On March 18, 2024, the Department for Humanitarian Activities of Belarus published its performance results in the field of regulation of foreign gratuitous aid for 2023. The total volume of foreign aid received through the Department's mechanisms amounted to 75 million USD in 2023. It is a 14% decrease compared to 2022, when the volume of such aid was over 87 million USD. In 2021, Belarus received over 102 million USD as aid, and in 2020 – over 91 million.
Any cash or in-kind foreign aid received by CSOs, regardless of the size of the total amount, no matter how small it is, is subject to registration with the Department (which belongs to the agencies under the Administration of the President of the Republic of Belarus). Aid received from abroad by individual residents of Belarus is also subject to registration if they want to get a tax deduction - otherwise, it is subject to income tax.
The Department itself associates the decrease with the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and the sanctions imposed on Belarus by the European Union, the United States and other countries. The areas that attracted most of the aid are healthcare, education, culture and sports. Recipients are often state-run organisations that are only in form related to non-profit legal entities - museums, schools, theatres, libraries, hospitals, etc.
The decrease in foreign funding occurred while the automated information system ‘Humanitarian Activities’ was being brought into service under the state programme ‘Digital Development of Belarus’ for 2021-2025. The online system allows for electronic interaction between the Department and legal entities, individuals and private entrepreneurs, who can now register as recipients of foreign aid and file electronic documents online. Services are provided free of charge via users’ personal accounts.
Regulation on foreign as well as domestic aid to CSOs was expected to change in 2023. However, the President Decree ‘No. 3 of 2020 general regulation of mandatory registration of foreign aid in Belarus’ remained unchanged in 2023, and the previously announced plans to develop a special law ‘On Foreign Aid’ instead of the current decree remained unexecuted. The announced plans to develop a new regulatory act on internal sponsorship aid (funding of CSOs from corporate sources) in 2023 to replace the outdated ‘Edict of the President No. 300 of 2005’ were not executed, either.