WUNRN
Greece - How Are Women's NGO's Coping with the Greek Recession?
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CONCORD is
the European Confederation of Relief & Development NGOs.
28 July 2014 –
While it’s not just a question of funding, the figures
of Greek development budgets have been in constant decline for years, falling
by 17% in 2012 and by a further 7.7% in 2013 as a result of austerity measures
according to the OECD.
A similar situation can be seen in other mediterranean countries like Spain.
For Marina
Sarli, President of FAIRTRADE Hellas,
“the financial crisis offered decision makers an alibi to severely cut funding
for development.”
“It’s a situation that keeps getting worse, CSOs do
not receive any public support anymore, while they have not received the
already spent and budgeted money from previous projects. Moreover, they have
been attacked by media campaigns that claim financing CSOs is a mismanagement
of public money, using generalizing examples that gives a false image of the
sector.”
A Change of Focus in Order to Survive - Greek Centric vs. Overseas
Poverty and inequality have risen sharply in
They are no longer “development issues” that only
affect people abroad. This has seen many organisations that previously focused
mainly on overseas projects play a new role intackling poverty at home, at the
expense of previous programmes.
“We are very sad to notice that the last 5-6 years the
Greek CSOs withdrew almost the majority of their activities from the countries
in need of international assistance”, says Fotis Vlachos, Policy & Advocacy
Officer of the Hellenic
Platform for Development.
During last decade, especially after 2001, a large
number of Greek NGOs were operating in projects worldwide. This included a
presence in the Balkans, Central Asia, Africa and the
“The excuse of corruption and austerity measures
should not justify such a remarkable decrease of Greek NGOs presence
worldwide”, emphasizes Mr. Vlachos.
Today, the focus has increasingly shifted to local
level. Migration issues, homeless people and poverty eradication within the
Greek society became the main operational priorities of the NGO sector in
For Fotis Vlachos, the negative environment during the
country’s worst financial crisis does not permit new initiatives, ideas and new
established structures to grow in such a way that will contribute to the overall
efforts for a strong and capable CSOs sector in
Greek Volunteers (GV), who have carried out projects
in
Greek Medicine de Monde, Handicap Care Hellas, One
Earth and ANCE are among the CSOs that have withdrawn the majority of their
activities.
Difficulties in Fundraising
Fundraising has tumbled.
“The capacity of individuals to keep supporting NGOs
has been reduced substantially, while their priorities have shifted caring and
supporting more organizations which work on service delivery within
“Public and corporate funds, although extremely
limited already in the sector, they have practically disappeared as ODA is
non-existent and corporate social responsibility has shrunk and re-directed to
gifts in kind or funds for 'poverty' relief in Greece”, he adds.
Good News: ActionAid
ActionAid is probably the most resilient development
NGO in
According to Mr. Kouvaras, this success is linked to
the fact that ActionAid has already built a very strong brand in
A driver of success in 2013 for ActionAid has been the
filming and screening of a TV documentary in
Furthermore, in order to become more relevant to the
national context, ActionAid Hellas has just initiated a new program to promote
micro-finance for marginalized populations within
A Glance at the Future –
The Hellenic Platform of Development, which currently
represents 12 different NGOs, has two main goals:
1. To reinforce the platform enriching it with new
member and with a solid structure so that at the end we will be able to have a
wider representative body of CSOs sector in
2. To build capacity of CSOs on transparency and
accountability set as a national priority for the sector.
“The extreme positive rising grass root movement and
the already established CSOs should overcome the separation that sees the first
as extra-systemic and the second as ‘’intra-systemic’’ and cooperate widely to
change the system. Each one respecting the peculiarity and the work of the
others”, wishes Marina Sarli.
According to Fotis Vlachos, through very hard work
with