Project Title: HAND for more and better aid through more and better advocacy

Implementing Ordganisation: HAND

Total Costs: 60.142 euros

Request from Fund: 43.342 euros

Overall Context at the Beginning of the Project:

At that time in Hungary, development cooperation, whether or not in relation to the EU Development Cooperation was not a priority whether in the sphere of international relations, local or EU politics. This apathy was supported by the statistically-proved low level of support for development cooperation among the Hungarian population. This situation made it urgent for Hungarian NGDOs to play a proactive role in shaping the Hungarian and EU Development Cooperation Policy.

About HAND:

HAND had maintained as its core objective, from its establishment,  that it would strive to “promote common interests, active cooperation, communication and partnership with governmental bodies, the European Union or international and foreign institutions involved in the area of development cooperation and humanitarian aid” (HAND Statutes). Despite constant efforts in this regard, HAND had not been as successful in this filed of its operation. The two main reasons identified for this failure were:
•    It had limited relations to other government institutions than the MFA, no relations at all to MPs, EU institutions, even to nationally affiliated ones, not to mention the MEPs.
•    Its external communication was non-strategic, reactive, ad hoc and not using the right methods.

Description of the Project and Expected Results:

The proposed activities of the project focused specifically on these two issues. To begin with, HAND would forge the necessary relationships with the Hungarian decision-makers at the national as well as at the EU level. Furthermore, the development of a communication strategy would enable HAND to sharpen its public relations skills towards acquiring public support for development cooperation.

To take its advocacy goals further, during the year 2008 and partly for 2009, HAND had defined two main priority areas of work- lobbying for the ODA act and Aid-Watch activities. Besides these two main focal points the WGs of HAND would be given opportunities to formulate policy papers, which was first capacity building in the form of learning by doing and on the other hand they would be HAND positions and outputs of the project activities. These outputs also created occasions for establishing and maintaining the contacts with the targeted decision makers.

EU institutions would be also introduced to the Hungarian NGOs by organising a training and a study tour to Brussels, and by publishing a brief introduction to the institutions. The lack of awareness of the EU development structure also stopsµed the MGOs from actively getting engaged in EU lobby.

The desired results expected were:
•    HAND would forge a working-relationship with the government in the field of international development and in this regard was invited to at least one decision making body as observer. The NGO proposals related to the ODA act were taken into account by the responsible governmental bodies.
•    Hungarian NGOs were acting more as initiator in EU development policy since they were more aware of the EU’s decision-making and management structure in the filed of development.
•    Further steps were taken towards transparent and systematic publication of the ODA statistics. Specifically, the central coordination of the MFA the line ministries provided the necessary data and the figures were easily accessible by anyone though a public source.
•    HAND took on a more public role.

Results after Implementation:

In its final report on its call 5 projects activities HAND reported that it had implemented all the proposed activities albeit not always within the proposed time-schedule. It intensified its relations with government officials, particularly in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, focussing on influencing the drafting of the ODA Act being drafted by the MFA.

It also focussed on developing Hungarian NGO capacity on EU policy by organising training for NGOs – in cooperation with the Austrian NGDO Platform- and establishing contacts at the EU level by organising a study trip for its members to Brussels to meet up with Concord, representatives from different DGs in the European Commission and with MEPs.

It also visited the Hungarian Permanent Representative to discuss national and EU development policies. Within HAND the members played an increasingly important role by taking the lead in different HAND working groups of which those on Aid Watch and on ODA strongly contributed to the activities developed by HAND. As a result HAND produced two papers on national issues, i.e. one putting forward recommendations on improving the Hungarian financing mechanisms for development and another on necessary policy and law changes. A third paper on CSO Development effectiveness was drafted, but kept for internal use only.

The final report gives the impression that HAND used PF funding mainly for activities in relation to national policies, while other funding was used to focus more strongly on EU policy by establishing contacts with the Spanish and Belgian NGDO platforms (the two Presidencies in 2010) and starting preparations for the Hungarian Presidency. While not really part of the PF project it could be argued that the three grants allocated to HAND by the PF have helped to build HAND’s capacity to start playing a role in the preparations for the Hungarian Presidency.