Supported projects

TALLINN - According to experts, Estonian financial institutions are popular among criminals for laundering money because Estonia offers cheaper currency transactions than Russia and less regulation than in the EU. Its convenient location for such transactions adds to the appeal.

Ask any average Belgian, or any European for that matter, to name three words he associates with sub-Saharan Africa. The odds are big he will come up with for instance ‘war’, ‘hunger’ and ‘rape’.

Debby Huysmans shows a photographic research on forgotten and isolated communities in Siberia. The two longest rivers of Siberia, the Yenisey and Lena, guided the photographer through the desolated area in search of individuals who experience this area as their biotope and the marks they leave in the landscape that surrounds them. Remainders of dreams of the past and signs of hope for the future appear through the daily environment.

BUCHAREST - 'The New Slave Trade in the Heart of Europe': poor people are being lured from Eastern Europe to the Czech Republic for forced labour. Some of the worst gangsters are now on trial but there is no sign of this evil trade coming to an end.

With financial support from the Fonds Pascal Decroos, Nick Meynen followed carbon credit money flowing from Belgium to India, where he discovered a desert full of mirages. Part from the fraud and abuse, he also noticed the difference in approach between Flanders and Belgium, the buyers of carbon credits.

A year ago the Belgian government bought 2 million tonnes of CO2 permits from Hungary. This 26 million euros investment aims to fulfill the country’s commitment under the Kyoto Protocol: Decreasing their emissions 7.5 percent by 2012 compared to 1990 levels. Under the terms of the deal, Hungary had to invest the proceeds in the Green Investment Scheme (GIS), an investment vehicle for energy efficiency and renewable energy. Belgium is one of the first countries to experiment with this mechanism. Hence, the results of this deal are decisive for an evaluation at the Summit in Copenhagen.

BAMAKO - The river Niger, Mali's vein of life, is in danger. Photographer Raymond Dakoua shows the great economic, social, human and ecological importance of Africa's third longest river. 'Le Djoliba' means 'the river' in the Bambara language.

Last year, Dubai emerged as the most important non-European destination for Belgian business travellers, thanks to its strategic location, the booming real estate market and an especially high concentration of stinking rich people. Journalist Filip Michiels and photographer Isabel Pousset travelled to the small emirate on behalf of Vacature Magazine and discovered that Dubai has a whole lot more to offer to the exhausted business traveller: prostitutes.

CUBA - Everyone has an opinion about Cuba, but in 'Cuba after Castro' Lode Delputte shows what is really at stake. Cuba's future is inextricably linked to its self-proclaimed glorious past. No reasonable person would doubt that Fidel Castro's time is long gone. Even the political elite in Havana have come to understand that today's revolution is but a glimpse of what it used to be.