ADA - Austrian Development Agency

Combating poverty, ensuring peace and preserving the environment: These are the three major concerns of Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation. Every year, about 600 projects and programmes are implemented and funds of well over EUR 100 million are deployed to improve living conditions in developing countries.

Together with the Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs (MFA), partner countries, public institutions, civil-society organisations and businesses, ADA seeks to ensure that sustainable development works to the benefit of all people in Africa, Asia, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe as well as in the Caribbean. Personnel in 13 coordination offices make sure that ADA operations are in line with national development goals and the needs of the local population and that funds are put to the best possible use.

MFA allocates the ADA budget, but other federal ministries and donors or the EU, for example, draw on ADA expertise. Since 2008, the Austrian Development Agency has been conducting programmes for the European Commission. Via a further financing instrument, business partnerships, it allocates private funds for development cooperation: ADA promotes projects of enterprises in developing countries and emerging nations if they contribute to improving the conditions of life of the population in a region. Most funds are invested in its key regions and priority countries.