Ei-iE

Recent developments in several countries have highlighted the precarious nature of relying on external funding when it comes to international trade union cooperation. Elections and political reorientation coming with them can dismantle decades of funding collaboration between unions and donors.

That is why Education International (EI) hosted a “Development Cooperation (DC) Café” meeting gathering DC partners to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of external project funding. Participants exchanged knowledge, took stock of the diverse situations, and explored future opportunities and challenges related to external project funding.

Sweden: Funding international solidarity not a governmental priority anymore

At the online meeting held on November 14th, 2024, Joakim Olsson, International Secretary of the Swedish Teachers’ Union (STU), emphasized the shift in Sweden's development cooperation policies. "Development cooperation used to be an arena of consensus across the political field. But this now has been very much abandoned with this current government. For the first time we have a government that has decided to lower its expenditure on development cooperation below 1% of GDP," Olsson said. He described the chaos and uncertainty created by the government's actions, which have impacted both the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and civil society organizations such unions.

"We think it is important for an organization like Swedish Teachers Union to have a secure funding base that is not dependent on public funds. International solidarity is a must, and funding can be one of the expressions of this solidarity " he added.

Netherlands: Uncertain future

Trudy Kerperien, International Secretary of the Dutch education union Algemene Onderwijsbond (AOb), discussed the Dutch government's plans to cut €2.4 billion annually from its development cooperation budget. "This would be the largest cut in Dutch history," Kerperien stated. Like Olsson, she highlighted the importance of maintaining a secure funding base independent of public funds.

The areas of interest of the government when it comes to allocating funds were also narrow, in her view: “Over the last years there was just a bit of money for vocational training and for sexual health and reproductive rights, she said. “But that was a very small budget, and many claimed it.” And whatever money that was available we couldn't use it for anything else, especially not for education.”

She also highlighted that AOb as a union had its own policy and a Solidarity Fund based on 0.7% of the income from membership fees. “It's for solidarity and that includes development cooperation, but we are not a very big union in a very small country, of course, so it's not big budgets, but we have something, and we are free to discuss with our partners where it goes.”

Canada: Funding solidarity projects with union money

Luc Allaire, in charge of international relations at the Centrale des Syndicats du Québec (CSQ), recounted Canada's experience with funding cuts. "In 2015, the Conservative government shut down the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and since then all the trade unions in Canada couldn't receive any funding from the government for our projects," Allaire explained.

The budget for international affairs in Canada is now 0.26% of GNI, the lowest amount that has ever been allocated to this sector.

He also stressed the importance of designing projects based on the needs of partner organizations and maintaining trust in the people they work with, as well as experiencing first-hand how the projects unfold on the ground.

Germany: Trade unions are social partners for development cooperation projects

Carmen Ludwig, International Secretary of the German education union Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft (GEW), described Germany's mixed situation, where the union has traditionally not received any direct funding for international cooperation work.

On the one hand, there is a threat that development cooperation funds from the Ministry of Development Cooperation could be reduced. Ludwig said worryingly: “We will have to see in the future how this is going to affect development cooperation in general, and civil society organizations who are involved in this.”

On the other hand, she referred positively to a shift of focus away from trade only, contrary to what is the case now in Sweden. “The current Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Confederation of German trade unions agree that there need to be a stronger focus on trade unions also as social partners. Trade union partnerships are important to improve working conditions and thus to create sustainable social structures. The ministry also opened a funding line especially for trade unions in development cooperation for the very first time. With this support, the GEW, together with the education union TUESWU in Ukraine, can start a project to strengthen trade union work in times of war.’

United Kingdom: Restoring long-standing partnerships

Oliver Mawhinney, International Policy Specialist at the National Education Union (NEU), joined his colleagues in regretting that the New Labour government in the UK was having a disappointing stance towards cooperation funding.

“We had a long-standing Civil Society Challenge Fund,” he said, “where trade unions could access funding from our Department for International Development at the time, with a focus on capacity development projects in the global South. The Conservative government shut down that funding project in 2010, and since then trade unions in the UK have had no external funding from the government available for our development cooperation work.”

Mawhinney went on to describe the amounts available for cooperation in recent times: The first budget under the new UK government set the aid budget for the next year at 0.5% of GNI. “This has been a general trend since 2020, when our Conservative government decided to introduce legislation to reduce the aid budget from 0.7% downwards. One of the real challenges we're facing is reinstating the aid budget to 0,7% of GNI.” He added that the union did not expect the aid budget to return to 0.7% until 2028-2029, and that education had been one of the worst affected sectors by the cuts in the aid budget.

The NEU colleague’s final remarks reflected the general feeling of education unions involved in development cooperation: “Our collective solidarity is more important than ever in this Europe- and global wide struggle.”

The topic attracted a great deal of interest among DC partners and will most certainly re-emerge during debates when DC Cafés re-open in January 2025.