On April 23-24 of this year, the Central Finance and Contracting Agency (CFCA), acting as Latvia’s development cooperation agency, participated in the annual meeting of the Practitioners Network (PN), the network of European Union (EU) development cooperation agencies. This year, the meeting was held in Vienna, Austria, and organized by the current PN presiding organizations—the Austrian Development Agency and the French agency Expertise France.
During the PN annual meeting, participating organizations agreed on the network’s priorities for the coming years and discussed cooperation opportunities in priority regions and policy areas. Latvia, like the other Baltic states, advocates for continued support for Ukraine’s independence and reconstruction, while also working on initiatives in the field of digitalization in development regions.
On April 23, the PN network held a general assembly of agency directors, during which, among other topics, the current global and regional situation was discussed. This included the sharp decline in development funding from the United States and the increasing focus of European countries on boosting defense budgets, which negatively impacts the funding European nations are willing to allocate to development projects outside the EU. In this context, it will be crucial for European countries to collaborate more actively with each other, strategically invest the available funding, and carefully evaluate the planned outcomes and their long-term impact.
CFCA actively engaged with Baltic and Nordic development cooperation institutions to explore opportunities for joint projects, such as supporting Ukraine’s EU integration process and promoting digitalization in development regions. These discussions are planned to continue at the annual meeting of Baltic development cooperation agencies in Vilnius, tentatively scheduled for June of this year.
Meanwhile, on April 24, a meeting of national development cooperation agency coordinators took place, during which the PN work plan for 2025-2026 was discussed, along with the priority goals of the PN thematic working groups, including support for regions experiencing active warfare (e.g., Ukraine).
Participation in the PN is also essential for attracting international donor funding, enabling CFCA as a development cooperation agency to prepare new projects for implementation in priority non-EU countries for Latvia, while promoting the expertise and knowledge of Latvian specialists across various sectors.