Zambia’s rural population is faced with an inadequate energy supply, with only 4.4 per cent having access to electricity for lighting and cooking. This lack.
The Czech Development Agency was set up in 2008, under the Czech Foreign Affairs Ministry, with the aim to help eradicate poverty in the world and contribute to sustainable development. Where is it helping today, how are the countries for development cooperation selected and how has the coronavirus crisis impacted its work? Those are just some of the questions I discussed with the head of the agency Jan Slíva.
Czech Aid in Zambia, photo: Archive of the Czech Development Agency
“Czech Aid is active in six so-called priority countries, and those are Bosnia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Moldova, and Zambia. These are the priority countries of the Czech Republic’s Development Cooperation Strategy, a list which was put together by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is valid through 2023. The countries have been selected on a number of criteria. First, we wanted to cover both the low- and middle-income brackets. So, we have three so-called least-developed countries: Cambodia,