Development Co-operation Profiles

Slovak Republic

Introduction

The Slovak Republic’s development co-operation programme is based on its own transformative experience of building independent state institutions, developing a market economy and fulfilling the principles of democracy. Most of the Slovak Republic’s official development assistance (ODA) is delivered multilaterally through the European Union (EU) institutions. The Slovak Republic’s total ODA (USD 174.5 million, preliminary data) decreased in 2023, representing 0.14% of gross national income (GNI).

Find the methodological notes behind the profile here.

Policy

A Medium-Term Strategy for Development Cooperation of the Slovak Republic for 2019-2023, which was extended to 2024, identifies six focus sectors, including education, health and governance, with a geographical focus on the Western Balkans, the Eastern Partnership of the European Union, East Africa and the Middle East. The Slovak Republic’s main programme countries are Georgia, Kenya and Moldova. The country strategy aims to strengthen the thematic focus of the Slovak Republic’s engagement.

The Slovak Republic strongly supports a rules-based international system and has demonstrated leadership in international fora such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Human Rights Council, and the United Nations General Assembly. Peace and security are among its top priorities, and conflict prevention was a focal point during the Slovak Republic’s Chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2019.

Poverty and inequality reduction focus

The Medium-Term Strategy for Development Cooperation of the Slovak Republic for 2019-2023 consists of four pillars, one of which focuses on poverty reduction and social inclusion. It also addresses the root causes of migration and the refugee crisis. The Slovak Republic responds by focusing on creating jobs, supporting food security, developing and increasing human capital, and increasing economic and social resilience in partner countries. Its inequality focus zooms in on gender equality, for which it has published guidance with a cross-sector focus.

Findings from OECD-DAC reviews

The 2022 OECD-DAC mid-term review commended the Slovak Republic for strengthening its strategic focus by reducing geographic and thematic fragmentation and developing country strategies and guidance on cross-cutting issues. It also highlighted efforts to enhance partnerships with civil society organisations (CSOs) and encouraged continued dialogue on support for CSOs. The mid-term review stressed the need for a cross-government effort to increase ODA and noted that human resources remain a concern for sustaining the reform dynamic. It noted that the Slovak Republic had taken steps to address all of the 13 recommendations the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) made in 2019. Learn more about the Slovak Republic’s 2022 DAC mid-term review [DCD/DAC/AR(2024)3/29] and 2019 peer review.

ODA allocation overview

The Slovak Republic provided USD 174.5 million (preliminary data) of ODA in 2023 (USD 156.4 million in constant terms), representing 0.14% of GNI.1 This was a decrease of 9% in real terms in volume and a decrease in the share of GNI from 2022. The Slovak Republic has adopted an informal roadmap to reach its European commitment to achieve 0.33% ODA/GNI and collectively achieve a 0.7% ODA/GNI ratio by 2030. The Slovak Republic provided all of its ODA as grants in 2022.2

The Slovak Republic ranks 31st among DAC member countries in terms of ODA/GNI ratio. Its ODA/GNI has not increased substantially in the past five years but decreased in 2023. The Slovak Republic is among DAC members with the highest share of ODA as core contributions to multilateral organisations (76.3%). It has a high share of bilateral ODA for the health sector (35.9% of gross bilateral ODA).

 

Notes: Data on official development assistance (ODA) volumes (figure above) are in constant 2022 prices. Data for 2023 are preliminary. See the methodological notes for further details.

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The Slovak Republic is committed to several international targets and Development Assistance Committee standards and recommendations. Learn more about DAC recommendations.

Performance against commitments and DAC recommendations

Description	Target	2021	2022	2023, preliminary
ODA as a share of GNI (%)	0.33	0.14	0.15	0.14
Total ODA to least developed countries as a share of GNI (%)	0.15-0.20	0.02	0.02
Share of untied ODA covered by the DAC Recommendation	100	1.6	12.1
Share of untied ODA (All sectors and countries beyond the scope of the Untying Recommendation) (%)		41.2	13.4
Grant element of total ODA (%)	>86	100	100

Note: ODA: official development assistance; GNI: gross national income; DAC: Development Assistance Committee. This table only includes information about ODA data-related DAC recommendations.

The Slovak Republic provided a higher share of its ODA multilaterally in 2022. Gross bilateral ODA was 23.7% of total ODA disbursements. Twenty-five percent of gross bilateral ODA was channelled through multilateral organisations (earmarked contributions). The Slovak Republic allocated 76.3% of total ODA as core contributions to multilateral organisations.

 

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ODA for Ukraine

In 2023, the Slovak Republic provided USD 8.8 million (preliminary data) of net bilateral ODA to Ukraine to respond to the impacts of Russia’s war of aggression, an 8.7% decrease from 2022 in real terms. USD 2.8 million of the amount was allocated to humanitarian assistance, a 61.6% decrease from 2022.

 

Note: The amount reported in 2023 is an estimate, based on preliminary figures reported to the OECD and published in April 2024.

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ODA to and through the multilateral system

In 2022, the Slovak Republic provided USD 141.6 million of gross ODA to the multilateral system, an increase of 13.2% in real terms from 2021. Of this, USD 131.3 million was core multilateral ODA, while USD 10.4 million was non-core contributions earmarked for a specific country, region, theme or purpose. Project-type funding earmarked for a specific theme and/or country accounted for 73% of the Slovak Republic’s non-core contributions, and 27% was programmatic funding (to pooled funds and specific-purpose programmes and funds).

 

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Eighty-one per cent of the Slovak Republic’s total contributions to multilateral organisations in 2022 were allocated to EU Institutions.

 

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The United Nations (UN) system received 5% of the Slovak Republic’s multilateral contributions, of which USD 2 million (28.6%) represented earmarked contributions. Out of a total volume of USD 7.1 million to the UN system, the top three UN recipients of the Slovak Republic’s support (core and earmarked contributions) were UNDP (USD 1.8 million), the WTO-ITC (USD 0.8 million) and UNDPO-UN Peacekeeping operations (USD 0.7 million).

 

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See the section on Geographic, sectoral and thematic focus of ODA for the breakdown of bilateral allocations, including ODA earmarked through the multilateral development system. Learn more about multilateral development finance.

Bilateral ODA

In 2022, the Slovak Republic’s bilateral spending increased compared to the previous year. It provided USD 40.7 million of gross bilateral ODA (which includes earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations). This represented an increase of 16.1% in real terms from 2021.

In 2022, country programmable aid was 50.4% of the Slovak Republic’s gross bilateral ODA, compared to the DAC country average of 42%. The Slovak Republic reports less than 5% of total gross bilateral ODA as refugee costs.

 

Note: NGO: non-governmental organisation.

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In 2022, the Slovak Republic channelled its bilateral ODA mainly through the public sector. Technical co-operation made up 1.8% of gross ODA in 2022.

 

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Civil society organisations

In 2022, CSOs received USD 5.6 million of gross bilateral ODA, of which 17.3% was directed to CSOs based in developing countries. Overall, 0% of gross bilateral ODA was allocated to CSOs as core contributions and 13.7% was channelled through CSOs to implement projects initiated by the donor (earmarked funding). From 2021 to 2022, the combined core and earmarked contributions for CSOs decreased as a share of bilateral ODA, from 14% to 13.7%. Learn more about the DAC Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid.

 

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Geographic, sectoral and thematic focus of ODA

In 2022, the Slovak Republic’s bilateral ODA was primarily focused on ODA-eligible countries in Europe. USD 19.9 million was allocated to ODA-eligible countries in Europe (of which 43.3% for Ukraine) and USD 2.6 million to America, accounting respectively for 48.8% and 6.4% of gross bilateral ODA. USD 2.2 million was allocated to Africa. Europe was also the main regional recipient of the Slovak Republic’s earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations, which was in line with policy priorities.

Bilateral ODA by recipient country

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In 2022, 61.3% of gross bilateral ODA went to the Slovak Republic’s top 10 recipients. Its top 10 recipients are in the Western Balkans, America, Africa and the Middle East. The share of gross bilateral ODA not allocated by country was 33.1%, of which 9.8% consisted of expenditures for processing and hosting refugees in provider countries.

 

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In 2022, the Slovak Republic allocated 0.02% of its GNI to the least developed countries (LDCs). The Slovak Republic allocated the highest share of gross bilateral ODA (32.8%) to upper middle-income countries in 2022, noting that 33.1% was unallocated by income group. Least developed countries (LDCs) received 1.7% of the Slovak Republic’s gross bilateral ODA (USD 730 000). Additionally, the Slovak Republic allocated 3.3% of gross bilateral ODA to land-locked developing countries in 2022, equal to USD 1.3 million. The Slovak Republic allocated 6.3% of gross bilateral ODA to small island developing states (SIDS) in 2022, equal to USD 2.6 million.

 

Note: LDC: least developed country; LIC: low-income country; LMIC: lower middle-income country; UMIC: upper middle-income country; MADCTs: more advanced developing countries and territories.

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Fragile contexts

Support to fragile contexts reached USD 3.1 million in 2022, representing 7.7% of the Slovak Republic’s gross bilateral ODA. Zero per cent of this ODA was provided in the form of humanitarian assistance, decreasing from 0.4% in 2021, while 5% was allocated to peace, increasing from 1.8% in 2021. Five per cent went to conflict prevention, a subset of contributions to peace, representing an increase from 1.8% in 2021. Learn more about support to fragile contexts on the States of Fragility platform.

 

Note: HDP: humanitarian-development-peace. The chart represents only gross bilateral official development assistance that is allocated by country.

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Sectors

In 2022, more than half of the Slovak Republic’s bilateral ODA was allocated to social infrastructure and services. Investments in this area accounted for 58.9% of bilateral ODA commitments (USD 23.7 million) with a strong focus on support to health and population (USD 16.4 million), accounting for 40.9% of gross bilateral ODA, and representing a 1 531.1% increase from 2019 in real terms.

, education (USD 4.2 million) and government and civil society (USD 1.4 million). Humanitarian assistance amounted to USD 7 million (17.5% of bilateral ODA). Earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations also focused on social sectors in 2022.

 

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ODA for COVID-19

In 2022, the Slovak Republic disbursed USD 15.7 million in ODA for the COVID-19 response, up from USD 12.7 million in 2021. Regarding COVID-19 vaccines, the Slovak Republic provided USD 15.4 million in ODA for donations of doses to developing countries in 2022, up 41.7% from USD 10.8 million in 2021. All COVID-19 vaccines accounted for donations of doses from domestic supply in 2022.

Gender equality

In the period 2021-22, the Slovak Republic committed 12.9% of its screened bilateral allocable aid to gender equality and women’s empowerment, as either a principal or significant objective (down from 38.3% in 2019-20), compared with the 2021-22 DAC average of 43.3%. This is equal to USD 4.6 million of bilateral ODA in support of gender equality. Unpacking the gender equality data further:

• The share of screened bilateral allocable aid committed to gender equality and women’s empowerment as a principal objective was 1.3% in 2021-22, compared with the DAC average of 3.9%.

• The Slovak Republic includes gender equality objectives in 9.6% of its ODA for humanitarian aid, below the 2021-22 DAC average of 17%.

• The Slovak Republic screens virtually all their bilateral allocable aid activities against the DAC gender equality policy marker (100% in 2021-22).

• The Slovak Republic committed USD 5.8 thousand of ODA to support women’s rights organisations and movements and government institutions in 2021-22.

Learn more about Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls: DAC Guidance for Development Partners and the DAC Recommendation on Ending Sexual Exploitation in Development Co-operation.

 

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Environment

In 2021-22, the Slovak Republic committed 7% of its total bilateral allocable aid (USD 2.4 million) in support of the environment and the Rio Conventions (the DAC average was 35.1%), down from 25.2% in 2019-20. Unpacking the environmental data further:

• Two per cent of screened bilateral allocable aid focused on environmental issues as a principal objective, compared with the DAC average of 11%.

• Five per cent of total bilateral allocable aid (USD 1.5 million) focused on climate change overall, down from 11.4% in 2019-20 (the DAC average was 30.5%). The Slovak Republic had a greater focus on mitigation (3.9%) than on adaptation (1.4%) in 2021-22.

• Two per cent of screened bilateral allocable aid (USD 0.8 million) focused on biodiversity overall, down from 3.5% in 2019-20 (the DAC average was 7.2%).

Learn more about the DAC Declaration on Aligning Development Co-operation with the Goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change [DAC/CHAIR(2021)1/FINAL].

 

Note: In this figure, the category climate includes climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation efforts.

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Performance against environment and Rio Markers, 2021-2022

Marker	Constant 2022 USD million	% of bilateral allocable
Environment	2.4	7
Rio markers:
Biodiversity	0.8	2.3
Desertification	0	0
Climate change mitigation only	1	3
Climate change adaptation only	0.2	0.6
Both climate change mitigation and adaptation	0.3	0.9

Note: Individual Rio Markers should not be added up as this can result in double counting.

Other cross-cutting sectors and themes

In 2022, the Slovak Republic also:

• Rarely requests exemptions regarding the payment of local tax and custom duties for ODA-funded goods and services and mmakes information available on the OECD Digital Transparency Hub on the Tax Treatment of ODA.

• Committed USD 1.2 million (3.3% of its bilateral allocable aid) to address the immediate or underlying determinants of malnutrition in developing countries across a variety of sectors, such as emergency response, health and agriculture, forestry, fishing.

• Committed USD 0.9 million (2.5% of its bilateral allocable aid) to development co-operation projects and programmes that promote the inclusion and empowerment of persons with disabilities.

Effectiveness of development co-operation

The Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation monitoring exercise tracks the implementation of the effectiveness commitments. Following the reform of the exercise over 2020-22, the 4th global monitoring round (2023-26) is underway. Information on partner countries’ participation in the exercise, as well as their progress, is available at the Global Dashboard.

To help improve the transparency of development co-operation, the OECD provides regular feedback to members on the overall quality of their statistical reporting and works with each member to ensure the data meet high-quality standards before they are published. Regarding DAC/CRS reporting to the OECD, the Slovak Republic’s reporting in 2022 was late but complete and accurate.

Total official support for sustainable development

Total official support for sustainable development (TOSSD) is an international statistical standard that monitors all official and officially supported resources for financing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in developing countries, as well as for addressing global challenges. It provides a broad measure of development finance with the objective of increasing transparency and accountability of all external support that developing countries receive. In 2022, activities reported by the Slovak Republic as TOSSD totalled USD 178.5 million, up from USD 167.7 million in 2021. The Slovak Republic’s TOSSD activities mostly targeted SDG 4 Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, and SDG 1 End poverty in all its forms everywhere. Activity-level data on TOSSD by recipient are available at https://tossd.online.

Institutional set-up

The Slovak Republic’s development co-operation policy and co-ordination sits with the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (MFEA), with much of the ministry’s budget implemented by SAIDC Agency. The Slovak import-export bank, EXIMBANKA, is developing concessional loans for businesses looking to invest in emerging markets and developing countries. SlovakAid is the brand for all Slovak development co-operation efforts. The Slovak Development Cooperation Coordination Committee is chaired by the Secretary of State of the MFEA and brings together a wide range of ministries. To strengthen co-ordination, a working group was created in December 2022 to prepare the new Medium-Term Development Cooperation Strategy for 2024-2030. The working group meets regularly to discuss the principles and objectives of SlovakAid, as well as its sectoral and territorial priorities.

There are roughly 40 staff working on development co-operation in the MFEA and SlovakAid, of which 3 staff positions – development diplomats – are placed at embassies in partner countries.

 

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The Coordination Committee for Development Cooperation includes representatives of civil society active in development co-operation, humanitarian assistance and global citizenship education, which are co-ordinated under the umbrella body Ambrela.

Quality and oversight

Internal systems and processes help ensure the effective delivery of the Slovak Republic’s development co-operation. Select features are shown in the table below.

Features of the Slovak Republic’s systems for quality and oversight

Quality assurance	The Slovak Republic has guidance on its cross-cutting priorities of gender equality and the environment, which is integrated into programming through training and requirements for project proposals.
Risk management	Risk management is addressed in a multi-stage process involving both the Slovak Agency for International Development Cooperation and the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs at the appraisal stage. Identified risks are subsequently monitored at the project level.
Innovation and adaptation	The 2019-2023 Medium-Term Strategy for Development Cooperationputs an emphasis on innovation, framed as favourable for economic development and boosting private sector participation.
Results management	The Slovak Republic is committed to consolidating its results system. New country strategies in programme countries contain medium-term objectives, logical frameworks and indicators. Staff have received training on results management, and the plan is to introduce new results-based management guidance and tools through a dedicated project.
Evaluation	The mandate for evaluating Slovak official development assistance is assigned to the Department for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid within the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. Evaluation findings are publicly disseminated and reflected in decision-making processes, with management responses adopted to ensure follow-up.
Knowledge management and learning	The Slovak Republic draws on the expertise of the United Nations Development Programme to support internal reform efforts, for instance, on cross-cutting issues. As it has few development experts in embassies, it regularly provides development training to its economic diplomats.
Communication and transparency	A communication campaign is planned for 2023. The campaign “Our aid has no boundaries” is implemented by the Slovak Agency for International Development Cooperation in co-operation with a private media agency. It focuses on explaining to youth the purpose of development co-operation, its principles and aims.

Additional resources

2022 OECD-DAC mid-term review of the Slovak Republic: DCD/DAC/AR(2024)3/29

2019 OECD-DAC peer review of the Slovak Republic: https://www.oecd.org/dac/oecd-development-co-operation-peer-reviews-slovak-republic-2019-9789264312326-en.htm

Medium-term Strategy for Development Co-operation 2019-2023: https://slovakaid.sk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/strednodoba_strategia_rozvojovej_spoluprace_eng_2019-2023_644_stran_final.pdf

Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic: https://www.mfsr.sk/en/european-international-affairs

Slovak Development Agency (SlovakAid): https://www.slovakaid.sk/en

CSO umbrella organisation Ambrela: https://ambrela.org/about-us

Slovak Republic’s practices on the Development Co-operation TIPs: Tools Insights Practices learning platform: https://www.oecd.org/development-cooperation-learning?tag-key+partner=slovak+republic#search

Member of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) since 2013.

The methodological notes provide further details on the definitions and statistical methodologies applied, including the grant-equivalent methodology, core and earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations, country programmable aid, channels of delivery, bilateral ODA unspecified/unallocated, bilateral allocable aid, the gender equality policy marker, and the environment markers.

Notes

← 1.  DAC members adopted the grant-equivalent methodology starting from their reporting of 2018 data as a more accurate way to count the donor effort in development loans. See the methodological notes for further details.

← 2.  Other providers also provide non-grants, which include sovereign loans, multilateral loans, equity investment and loans to the private sector.