On a visit to western Africa in 1958, Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir saw the moral and political potential in helping Africans through severe developmental challenges in food security, water safety, sanitation, healthcare, education, economics, community building and gender equality.
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion agreed. And so, a tiny new country with way more chutzpah than resources established MASHAV – Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation within the Foreign Ministry.
“Golda and Ben-Gurion thought that Israel, as a struggling 10-year-old country, could already contribute skills and knowhow to young African nations that were coming into being in the 1950s and 1960s,” says MASHAV Director Eynat Shlein.
“There are plenty of development agencies around the world, but I don’t know of another country that started a development agency when it was still developing.”
MASHAV has two intertwined goals: activating the Jewish value of tikkun olam (bettering the world) and creating political goodwill.
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