have also been seconded to different positions abroad, after which they have returned to their home base. I’ll give you an example of a much-appreciated project by our partners, the Mobility Fund for Government Experts, which allows Romanian civil servants from various institutions to be sent for training and exchange of experience in other states. The benefit in involving public experts is that this also fosters networking and cooperation between our national institutions and those of other states.

For the future, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has recently drafted a legislative proposal to set up a future Romanian department for Development Cooperation, RoAid. The project can be consulted on the website of the MFA. It is around this department that we aim to create new opportunities for increasing resources and putting Romanian expertise to good use. GF

Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu

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What does development assistance represent for the EU, in particular in light of your experience in Uganda?Bogdan Ștefănescu: To the European Union,

development assistance can be a lot of things. Until recently, one would factor in existing problems, existing policies, the overall context and would try to cover everything: healthcare, education, food security, financial support. At present, there is a movement away from this approach and to making maximum impact although there are fewer programmes. Each Delegation has three focus areas. In the case of Uganda, we target specifically transports (road building, a priority in close relation to the pan-African corridors that we support), food security, which I am in charge of and governance. Of late, more and more states are choosing food security as a focal area, because it is such an important challenge. For sure, the 2008 economic crisis, which has brought all these problems to the surface, again has played a role in this orientation.

Development assistance is also about ‘how’ the EU gets involved. It is normally easier for a state to

coordinate with other EU members. If things worked totally smoothly, we could do what is called “joint programming”: pooling resources and drafting projects together. We do this sometimes, but it’s rather difficult, because each of the member states has its own priority agenda and calendar. But we are moving in that direction nevertheless. For instance, we have a biodiversity conservation project co-financed by the French Development Agency. We have numerous local ones, where we try to work together with the member states: Ireland has turned over to the European Commission management of the funds it has allocated to a climate change project, while the European Commission has entrusted Austria with implementation of another, in water supply and waste management.

The third concern for the EU regarding develop-ment assistance is policy coherence: external aid needs to be coordinated with internal policies. For instance, we don’t want development projects to clash with our trade policies or humanitarian aid. It may well be that we are implementing a develop-ment project in a particular area and then another

organisation comes in with humanitarian aid and ruins everything, hampering private sector growth. There are no such conflicting actions where EU member states are involved, but there may be where other donors are present, unless there is coordination of development policies.

Very importantly, focus areas for development assistance are set together with the recipient state. We identify the needs together, through negotiations which also involve civil society, private sector and other partners and allocated funds become part of the beneficiary’s national institutions’ budget. Our role is in monitoring and assessing how the money is spent.

Has Uganda made more progress than its neighbours?Uganda has made progress in various areas. One

such area is poverty reduction, where it has registered a drop in poverty rates from 56% in 1995 to a current 19%. But Uganda is also the country that has passed a law against gay people which also makes reporting on ‘perpetrators’ mandatory. Some

The Opportunity In Crisis „There are a lot of opportunities in Africa for the Romanian private sector and civil society, but everybody wants to work in New York or Brussels“, argues Bogdan Ștefănescu, head of the

Rural Development Department of the EU Delegation to Uganda. AN INTERVIEW BY SIMONA CATANĂ

Children in Uganda. Photo: Bogdan Ștefănescu

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countries have cut down aid or have made it dependent on tougher conditions. Eventually, the Constitutional Court has declared the law unconstitutional. Uganda also has a growing private business sector, but it doesn’t compare to Kenya, which presents multiple economic advantages. But if you compare it to Somalia or South Sudan, it fares much better.

To what extent could Romania get involved in this region as a donor?Until now, at least, Romania has unfortunately turned its back on this

option to build up its international profile. I see opportunities for the private sector, as well as for civil society. We have good people, good think-tanks which should take more of an interest in Africa. We’ve had NGOs from Lithuania, from Slovenia, the Czech Republic, which have won projects here; there is a lot of support for any involvement by Eastern European countries. Many are staying away from Africa because of the negative image they have about this part of the world. Everyone wants to work in Brussels or New York, nobody wants to go to Nairobi, or Dar es Salaam. It’s a mentality issue.

There is a lot of potential for private business in Africa, which companies from the Netherlands, for example, or Italy are seizing upon, especially since the EU wants to set up a Chamber of Commerce in Uganda. Many member states are contributing money, but this money largely comes back to their own businesses, through the companies that do the local work. For instance, the Chinese and the Americans, who are competing in this region, are allocating a lot of funds, but they also participate in building the infrastructure that the money goes into.

What do individual experts need to know if they wish to work in development in Africa?Every area is important: food security, governance, transports. But

governance and human rights in particular have seen a flurry of specialists. Engineers, on the other hand, are in great demand. They also earn very well, on 6-month or one-year contracts, to oversee works. But nobody seems to know about these opportunities. I haven’t met one Romanian. Technical experts can either be employed by NGOs or directly by the European Commission or by the UN.

Romania needs to be better known and promoted in the rest of the world, but the rest of the world also needs to be better promoted in Romania. The private sector and civil society need to be aware of the numerous opportuni-ties in Africa. This could also result in higher international visibility for Romania.

For an NGO, it is difficult to win a project by itself: to write a solid proposal and also implement it from beginning to end. But if it associates itself with another more experienced organisation, from another country, chances for success increase manifold. Besides, such associations are favourably regarded by evaluators. It makes no sense to compete against big NGOs, but rather to cooperate with them, in order to participate in projects. GF

They work in various international development sectors and are looking to help, to make a contribution to reducing poverty in developing countries. The young experts in the Romanian International Development and Cooperation

Association - ARCADIA - have unique professional and life experiences. They are 193 in all, scattered all over the globe, who believe that their work helps change for the better the societies where they do it. What brings them together is the desire to contribute to the... development of this field back home too! They would like to see Romania become (again) an important international donor, who will thus put the lessons of its own transition to good use, explains Mirela Oprea, president of the association between 2011-2012.

„HELLO, WELCOME TO YEMEN!” This is one of the few English phrases you will hear in Yemen. Instead, you are likely to hear machine gun fire, bombs, gunshots and feel powerless and hopeless. This is what Ana Maria Dima felt during the six months she spent in the capital of one of the world’s most conservative Muslim countries, during its 2011 revolution. Ana Maria worked as a volunteer in the Office of the UN Operations Resident Coordinator in Yemen. She worked in a building riddled with bullet holes, with strict security regulations and under the sound of gunshots. UN personnel was eventually evacuated when violence escalated, but Ana Maria was among the last to leave, living for a while barricaded in her home, with no light and no certainty. “When you know that innocent people are dying only a few feet away, when you hear, see and feel that there is nothing you can do for the others and even little you can do for yourself, you understand the limits of the impact that international development makes, for all the nice discourse and good intentions”, she says.

FINDING YOUR WAY THROUGH THE DARKNESS In some parts of Cameroon, early marriage rates are as high as 30%, with dire consequenc-es on education, nutrition and the role of women in society. Diana Tonea wrote a project, got the funding and, together with the International Medical Corps organisation, imple-mented her proposal: a school course in gender violence, reproductive health and AIDS, for students in Eastern and Northern Cameroon. Diana tells of being able to adapt, of facing the unpredictable in daily situations and of how a simple lantern is one of the most precious ‘assets’ for an aid worker, in isolated rural areas, with no public lighting or frequent power failure. But, “if you walk with a lantern at night, people will know you’re a stranger. You will draw attention to yourself”, she was told - so Diana learnt to do

The European Year of DevelopmentStarting with 1983, the European Union has chosen one specific theme each year, around which conferences, debates, events are organised to draw attention on the respective subject. The year 2015 is the “European Year of Development”. The EU is highly committed to reducing global poverty and aims to inform European citizens that every euro matters in the effort to improve lives of people in developing countries, focusing particularly on cooperation in fields like social solidarity, justice and development policies.The EU is the largest development assistance donor in the world, with over half of global assistance coming from its member states (53 bn Euro in 2011). Around 130 million EU citizens have at least once made a donation to an organisation that does development work.

Romanians at Work

Stories of involvement from Yemen to Bolivia.BY ANA IANUŞ

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without lamps or lanterns and to ‘see’ in the dark - effectively to study during the day the road that she would take at night.

IN HARMONY WITH ONE’S KIN This is a fundamen-tal principle of the indigenous Chuwis and Yampara populations in Bolivia. Roxana Nan found out during her internship with the Cooperazione Internazionale organisation in Bolivia, in 2009. She learnt about their rights and claims, about their community structure and their outlook on living together. Somewhere at 4,300 m above the sea, in a house made of clay, without windows, they were debating the new Constitution, education and laws that needed to be passed. These communities are governed by general consensus, not by majority rule - only when everyone agrees can decisions be implemented. “You cannot but wonder about the meaning of evolution, progress... Can we, Westerners, come in and attempt to change these people’s mentalities for the sake of progress? How can you keep indigenous culture while supporting the economic and social development?”

THE HUMAN TOUCH Sabin Mureșan works in peacebuilding and conflict transforma-tion, an area where human relations, patience and empathy are essential to achieving the kind of social transforma-tion envisaged. He has worked in the Phillippines, Sri Lanka and the Sudan and has learnt one important thing: money alone is not important. Many times, it’s not what these countries devastated by conflict need; which, however, doesn’t stop things from happening such as one guy popping up and asking “how can we spend two million euro in six months? We have some money left from other humanitarian projects which needs to be spent by the end of the financial year!” But in postconflict areas, it’s peacebuild-ing troops that are needed to protect civilian lives, people who will live side by side with those whom they help, not just monitor everything from an office 10,000 km away. It also takes time, because transformations will never take place as a result of a single 6-month or one-year project.

LOCAL LESSONS In an attempt to understand the all too frequent shortsightedness of those who are allegedly working toward Africa’s development, Ștefan Cibian has

learnt three important lessons. Firstly, financial aid from international donors is not always what the beneficiaries want. Western preconception that direct financial donations to developing countries would help solve local problems has been proven wrong in Uganda, among other places, which, in 2010, showed little interest in EU financial support. Secondly, communication between international donors and recipient communities is often poor; that is why employing locals as much as possible can prove more efficient. Lastly, the relation between state and non-state actors is often disregarded by the international community.

MINORITY RIGHTS After graduating from university in Romania, Ana Oprișan went to Turkey on a Romanian govern-ment grant, bringing along her experi-ence in working with the Roma, but also with Muslim, Turkish-speaking minori-ties. She started as a fundraiser for Roma

community problems in Turkey, until a devastating earthquake in Bam, Iran, led her into emergency humanitarian aid missions. On top of rebuilding projects and food distribution, Ana was also in charge of psychosocial support centres for 350 children in 5 temporary camps, where 850 families were living in the wake of the disaster. She shared their ‘home’ for one year and then moved to Pakistan, following another earthquake, in this region. She spent nearly 3 years and a half there, of which 7 months in a military camp in Kashmir, working with the Pakistani army. They managed to carry out several programmes to rebuild schools, hospitals, buildings, as well as to organise training programmes for women. Ana then also coordinated similar projects in Myanmar, Bangla-desh, Syria. She now works as part of the team of the Council of Europe Special Representative of the General Secretary, on Roma issues. GF

1 Diana Tonea, Haiti

2 Sabin Mureșan, with mates in the Phillippines

3 School in Bolivia. Photo: Roxana Nan

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ROMANIA JOINED THE UN IN 1955. The country office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Romania was the first opened in a former Warsaw Pact state, almost 20 years ahead of its neighbours. Where are we and where are we going, after 40 years of cooperation with the UNDP, 25 years of democratic transition and 7 years of EU membership? Anca Stoica, project manager at the UNDP Regional Centre for Europe and Central Asia, explains the way forward.

What was the evolution of the partnership between Romania and the UNDP, especially after EU accession?ANCA STOICA: Before 1989, Romania was an

important donor of development assistance to other countries, especially from the African continent. But during the post-revolution transition, it became a recipient of such support. After joining the EU in 2007, it is once more in a position to support development beyond its borders.

This is also the context in which the UNDP’s cooperation with Romania has shifted from the traditional assistance relationship to a new partnership model, whereby the UNDP is helping Romania to both strengthen the institutional,

From Donor to Recipient to Donor Again

Development assistance policy in Romania and the role of the UNDP. BY MARIA ANTICĂ

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Improve maternal health Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other

Ensure environmental sustainability

Global partnership for development

Achieve universal primary education

Promote gender equality and empower women

Reduce child mortality

Millenium Development Goals, adopted in 2000

technical and managerial capacities for ODA, and to implement a part of its response to the partner countries’ demand for transition experience and knowledge. If, before 2007, the country programmes envisioned assisting Romania with development gains within its own borders, it is now looking ahead at how Romania could share these experiences with other countries, by becoming a strategic regional leader in such areas as electoral assistance, child protection and the fight against corruption, and by targeting its development assistance to countries that could benefit from its transition experiences.

What lies ahead?Romania’s transition from ODA recipient to donor

has required important investment in a number of new institutional mechanisms and legal frame-works, and Romania is now on a very promising path to creating its own development agency. Romania’s experience is particularly important at a time when the number of emerging donor countries is on the rise. A regional UNDP programme, spanning countries across Central and Eastern Europe, will foster East-East cooperation by creating a platform that facilitates the exchange of achievements and best practices. After all, modern development work is all about linking people with ideas, knowledge and innovation to achieve transformational change. In fact, the overall objective of our partnership is that by end of 2015, Romania will be fully equipped to implement international aid programmes in partnership with Romanian NGOs and other state institutions in priority countries such as Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia, as well as Afghanistan, Iraq and other North African and Arab states. GF

Post-2015 objectivesEfforts to meet the Millenium Development Goals, adopted globally in the year 2000, are not by far over. Progress has been made in poverty reduction, access to education, gender equality, infant mortality reduction, fighting HIV/AIDS, environmental sustainability and creating a partnership for development. However, neither efforts nor results are equally distributed among the actors involved, while the economic crisis, climate change, ongoing conflict and the emergence of new ones have been as many obstacles in the way of the MDGs. The new UN Development Agenda post-2015 seeks to incorporate the lessons learnt to continue the work done under MDGs.

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Romanian DNA Romanian justice: from laggard to high achiever and

country brand BY MARIA ANTICĂ AND SIMONA CATANĂ

The offices of the Anticorruption Department in Bucharest

D evelopment assistance donors and recipients operate on a global market where Romania needs to strive to find its own place.

As with any market, brand recognition is important to make the product attractive. ‘Country branding’ takes account of a state’s competitive advantages and the credibility and expertise of the donor contributes to the impact its development assistance makes as much as the amount of funding it can commit. That being said and considering that Romania is not a massive cash donor, SynergEtica Foundation founder Sandra Pralong says “we need to be able to promote our own brand, deriving from those areas of expertise where we excel (...), those where we have made the most progress during our transition process, because that is where we can offer the most valuable input to those who need it”.

It is precisely the remarkable progress already achieved, despite lingering

challenges and shortcomings, the field of justice reform, with all of its sub-branch-es can turn into a country brand. We have managed to establish and build function-ing, flagship institutions almost from scratch, over a short period of time and we now have one of the best judiciaries and legal frameworks. The National Anticorruption Department (DNA) is one of the top five anticorruption institutions in the EU. Its work and that of the National Integrity Agency (ANI) are of the utmost interest to other states in the region, especially those which have an Association Agreement with the EU (Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia) and need to solve their problems with corruption, money laundering, conflict of interests (where ANI is now in the process of ellaborating a unique business intelli-gence solution meant to prevent conflict of interests before it actually happens, by corroborating several databases). The Romanian model is particularly relevant because of its recent memory of reform

during the pre-accession period (hence the US and EU member-states like Finland, the Netherlands etc are funding projects which are implemented by Romanian organisations), but also post-accession.

Mihaela Ivan-Cucu, an expert in international law, considers that the Cooperation and Verification Mecha-nism (MCV) has proved to be an advantage from this point of view, thanks to the clear benchmarks which it has set, but also to the bilateral exchange of experience it facilitates. Due to the very problems it has had to overcome along the road, Romania has learnt valuable practical lessons which it is already sharing even with senior donors and Western partners. We are talking mostly about designing, setting up and managing institutions, according to local cultural specificities, legal tradition, institutional expectations and possibili-ties and the EU is internalising these lessons in its quest to better support candidate-states in meeting European standards.

The Justice Ministry has the ability to transfer this kind of knowledge and is already offering an almost ‘all-inclusive’ package of expertise in public policy and anticorruption legislation, penitentiary and detention system, trade law and regulation, especially in asset recovery etc. It has received requests from Western Balkans and Eastern European states, but also from Egypt, Tunisia, Botswana, Afghanistan and even from Western states, either directly or through international organisations or the MFA. Romania remains to this day one of the few countries that have a fully config-ured and updated judiciary at the highest international standards, on all four pillars: criminal and civil law, criminal and civil procedure. “If you ask me what the Justice Ministry can offer, I will tell you that first and foremost, the experience of building up the main pillars of the judiciary. We are not thinking of giving lessons to anyone, but we’re also no longer the laggard student in the back of the class”, says Cornel Călinescu, who is among those ellaborat-ing and coordinating anticorruption strategies and their implementation in the Ministry of Justice. GF

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IN A EUROPE INCREASINGLY CONFRONTED with xenophobia and racism and a region prone to ethnic conflict, Romania is a model of respect and support for national minorities’ rights. Under conditions placed by the EU on meeting the political criteria for accession, but also thanks to genuine political will at home, Romania has built a legal and institutional framework that has proved to be functional. In keeping with international instruments - the Framework Convention for National Minorities Protection and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages - as well as with a series of national laws and decisions, the state offers its ethnic minorities political representation, representation in local public administration, linguistic rights. There is still criticism about some implementation aspects and not all legal provisions are rigorously applied in practice - but shortcomings are reported and acknowledged by state authorities. At its extreme, rights and privileges granted to national minorities

have determined the emergence of ethno-business - a concept that designates some people’s illegitimate efforts to obtain the right to political representation and subsequently to state funding, by abusing the system. NGOs are formed which allegedly represent one specific ethnic minority and the founders can then open a signatures campaign and run for parliament - although in reality they have no relation whatsoever with the respective ethnic group. For instance, in the 2002 census, 600 Romanian citizens had declared themselves of Macedonian origin, but in 2004, three different organisations claiming to represent Macedonians ran in national elections, totalling 30,000 votes!Notwithstanding the excesses of a very generous framework, Romania has 20 different national minorities in all (not formally recognised as such though, since there is no law that explicitly mentions them) and a lot of success stories which it can pass on to others.

Unlike other areas of democratic reform, where existing models can be applied irrespective of the political and institutional system of the state in cause, there is no universal recipe in the field of minority rights, because each country has its own specificities.The question that might be asked regarding Romania’s credibility as a source of expertise while it still has unresolved problems reveals important answers about the value of the peer-to-peer relation in the transfer of democratic expertise. “It is up to the beneficiary to judge the merit of the expertise being offered”, according to Dragoș Mateescu, a professor at the Economic Studies University in Izmir, Turkey, specialised in minority rights. Romania can use both its positive and negative experience of the past years and can share it with others using European instruments available, in bilateral or multilateral projects. It may well be that beneficiary states, especially those in the Western Balkans or the EU neighbourhood, are more readily willing to learn from a country like Romania, which has only recently gone through the democratic transition and EU accession process and who is more aware of the stumbling blocks than others may be. The lessons of Romanian transformation must, of course, be tailored to the local needs, political system, constitutional framework, minority representation and their official recognition. Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina, for instance, will only take whatever conclusions can be applied to their own case - which can be quite complex, since Turkey does not recognise any ethnic minority, while Bosnia and other Western Balkans states are faced with hard security problems: territorial disputes, self-governance, independence, the coexistence of several ethnic minorities. Romania’s expertise still remains valid though, in the case of what we could comparatively call ‘soft’ problems: linguistic rights and political representa-tion. “Parliamentary representation is an important part of the protection of national minority rights and the Romanian experience is not only relevant in its own region, but all over the world, from Africa to wherever there is a democratically elected parliament and the concept of political representation, because the aim should be to grant the same fundamental liberties to national minorities everywhere”, believes Vizi Balazs, professor of International and European Law at the National Public Administration University in Budapest.No matter if Romania offers its expertise to Turkey, Serbia or Egypt, it should share its achievements as well as its mistakes, to help others avoid making them. Another essential element is that all relevant actors should take part in this process, especially national minority representatives in Romania and in the partner state - first of all, because they are in a position to offer the best input, but also because in any such ‘mentoring’ process, the involvement of those who directly stand to benefit from it is crucial to the success of the project. GF

Teaching Respect With 20 national minorities, Romania has developed

valuable experience in respecting their rights - which it could now share with other countries. BY ANA IANUŞ

The PRO Etnica 2014 intercultural festival in Sighișoara, on its 12th edition

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What have we done well in Romania in the field of child protection system reform?Ștefan Dărăbuș: In the early

2000s, there was no alternative care for institutionalised children, built around the family model. There was a single option - children’s homes, which in fact were anything but a home. If you look at the numbers, you’ll see there were 100,000 at the time in around 470 old-style orphanages. Now there are only 8,800 in 160 such institutions. As compared to 13-14 years ago, we now have maternal care centres, emergency temporary care centres and family-type homes. Moreover, there were no restrictions on admissions into children’s homes, even a 5-month old baby could have been institutionalised, whereas now there is a 3 year-old minimum age threshold, which demonstrates better understanding on the part of the state of the importance of the family environment for a child’s development.

What remains to be done?We now have around 23,000 children in

different family-styled forms of care, 18-19,000 in maternal care, 9,000 in children’s homes and others in placement with families. For us, every child who is still in a children’s institution is one too

many! Also, the problem is that we have an almost constant number of 64-65,000 children in the system, every year of the last 10.

At the same time, we cannot claim to have a well-functioning child protection system when almost 60% of the ones still institutionalised are those with special needs. There is also no pretending that child protection is a priority when we are not using structural funds to develop alternatives within the system or innovative services. And there can be no accurate monitoring of children’s evolution when social workers, who are supposed to be the foundation which the system

rests upon, are themselves social cases, because of low pay and lack of resources to carry out investigations in the field.

What we need is to gradually reduce the number of children in the system and help them stay with their own families. The big challenge we’re facing at this point is a paradigm change: from a reactive to a proactive one, to prevention. To a mother of six, who ends up in a critical situation, the state offers only one option: to leave them in its care, with the additional financial burden of cca 316,000 euro over eight years (which is the time that a child spends inside the system, according to statistics). The better option would be to offer protection to mother and children alike, helping her find a job,

extending financial support to her for one year and, on a case by case basis, perhaps paying her rent for one or two years. Although this initial form of support may seem to add up to a higher amount, it is in fact much less than the state would spend if it directly took the six kids in its care. At this point though, we do not have any such scheme of aid in place and this is exactly the new phase we should enter.

But we are already talking about the possibility of exporting our reform experience abroad...

The above are examples of challenges that lie ahead for us. But if we look back

we’ll see Romania is an extraordinary case study, because it has made it so far so soon. We are a model of good practices for many of the states in our region and in the world. They have a lot to learn from us because they are still very far from fully embarking on a reform process. We have a centre in Romania for training and exchange of experience, we host representatives of public institutions and NGOs from other countries, from Bosnia, Belarus, the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Bulgaria to Africa or Latin America. GF

Protecting Child Protection Reforms

The memory of international scandals generated after 1989 by the inhuman conditions in orphanages as well as by illegal adoptions is still fresh in our minds. We may thus

have failed to notice that in recent years, Romania has come to be mentioned as a model of good practices worldwide and its progress in the field of child protection

enjoys widespread recognition. Ștefan Dărăbuș, country director of Hope and Homes for Children Romania describes the steps taken so far and what remains to be done.

AN INTERVIEW BY MARIA ANTICĂ

A repeat of past successThe context that allowed the profound change in the child protection system in Romania to happen was almost ideal in order to remove all obstacles down the road. Pressure from abroad, political will at home to really solve all problems, plenty of resources, deeply motivated human resources, enough time on our hands and the kind of problem that touches and moves the large majority of the population - all this makes a good recipe for success, I believe. A repeat of this success story and even keeping up the good work is very difficult though, given the very different circumstances of the present: almost no external pressure, few good people who have stayed in the system and getting fewer by the day, shrinking funds, an ever smaller

number of NGOs working on this issue.We are slowly but surely heading toward a new crisis of the system. Conditions in state institutions are still very far from meeting a child’s most basic needs. Abuse, violence, improper medication and a waste of public money are all problems that are getting worse with every day. The number of children that vanish from the system and we later find them walking the streets of European capitals is increasing as well. A European Agency for Social Innovation, Roma and Child Protection with its headquarters in Bucharest would be a solution, because it could recreate the same conditions that led to the remarkable success of 10 years ago. - Valeriu Nicolae, Regional Advocacy Director, World Vision International

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Ever since the beginning of the Libyan revolution when Benghazi proclaimed itself the first free city in Libya, the team of the Intercultural

Institute in Timișoara has been willing to support and cooperate with Benghazi, from one city to the other which regards itself as the pioneer of the national liberation movement. Transition to a democratic regime was confirmed by the first free elections being held in 2012. Despite the difference in geopolitical context, the Libyan transition has many structural elements in common with the Romanian situation immediately after the 1989 regime change.

Romanian penitentiary system with its very good human rights record is nowadays recognised internationally as a model of good practice. That has prompted the European Commission to fund the project in ‘Human rights-based reform in the Libyan penitentiary system’ which the Intercultural Institute has proposed.

Comparative learning. The project team has avoided proposing a model which would be copied and implemented as such in Libya. The partnership was about comparative learning, encourag-ing critical thinking and building a relation based on trust between Libyans and Romanians. The pilot project was implemented in the Kuwayfyiah penitentiary in Benghazi, the largest in the country. Given its success, Libyan authorities are thinking of extending it to all other detention facilities. These were hard hit during the revolution, after mass prison breaks and damage to infrastructure. The Romanian project managed personnel training and partial infrastructure modernisation within less than one year. It benefitted from involvement by civil society and the National Penitentiary Administration as well as from the support of the Roma-

nian Embassy in Libya.The programme included study trips in Libya and Romania; courses in human rights; English and French language courses for staff in order to facilitate communication with immigrant detainees who do not speak Arabic; providing the penitentiary with IT infrastructure and building a software to record detainees’ data. Funding for the project came out of EuropeAid, the European fund for democracy and human rights promotion and it is the

Change in the New Libya An NGO based in Timișoara has reformed the penitentiary system in Benghazi.

BY DANIELA CRĂCIUN

first of this sort that was obtained by a Romanian organisation. It is not, however, the first international coopera-tion project for the National Penitentiary Administration. In 2013, it has received study visits from the Republic of Moldova and Armenia and it has signed a protocol for cooperation with the Croatian penitentiary administration.GF

Daniela Crăciunis Project Manager at the Intercultural Institute in Timișoara

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In December 1989, Romanian army numbered 200,000 troops who had not fired more than 5 bullets since the beginning of the year. The US Strategic Partnership (1997) and then NATO accession (2004) were essential elements for advancing political, economic, military and administrative reform and security structures changed faster than any of the other institutions - cutting down the number of troops, moving to an army of professionals, civilian control, interoperability, a common security and defence policy with the other members of the Alliance. All this was largely thanks to NATO precise instructions, but also to military

hierarchy and strict procedures, as well as to close cooperation with American and British partners. It’s a solid, well documented experience, whose lessons its artisans can now impart with others, NATO partner states that need to make the same adjustment and have a similar starting point. “We can export, as valuable experience, both good practices and lessons learnt the hard way”, says Hari Bucur-Marcu, former head of the NATO Operations and Planning Office, who admits that internal reform was not without difficulties - corruption, resistance to change, lack of political will or budgetary resources, “lack of planning, clearly defined goals and priorities, without which there is no military strength, no matter the budget you have at your disposal”.

From his leading position in the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Georgia, Col (r) Costel Simion adds “it’s important to teach others not to repeat our mistakes - for instance, when we needed to cut down on the number of troops and cash compensation was given out for voluntary resignation from the army, we ended up with many of the best people leaving”. The ‘Carol I’ National Defence University organises NATO-certified courses for military personnel in the Republic of Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, funded by NATO and the US, to introduce them to the North-Atlantic Alliance structures and support them in restructuring their own armed forces and military education. The Director of the Crisis Management and Multinational Operations Centre, Col Furnică Pascu, argues that these programmes are also important because they demonstrate that Romania is a security provider, not just a consumer. Unfortunately, formalising similar courses for civilians under the structure of a Post-Conflict Reconstruction Centre in Bucharest, which had been proposed for many years, never materialised.

For the same purpose of asserting its role as a security provider, Romania has become one of the most active contributors to combat and stabilisation missions abroad, a profile which it then sought to consolidate by extending this expertise into civilian missions - with police and gendarmerie forces and recently involving NGOs too. The niche is very generous: lacking hugely in collective defence capacity and relying mostly on NATO, the European Union is placing the strongest accent on civilian missions. However, these are also faced with shortages of trained personnel available to serve in difficult areas, with still problematic civil-military coordination etc. Under the circumstances, Romania is already considered to be among the high performing member-states, together with Austria, France, Italy etc, second only to “professionals” like Germany , the UK or Scandinavians

(according to a European Council on Foreign Relations report from 2009). Romania’s main merit is in the numbers of troops committed and ECFR draws attention on the fact that we still lack adequate pre-mission training programmes, a national roster of available civilian experts, joint civil-military exercises and we have weak planning and inter-institutional coordination. The growth potential is extraordinary though and with it, the gain in international prestige.

Sorinel Preda, until recently a civilian police officer with the UN Peacekeeping Operations Department in New York believes that Romania could aim higher: focus on bilateral assistance, which brings more visibility for the country and is more efficient, rather than just on missions under mandate from an international organisation, because Romanians are often better communicators and tend to understand better the local situation. He says results tend to be poorer when the mission is under the umbrella of a larger organisation, as the mandate is intensely politicised and needs to be negotiated among more stakeholders, usually coming out diluted from this process; money runs out along with political will; donor dependence forces the head of the mission to report what the former wish to hear; the states’ contributions with troops or civilians are voluntary, so one can end up with less qualified people. Provided that Romania is able to propose concrete projects, which meet both the beneficiaries’ needs and the donors’ priorities, the availability of funding is very much there and shouldn’t be hard to tap into.

A few additional elements could also improve the conditions for participation in international missions, according to opinions expressed by many of the military and police personnel: better human resources policies and elliminating corruption and cronyism, so that the experience of returning staff could be made the best use of and those who have received job offers from the UN, EU, OSCE or other positions abroad would receive full support from their institutions, rather than being replaced by cronies. GF

Export Ammunition

Romanian participation in reforming the police and armed forces of others

BY LEYLA MUŢIU AND OANA POPESCU

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Romanian troops in Afghanistan

What can you do that matters if you are a small country, with an economy that is not yet fully

reformed and a society still looking to find its place in the world? Not a lot; but impor-tant things nevertheless. Building a visible and credible country profile is an effort which small countries need to make to stay in the geostrategic game.

THE CZECH REPUBLIC – “Identify your legacy and make it work for you!” is the principle that shaped Prague’s develop-ment assistance policies. Human rights and democratisation, Vaclav Havel’s legacy turned trademark, continue to be the areas the Czech Republic enjoys global recognition for, following the smart way in which it has projected its own experience abroad. It acts in two main directions, with two different categories of beneficia-ries: on the one hand, states making the transition from totalitarianism to democracy (the Republic of Moldova, the Western Balkans and more recently, Burma), where the transfer of expertise is backed by government to government dialogue and on the other hand, a few states which still have totalitarian regimes (Cuba, Belarus), where assistance is delivered at grassroots level. “Working in non-democratic countries, where Czech actions are received with hostility by the ruling class is an absolute priority for my country”, says Jiri Sitler, the Czech ambassador to Bucharest. It derives from a deep moral duty to the population of these countries, as well as from pragmatic considerations: the democratisation of a state - even one situated at thousands of kilometres from your own country - helps protect your own security.

With an NGO sector strongly supported by the government and serving as one of the flag bearers for the country’s potential

(Czech NGO People in Need implements Czech development assistance in 28 states around the world), with dedicated legislation and implementation strate-gies, with state-civil society coordination bodies, the Czech Republic proves that it is possible to punch above your weight even without a massive budget. On top of this, you can also get a side benefit: Czech reputation as a supporter of democracy helps it save face when it faces embar-rassing corruption or Roma rights scandals at home!

POLAND – “Follow your interest!” is Warsaw’s motto. The fact that a lot of Polish development assistance goes to China appears less surprising when you realise that one fundamental target of Polish aid is economic development and Poland ranks seventh in the EU in terms of trade exchange with China. So it doesn’t just do charity; it seeks to promote its own interests. Only 10% of all allocated funds is distributed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the rest being managed by different other ministries, depending on their destination.

The 10% that comes from the MFA traditionally goes to democracy promo-tion and sharing the transition experi-ence. The main recipients are the states of the Eastern Partnership, where Polish NGOs work in partnership with local civil society. “There is a lot of room for cooperation between Romania and Poland in Ukraine or the Republic of Moldova”, thinks Patryk Kugiel, a Polish Institute of International Affairs analyst. Polish strategy (which is complemented by an adequate legislation package and tight communication with the business sector) relies on an internal network of policy analysis think-tanks, whose studies are implemented at institutional level.

All countries in the Visegrad Group (with the associated Visegrad Fund, which pools resources and coordinates ODA) have built actual ‘idea generators’ in foreign policy, acting at the same time as instruments of visibility, organised around the same priorities as their development assistance: Krynica Economic Forum and Wroclaw Global Forum in Poland, GlobSec in Slovakia, Forum 2000 in the Czech Republic, the Soros Foundation and Central European University in Hungary.

LATVIA – More to the north and at a proportionally smaller scale, Riga focuses its development assistance policy on doing what it knows best. Mara Simane, a former Director of the association of Latvian NGOs working in development adds that “it is important that emerging donors focus their work on areas where they still have internal problems and where the experience they accumulate this way can simultaneously benefit them”. Just like in the Czech Republic or Poland, the Latvian NGO sector is an important part of ODA transfer, working jointly with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is essentially a virtuous circle: experts have been able to specialise in state institutions, where the system encouraged them to be competitive. When the state could no longer afford to pay them according to their high level of expertise, they moved to the private sector, where from they continued to support state policy through their activity. Additionally, civil society participation in development assistance (and the associated benefit of access to NGO contacts and networking) has also raised domestic awareness of ODA and has served as a platform for Latvia to raise external awareness of its involve-ment in global matters.There is little cooperation between Roma-nia and its neighbours in the field of development assistance, according to all those interviewed, who have expressed their hope that Bucharest will take its place as a major regional player in this area, once national ODA policies reach maturity. GF

Small Is Smart How Central-Eastern Europe passes on its political and

economic transition experience BY RUFIN ZAMFIR AND MARIA ANTICĂ

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Despite the traditional tension between cooperating closely with your neighbours and the bilateral problems that often develop, the direction

of Romania’s cooperation with its non-EU neighbourhood is clear: transfer of the Europeanisation experience. The challenges these states face are the same as those which Romania has managed to overcome (corruption, well-functioning rule of law institutions, implementing the EU acquis) and it is also in Romania’s interest to have European neighbours, with whom it is easier to negotiate or trade, says Paul Ivan, an expert with the European Policy Centre. The loss of enthusiasm for enlargement within and outside the EU has indeed led to a slowdown in reforms, but at the same time, it makes Romania’s support even more valuable.

“This is essentially something that happens naturally, there isn’t even a need for an official policy in this sense, we’re simply structurally similar, we face similar problems and we have been through this process a relatively short while ago”, explains Cristian Ghinea, Director of the Romanian Centre for European Policy (CRPE). “The fact that we are still struggling with some problems is a plus, rather than a minus”, Alina Doroftei further explains, a diplomat and rapporteur of the EU Advisory Mission to Ukraine. “Although we are a small actor, we have the comparative advantage of our recent experience, which Western states don’t have. Hence, the openness our partners have shown to us getting involved, especially since we are not there to impose a certain model of doing things, we just present our achievements and the stumbling blocks we came up against, in a dialogue”.

Ghinea calls this “the ju-jitsu strategy”: a small donor turning its weakness from the recent experience of mistakes as strength, in the form of lessons learnt. That explains why Romania is most present abroad in areas where reforms are still a work in progress in the country. CRPE has ongoing projects in the field of rule of law (ensuring the independence of justice and anticor-

ruption institutions), rural development, child protection in the Republic of Moldova and in visa liberalisation, antidiscrimina-tion and personal data protection in Georgia. Ghinea explains how NGOs can export their competencies even when they don’t dispose of generous funds: “we aim to get funding from other states which have made the Republic of Moldova a priority. We are working on a quality control project

in education financed by the Estonian government, which has also funded the same kind of project in Romania.” The CRPE director appreciates that the current system of annual open calls through which the MFA disburses its official development assistance, using the UNDP as a channel, ensures competitiveness and transparency. The only issue, he says, is that too little of the overall Romanian ODA is disbursed through the MFA.

Alina Inayeh, director of the Black Sea Trust (BST), an 8-year old regional initiative of the German Marshall Fund, confirms that more and more Romanian NGOs are developing projects in the European neighbourhood. Even more, Romania receives the largest funding from BST; not because the latter is headquartered in Bucharest, but because we are the only ones capable of imple-menting large projects and we have the most relevant experience in the region, unlike the Baltics and the Central-Euro-

peans who have not suffered the same pains of a meandering transition, similar to that of their neighbours. At first, Romanian NGOs were not interested in cross-border projects and sustained efforts had to be made to encourage them in this direction. It was all worth it though, because BST now cooperates with various think-tanks on issues as diverse as anticorruption, security studies, monitor-

ing the activity of the Parlia-ment, minority rights, community organising - there is practically no field where Romania lacks the necessary expertise. Demand, however, still exceeds available resourc-es. The maximum impact and visibility have been achieved in the Republic of Moldova and Alina Inayeh believes they could increase even more, provided that cooperation with public authorities improves, especially with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The MFA has so far not capitalised enough on the network of contacts and competencies that lie with civil society or on the funds available from other donors.

The situation is somewhat different in the Western Balkans. On the one hand, some Romanian NGOs have gained local recognition thanks to the

projects they have implement-ed. On the other hand, Romanian and Bulgaria are seen as the ‘laggards’ whom only a favourable political context helped become members of the EU, despite their negative performance in negotiations - with the unintended consequence of the accession process becoming tougher, much more demanding on the Western Balkans. If Romania were more involved in the region that could change though, according to Mihaela Osorio, Political Advisor to the EUSR and EUFOR Commander (the EU missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina). In Bosnia, where it has a military contingent stationed, Romania could make more of a contribution to non-controversial areas, under the umbrella of international organisations: demining, institutional development of the armed forces, ellimi-nating ammunition in excess, minorities, economic reforms - fiscal, labour market reforms and boosting foreign investment. GF

Help Thy Neighbour

Countries in the region are prime beneficiaries of Romania’s success or failure.

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There were two Romanian-speaking ministers in the first Libyan government after Ghaddafi’s demise. The Iranian ambassador to Qatar

has a PhD earned in Bucharest.Said Sadek, a Political Sociology professor

in Cairo lists topic after topic of interest for the new ‘students of democracy’ to learn from Romania: “security, border protection, fighting terrorism, justice reform, lustration, training judges, anticorruption, policing (training and technical support)... if Romanian judges would be interviewed by Egyptian press or would participate in conferences and talk about how things were done in Romania, that would show our people that it can be done and it could put pressure on our own institutions... After the Arab Spring everything is to be done here. You can also show us how to open up the media market, have private television channels... and how to build political parties and elections campaigns. You may know we have 85 parties, none of which can really be taken seriously. You can tell us how we can promote women candidates more... how to reform our education... how you replaced the communist curricula from your textbooks. We’re struggling to do the same with religious dogma, but our universities are still weak, it would be useful for them to cooperate with Romanian ones.”

Sadek recalls the popularity that Romania gained through the scholarships it offered to foreign students before 1989. Some of the former students are now in high positions in the public and private sphere. There are thousands throughout the Arab world who now have mixed families and also a nostalgia for the places of their student years, who have projected a positive image of Romania everywhere in the region and would be happy to facilitate the country’s getting involved in social and economic projects, in education or tourism - given there is also institutional support

from Bucharest. MENA (Middle East and North Africa states )have expressly requested assistance from Romania in learning to steer through transition, because they see our experience as being closest to what they are going through. A few years ago, upon opening an office in Tunisia, the German Marshall Fund proposed to partner with Romanian authorities to build a bridge between the Black Sea and the Middle East. The idea was favourably received, but there was no practical follow-up; only the MFA has channelled some of the official develop-ment assistance to that region.

Transfer of knowledge at government level is often complicated by excessive bureaucracy and domestic politics. On the upside though, that opens a lot of opportu-nities for the Romanian business sector and civil society, soft power instruments that can complement diplomatic and govern-ment-to-government action. The experi-ence accumulated at home could thus be more easily adjusted to the target country. One option would be to work in specialised teams on ‘emerging files’, through a flexible mechanism that would help streamline communication between state institutions and private entities involved in interna-tional projects, suggests Manuela Paraipan, foreign affairs analyst, who has been working on the Middle East for the past ten years. A former ambassador to Bucharest once proposed a joint endeavour by Romanian institutions and foreign embassies whereby reunions of former Arab/Asian/foreign students in Romania would be organised every few years, where they would be able to bring their families,

visit and discuss potential projects.Romania’s economic presence in the

region before 1989 has left indelible marks and a legacy that endures to this day: from turnkey cement factories, to Ana Aslan products and tractors - which Egyptians still prefer today, be they even second-hand, to new ones manufactured else-where. Meanwhile, Romanian businesses sector, prompted by the crisis to seek out new opportunities, outside the domestic market and the EU, have taken the first timid steps in the region. Some have been successful already (IT companies in the Persian Gulf, construction companies in Iraq); many others could use some support in identifying existing opportunities and the right contacts.

To know that a specific country in the MENA is seeking expertise in the justice field or education, you need to be part of international networks of influence. This doesn’t need to be a state-coordinated effort, says Manuela Paraipan; cooperation from the government is enough. To start with, a communication instrument widely used in the EU, such as a regularly updated website, administered by a non-profit organisation, is enough to bring civil society or businesses in contact with diplomatic institutions, potential partners, local collaborators and employers and can serve as a channel to distribute information about regional initiatives and/or interests. When it comes to areas like public adminis-tration, justice, intelligence, cross-border cooperation in conflict situations, anticor-ruption, agriculture or IT, Romania is in a position to offer expertise to MENA states - and also to sell this expertise! GF

Back to MENA

Former Arab students in Romania would like to study

democracy at the same ‘school’

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Pro-democracy protests in Egypt

1When we think of Romania’s participation in post-conflict reconstruction and stabilisa-tion, Afghanistan and Iraq are the first that come to mind. Another experience, however, is equally telling for the

expertise we already possess: the EU Mission to Georgia, where Romanian diplomats, troops, police and civil society experts in law and human rights have made up over 10% of the European contingent ever since September 2008 and they are widely appreciated.

The lessons learnt during the first year in Georgia are that we need to be better prepared for the launch of such mis-sions. We need to be ready to contribute not just military, but also more civilian armoured personnel carriers. We need a national roster of experts ready to be deployed on short notice. We need to draw upon existing expertise in areas relevant for today’s complex missions - from constitutional law and legislation reform to energy, the military, elections monitoring and reform and fighting illegal trafficking. These specialists need regular training programmes and incentives - including those provided by a favourable legal framework - to participate in missions that would increase the country’s prestige and visibility. This would bring continuity and efficiency to past efforts, thus confirming our commitment to interna-tional peace and security. Which is why we should also contribute more to UN missions too, not just those under EU coordination or coalitions of the willing.

2 Over the past 7-8 years, Romania has consistently engaged in partnerships, it has hosted training pro-grammes and exchanges, conferences and seminars in elections assistence and

training for countries in the Black Sea area, Central Asia, South Caucasus, Africa and the Middle East. Recent

controversy about Romanian diaspora voting in national presidential elections should not obscure the big picture: we have a rich elections experience, with all its hiccups, as well as its successes, which can be most useful to others - and we also have the experts to deliver it. We have built a solid reputation in this field, which we should consolidate and expand upon.

3 Drawing upon our own difficult reform experience, but which is considered an overall success, we have already developed several assistance projects for penitentiary reform in

Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, achieving better human rights standards adminis-trative capacity. In Libya, an EU-funded project brought together an NGO, the Romanian Intercultural Institute and the National Administration of Penitentia-ries. Upon the beneficiary’s request, the project was then extended into a training programme for national civil servants in Romania, financed by the Libyan national government. Building a profile in this field could facilitate access to more EU funding and establish Roma-nia’s reputation as a provider of demo-cratic reform and human rights assis-tance.

4 The government scholar-ships programme for foreign students must continue and Romanian universities must be encouraged to offer quality programmes to potential applicants. For

sure, this cannot happen in the absence of highly performing Romanian geenral education. Romanian universities offer French- and English-language concen-trations. Medical school is as attractive to foreigners as it has traditionally been. For instance, 1,500 Tunisian students are learning medicine and pharmacy in Iași, Cluj, Târgu-Mureș, Bucharest and

Timișoara. Romania could aim to become a hub for students in the region too. This could be a good way to support the emergence of pro-European elites in Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakh-stan and we would be contributing to stability and development in the region while also promoting the values that have brought us into the EU. Hungary and Poland have been successful in similar endeavours. There is no point in trying to compete with our neighbours, but we should instead focus on identify-ing those areas where we enjoy a comparative advantage.

5 Healthcare assistance is vital because it often comes at times of extreme urgency and need, either as humanitarian aid after a natural disaster or armed conflict that affects civilian lives too. With support

from the Ministries of Defence and of Healthcare, Romania could install a field hospital in close proximity to conflict areas and offer specialised care that would be met with enthusiastic appre-ciation by the population and authori-ties. Unfortunately, no such decision has been made in the cases of Libya or Syria, although Romanian private hospitals and companies would also stand to win. When the government received the wounded in Libya to treat them in Roma-nia, the programme was later extended at the expense of the Libyan govern-ment, in Romanian private hospitals. Other Libyan patients opted for treat-ment in health resorts. Additionally, why wouldn’t the Cantacuzino Institute access European funds for research into Ebola prevention or why wouldn’t it produce vaccines that would make a real impact on medical campaigns in Africa? GF

Filon Morar is a career diplomat. He was recently Head of Regional Centre UNEST of the UN Support Mission to Libya - and at present he works in the UN system.

Five Directions For Development Official development assistance is an incentive meant to bring together actors, resources and

projects in a meaningful way. Five external action directions, widely agreed upon and consistently pursued could help augment Romania’s international profile. BY FILON MORAR

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Romania was an important development donor (among other things, through scholarships it gave to foreign students, Egyptians, Tunisians, Iraqis, Albanians, who are now as many Romanian speakers occupying high positions in their home countries). Romania’s participation with troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Bosnia, the Sudan, the Congo have also contributed to the country’s notoriety and to it gaining good knowledge of the local environment.

All these comparative advantages and the expertise it has, Bucharest can ‘sell’ to its Western partners - big donor states, with longstanding development programmes, generously funded. Civil society, the private environment and public institutions in Romania could thus make a contribution beyond their strictly financial means, making the most of their highly qualified human resource, while at the same time they would be enhancing their own project management capabilities.

There is already remarkable openness on the part of these (potential) partners - from government donors (i.e. the well-known Norwegian or Swiss funds, as well as the Americans, Dutch or Finns), to foundations (such as the German Marshall Fund). All of these hail and promote East-East coopera-tion, between countries that have already gone through democratisation processes and others currently undergoing similar transformation.

To this end, “you need to sit down with the donor-states, plan your agenda in coordina-tion with them as to what you’re going to do and where”, says Kai Brand-Jacobsen, a British-Canadian-Norwegian who has settled in Romania and does peacebuilding out of Cluj. Reaching this level of maturity ought to be Romania’s next target. The year 2015 is the European Year of Development, but also the year when Millenium Development Goals are reassessed and redefined as Sustainable Development Goals - a window of opportu-nity for Romania to better and more visibly project its strengths internationally.

Important steps have already been taken. Once an EU member, Romania has starting to pay towards the common EU budget. It also contributes to other interna-tional organisations and it has financed projects selected on a competitive basis, according to its foreign policy priorities: initially, the Republic of Moldova, Georgia and Serbia were the sole recipients, to which were added later the countries in the Wider Black Sea region, MENA, Iraq, Afghanistan

and Palestine, with focus also moving away from the Balkans. “Moving beyond our immediate vicinity has brought us credibil-ity that we are genuinely concerned with supporting democratic transitions and human rights everywhere in the world”, believes Filon Morar. We have won interna-tional acclaim on democratisation, rule of law institution-building (following the model of the Romanian National Integrity Agency ANI, National Anticorruption Department DNA, National Antidiscrimina-tion Council CNCD); “there is essentially not a single area where we lack expertise; we may just not have as much capacity as needed!” we hear from Alina Inayeh, director of the GMF’s Black Sea Trust in Bucharest. In 2012, Romania’s overall development assistance amounted to almost 112 m euro, of which 75% was going to multilateral assistance and 25% to bilateral. The economic crisis has since shrunk this budget, which is why it is more important than ever to increase spending efficiency. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is preparing to set up a dedicated department to manage money spent through the MFA; legislation regulating the domain is in the process of be-

ing approved by individual line ministries.There is still a lot of room for improve-

ment. Experts recommend allocating more of the budget bilaterally, rather than to multilateral projects and international organisations, because this would increase efficiency and visibility of Romania as a donor. This holds particularly true as NGOs are complaining of a lack of strategic planning, of cross-party, inter-institutional agreement on fundamental foreign policy lines, correlated with economic and business sector interests and which would not change with the domestic political agenda - if all this were in place, then development assistance could follow the same direction and be mutually reinforcing. Last but not least, it is essential to map out existing expertise, especially within civil society, in an integrated database available to all beneficiaries and donors, in order to clearly identify available resources, give professionals access to career opportunities, further specialisation and training and facilitate international institutional partnerships - a mission which GlobalFocus Centre has already undertaken. GF

Oana Popescu is Director of GlobalFocus Centre

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