International cooperation is priceless - A tribute to my colleagues

The last few months have been tough for us at Enabel . We currently have 22 colleagues working in Gaza and we fear every day and night for their safety. I was with them 6 months ago in Gaza and I was impressed by their professionalism, resilience and genuine willingness to build a better future for the people there, despite a difficult context. They are now living under the bombs and moving from one place to another every day to avoid being killed. This situation is unacceptable, and the international community must act swiftly to find a peaceful solution to this conflict.

Our vision is a world where everyone can live under the rule of law and be free to thrive. We have to admit that in recent months this vision seems quite difficult to achieve. Yet, every day, our colleagues around the world wake up and go to work with this commitment, convinced that every step counts and can have a positive impact.

Not only in Gaza, but in most of the contexts we work in, the situation is becoming ever more difficult. A few years ago, the Belgian government rightly decided to focus on the least developed countries. As a result, we are mostly working in contexts that can be qualified as fragile. In the last 2 years, four of our 14 partner countries had a coup d’Etat. Every single time this creates security stress for our teams. And every single time we need to?redesign our programmes and adapt them to the changing context.

Even in the more stable countries, we work in remote regions where, as recently quoted by an external evaluator of our programmes, ‘no other international actor goes’. Finding talents willing to work in those contexts is a challenge, but we do find people who are ready to step out of their comfort zone to provide their expertise and have a local impact.

At the same time, the raison d’être and the effectiveness of international solidarity and cooperation is often challenged. We are asked to find solutions in the most difficult contexts on the planet, and at the same time be efficient, achieve quick results and take no risks. I sometimes feel what I would call a ‘double constraint’, going to risky areas without taking any risk, or achieving quick results in places where no-one else before was able to have a tangible impact.

Yet, international solidarity is successful. We do reach tangible structural results in fragile areas, through close partnerships with local authorities and a local physical presence. Our latest annual report – [https://stories.enabel.be/activity-report-2022-2023] ?– presents a selection of examples of positive impact we had.

Even if we sometimes cannot show quantative impact, the mere fact that we put people together and keep ensuring that communities and countries talk to each other, is a priceless result compared to the cost of war. ??

So today, I just want to say thank you to the humanitarian and international development community for the never-ending efforts to build a better future for our planet. And a special thumbs up to all my Enabel colleagues!

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