In July 2008 the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia adopted a Resolution on International Development Cooperation of the Republic of Slovenia for the period until 2015 (ReMRS15), which defines the purpose and objectives of development cooperation. Slovenia, as a member of the EU, committed itself to fulfil certain obligations related to development cooperation. EU members have an obligation to help developing countries to fight poverty, to promote development of democracy, promote and protect human rights and economic and social progress.
International Development Co-operation of the Republic of Slovenia Act (ZMRS) in Article 3 defines the objectives of Slovenia in international development cooperation, among which the most important are:
- reducing poverty by promoting economic and social development;
- ensuring peace and security, fight against AIDS and other diseases faced by less developed countries;
- providing education for all, sustainable development and good governance;
- strengthening of bilateral and multilateral co-operation with priority countries.
In addition to these objectives, Slovenia, as an EU member, in the area of international development cooperation is commitment, inter alia, to:
- striving to increase resources for development cooperation to 0.17 per cent of GDP by 2010 and to 0.33 per cent of GDP by 2015;
- will direct the development assistance also to the least developed countries, including to Africa;
- will honour the agreement on division of labour between Member States and increased effectiveness of development cooperation;
- will honour the commitments on policy coherence for development in twelve areas (trade, environment, climate change, security, agriculture, fisheries, social dimension of globalization, employment and decent work, migration, research, information society, transport and energy).
