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Five Issues of Trilateral Cooperation
By Peter Hulényi
Abstract
More then two years ago the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) offered to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia a joint implementation of projects in a developing world. It took some time to create the mechanism of this so-called trilateral cooperation. Not everybody was enthusiastic about the whole idea. In spite of certain scepticism at the beginning, in June 2004, first Slovak-Canadian projects were launched. Slovakia became the first country from the "Visegrad Four" where the virtual term trilateral cooperation received finally its real form. It is good to know, that trilateral cooperation is not only a magic slogan, that is sufficient to pronounce and it works. It requires a lot of time and energy, but at the end of the day it is giving deserved fruits.
The article summarises first Slovak-Canadian experiences with a trilateral cooperation, where it begins and how applications are assessed and selected to fit both Slovak and Canadian sectoral and territorial priorities. The list of fifteen joint projects is enclosed.
At the same time the article indicates the lesson learned from this particular case could be a good inspiration for other donors. Some of them have been already approached through Slovak Embassies. The article concludes that the main effect from trilateral cooperation is not a political declaration or fund raising, but a linkage between development experience of traditional donor and knowledge potential of emerging donor.