February 19, 2013 – The Pontis Foundation has launched an electronic library dedicated to development issues. Students can access the development literature faster and for free.

“Development education is only at the beginning of its journey in Slovakia and we have a limited number of expert sources focused on development cooperation,” explains Michal Cenker from the Pontis Foundation. The Electronic library with development literature is a valuable information source. Books and publications are either in Slovak or English and everyone can download them from the webpage free of charge.

More about development issues

“Students often miss out on the connectivity of global relations in the world because our current educational system does not prepare them for that. They have troubles using information they memorize in school in practice. Our goal is to promote development cooperation issues among students, pedagogues, as well as the wider public,” adds M. Cenker. Currently the e-library includes titles published by the Pontis Foundation also as book publications. Readers can find here also a successful and controversial title Obor a trpaslík: Slováci a Česi v Afrike (The Giant and the Dwarf: Slovaks and Czechs in Africa) from Juraj Mesík who elaborates on the effectiveness of development cooperation in Africa. Clive George, a former advisor to the World Bank, focuses on international trade and its influence on the economy of low-income countries in his book The Truth about Trade: The Real Impact of Liberalization.

The E-library will grow

There are also other contributions in the e-library which will be part of the Pontis Foundation’s publication for the Slovak presidency in the European Council in the second half of 2016. Articles cover also experience sharing regarding the political transition process in EU candidate countries or Slovak democratization efforts in the southern neighbourhood of the European Union. The aim of this publication is to bring new ideas linked to formation of the Slovak position towards the global development agenda during our European Council presidency. So far, the webpage includes only a few titles published by the Pontis Foundation and we are planning to gradually widen its offer. E-library is supported via EuropeAid within the project: Knowledge Makes Change!