Polish Development Aid to Tajikistan – The Difficult Question Concerning The Meaning of Help

No matter what the reasons are for providing development aid, the “how and where” of the countries doing it infiuences their image in international relations and testifies to the intelligent power of a country. Helping a country such as Tajikistan is difficult, and not only because of its geographic location or high level of poverty. It is hard to make some changes there (especially in the field of democracy) when a donor country has to face the despotic presidency of Rachmon and the high level of support for Putin’s policies. Since 2004 Poland has been providing aid to this country (mainly with the participation of Polish NGOs), regardless of the fact as to whether it was on the list of priority countries or not. What are the main areas of Polish aid there? And what does Poland want and expect to achieve by helping the Tajiks? In this research and analysis the author looks for answers to these two questions.