MASHAV

Mashav is Israel's Agency for International Development Cooperation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mashav is responsible for the design, coordination and implementation of the State of Israel's worldwide development and cooperation programs in developing countries. MASHAV believes that its greatest possible contribution to developing countries can be made in fields where Israel has relevant expertise accumulated during its own development experience as a young country facing similar challenges. MASHAV's development programs are conducted through workshops and training in the fields of agriculture, education and medicine and are funded jointly with multinational organizations such as the OAS, the Inter-American Development Bank, the UN development plan, UNESCO and the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Mashav was set up in the wake of the Bandung Conference of 1955, from which Israel had been excluded at the demand of Arab countries who threatened a boycott of the conference if Israel was invited. It was established on Golda Meir's initiative, in 1958, after her visit to Africa. Meir stated that it was the expression of an empathy with victims of oppression, discrimination and slavery, but the project also blended other goals, such as escaping ‘the Arab noose’ by overcoming the boycott imposed on it by Arab nations. In the 1960s it was also very active in assistance to agricultural development projects in South America.

Since its inception in late 1957, Mashav has striven to share with the rest of the developing world the know-how and technologies which provided the basis for Israel's own rapid development. Mashav started as a modest program, focused on grassroots-level human capacity building at a time when Israel itself was still very much a developing country. It has since blossomed into an extensive program of cooperation throughout the developing world, with the aim of promoting sustainable development and social equity.

MASHAV grew gradually and organically in response to repeated requests on the part of the peoples that freed themselves from the yoke of colonialism and were seeking practical and political means of ridding themselves of poverty, hunger and disease that was the heritage of that era.

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