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STOP AID NOW! With Yannick Du Pont, Taja Vovk, Masa Mitrovid, Sweder van Wijnbergen

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DEBATE: STOP AID NOW!
On International Assistance and Development Aid

When walking through the streets of any Kosovar city you can feel like walking through Berlin, Rome, Prague, Lisbon, Stockholm or Amsterdam. Everywhere in Kosovo you can hear, feel, see the presence of foreigners. Some of them are diplomats, some of them are part of EULEX, others are members of international NGO's working in the Balkan area.

In Mitrovica in the northern part of Kosovo, it has been like this for over fifteen years and it will probably stay this way for quite some time.

In Bosnia, a country that is practically run by the European Union, the presence of foreigners in politics is even clearer. Without the international communities support and assistance, there probably would not even have been such a Bosnia.

But what about the international assistance? Has international assistance by the EU, World Bank and NGO’s structurally helped developing the Balkans to a sufficient level? Have the international help organisations actually anticipated well on the changes that the Balkans underwent? Or have international NGO’s lost their right to exist on the Balkans?  

The debate will be lead by Andre Gerrits, professor of Eastern European History and international affairs at the University of Amsterdam.
There will be a panel of specialists, who will discuss the arguments:  

Yannick du Pont: founder and director of Spark Foundation, an NGO that develops education and entrepeneurship in the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa.

Masa Mitrovic: coordinator of several NGO’s in the South of Serbia.

Sweder van Wijnbergen: professor in Economics at the University of Amsterdam and former head economist for the World Bank in Eastern Europe.

Taja Vovk: works for European Cultural Foundation (ECF) and former curator for the Ljubljana City Museum.

This debate is supported by: