Turkish Development and Cooperation Agency
| Türk İşbirliği ve Koordinasyon Ajansı | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1992 |
| Headquarters | Ankara, Turkey |
| Employees | 760 |
| Annual budget | 383,000,000 TL (2015) |
| Agency executive |
|
| Parent department | Prime Ministry of Turkey |
| Website | http://www.tika.gov.tr/en |
The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (Turkish: Türk İşbirliği ve Koordinasyon İdaresi Başkanlığı, TİKA) is a government department of the Prime Ministry of Turkey. TİKA is responsible for organization of the bulk of Turkey's official development assistance to developing countries, with a particular focus on Turkic countries and communities.
TIKA's objectives can be summarized as;
With the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, Turkic countries in Central Asia gained their independence (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan).
This paved the way for the resurgence of dual relations between Turkey and these countries. Sharing a common language, history, culture and ethnicity with these countries, developing these relations has been a permanent focus for Turkey. There was a need to establish an organization in order to fund, develop and coordinate activities and projects in a variety of different fields. The Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) in 1992 was established for this purpose.
TIKA Programme Coordination offices were set up in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Numerous projects in the fields of education, agriculture, industry and finance were undertaken. The main focus in these early years was on educational and social projects in Central Asia such as the construction of schools, universities, libraries and providing scholarships to students and public officials to study in Turkey.
In this era, TIKA was developed to become an integral part of Turkish Foreign Policy. Its activity area was enlarged to encompass the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. The number of programme coordination offices more than doubled from 12 offices in 2002 to 28 in 2010. Focus began to shift from direct aid provision to technical assistance, institutional capacity building and human development activities. More than 100 projects were implemented in 25 countries in 2010.
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