The story of Africa’s impoverished country was being told… Our TIKA authorities, who saw hundreds of tiny shoes in the front door of a school that our country helped build, wanted to understand this situation’s cause that they found strange. The answer they received was the type that would melt hearts: Attaining a school for those kids was so priceless, that they did not want to get the school dirty and wear it out, so they would take their shoes off every day before entering the building.
This anecdote, that touches and elates us, is just one of countless actions of TIKA. With its short but vibrant history, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) today is one of Turkey’s important tools for foreign policy…
2,000 projects per year
Turkey’s rapidly growing role by joining the Turkish states in Central Asia in the 90s, brought with it the establishing of TIKA in 1992. TIKA, which was aiming to energize the identity building and social-cultural development in the region, also gave a lot of support to its forefather’s land on the topic of technical infrastructure.
With the intention of educating the Turkish Republic in agriculture and giving a brotherly hand from tourism to health, TIKA was able to reach out to many lands with the blessing that its charitableness gave them. During the 2000s, this development that gained speed with the contribution that came with the excitement from our approach on foreign policy made it possible for TIKA to reach the bleeding Balkans, the warring Middle East and the fracturing Africa. Today, TIKA maintains around 2,000 projects a year in 120 countries. A large portion of TIKA’s portfolio is aimed at social infrastructure and services.
In order to understand Turkey’s vision and generosity, it would help to take a look at the world data as well. When we analyze OECD’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) list, look what draws attention:
In quantity, we see the U.S., England, Germany, Japan, and France near the front row. However, this data alone is deceiving… For it is much more logical to give merit to every country according to the size of their economy. In that case, it would be more correct to look at ODA list according to national income proportions. When we sort the list in this way, Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark and England are the top 5. Norway, who comes in first, put aside %1.07 of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for development assistance. The other countries follow with decreasing ratios.
At the same time these 5 countries are the few countries that can surpass the 0.70 percent threshold for the Millennium Development Goals that the United Nations determined for high income economies. Most of the countries that are members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) are yet to even come close to this margin, as you can see on our chart.
By the way, let us specify that the Netherlands reached this threshold before, but afterwards declined again. As for England, among the world’s biggest, they are the first country to meet the target up until today. As a matter of fact, in recent weeks the decision of not slipping while the target has been attained was being discussed in the House of Lords.
The strangeness in the picture
When we look at the picture as a whole, it is evident that it bears a strange asymmetry in the world’s understanding of aid. The world’s biggest economy, the U.S., is pretty far back in ratio to its income, owning a 0.19 percent performance. Likewise, EU countries, Japan and Canada draw attention in this matter as well.
As for Turkey, who is not a member of DAC, with its 0.42 percent margin, has overtaken most rich countries. If we take a look at ourselves in correlation with DAC either in volume or proportion, then we are the 11th provider giving the most development assistance. If we only look at humanitarian aid, with a margin of 0.21 percent, let us indicate with pride that we are in the first place.
This success that Turkey attained in comparison to the DAC group is drawing the attention of the world. We witnessed this for certain during the international conference held by TIKA in cooperation SETA, dubbed “From Past to Present; The Transformation of Development Assistance”.
In this direction; it is obvious that the developed world needs to get its act together. After all the many goals have been set and are waiting to be achieved. As for the developing Turkey’s performance, here in this sense is a groundbreaking example…
In short, today the world’s mentality on aid needs to be shaken up. We must do right not just for destitute lands, but on behalf of the world’s future.
