Ethiopia has had years of turbulent political development and no history of democracy to build on. And so, despite promising democratisation reforms and awards from abroad, it once again fell into the abyss of authoritarianism, culminating in ethnically-driven violence and subsequent humanitarian disaster in the north of the country – in the Tigray region – in November 2020.

Five Slovak nonprofits (eRko – Good News, Mary‘s Meals Slovakia, Integra Foundation, SAVIO, Caritas Slovakia together with the Ambrela platform, through their local partners directly in Tigray, closely monitored the deteriorating situation. In March 2021, in addition to their ongoing development and humanitarian projects aimed at mitigating the impact of the covid-19 pandemic at home and around the world, they finally established the ‚Together for Ethiopia‘ (in Slovak language: ‚Spolu pre Etiópiu‘) initiative and launched a fundraising, as well as an awareness raising campaign to help the Ethiopian people in need. 

All of these organisations have long been involved in development activities in sub-Saharan Africa. With the support of Slovak donors, they wanted to provide the Tigray’s population with drinking water, food, shelter, medicine and other necessities in the first phase, and psychosocial and post-traumatic support for the victims of the crisis in the next phase. In the following case study written by Dr. Bozena Markovic Baluchova you will learn what the charities managed to implement in the field during the year of the conflict in Ethiopia and how the media and the public responded to the initiative in Slovakia.

Four possible scenarios for the further development of the situation in Tigray together with some observations and recommendations in the field of advocacy, PR and fundraising for future campaigns were mentioned at the end of the case study. Despite the efforts of the implementation team of the initiative Together for Ethiopia and the pre-communicated idea of joining forces, the ‚matching fund‘ instrument was not applied in its usual form. In the future, both participating organisations and the Ambrela platform team plan to push for the incorporation of the ‚matching fund‘ instrument into the cooperation with the MFEA Slovakia. 

This publication is part of project entitled ‚SDGs and Migration – Multipliers and Journalists Addressing Decision Makers and Citizens in the EU‘ implemented within the framework of the Development Education and Awareness Raising (DEAR) programme and part of project entitled ‚Strengthening Management, Coordination and Implementation Capacities of Actors in the Field of Development cooperation entities‚ funded by SlovakAid. You can download and read the case study entitled: ‚Awareness and Fundraising Campaign Together for Ethiopia as a Response of Slovak nonprofits to the Conflict in the Tigray Region‘ – in Slovak language here and in English here.