Finland’s development policy – being an important part of the country’s foreign policy – aims at promoting a more equitable division of the benefits of globalization. In line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the overarching goal of Finland’s development policy is to contribute to the eradication of extreme poverty. With its development co-operation programmes, Finland wants to strengthen environments conducive to development in the poorest countries in order to improve the premise for investments and trade and to stimulate economic growth. Finland’s development policy is steered by the government resolution on development policy from February 2004. Apart from the eradication of extreme poverty, the resolution’s main principles include

• Broad national commitment and coherence in all policy areas
• Commitment to a rights-based approach
• The principle of sustainable development
• The concept of comprehensive financing for development
• Partnerships for development
• Respect for the integrity and responsibility of the developing countries and their people
• Long-term commitment and transparency.

Cross-cutting themes in the implementation of the Finnish development policy are:

• Promotion of the rights and the status of women and girls, and promotion of gender and social equality
• Promotion of the rights of marginalized groups, particularly those of children, the disabled, indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities, and promotion of equal participation opportunities for them
• Consideration of environmental issues.

Finland’s total Official Development Assistance (ODA) was US$ 897 in 2005, according to preliminary OECD figures. This represents 0.47% of Finland’s gross national income (GNI), making it the only Nordic country falling short of the UN target of 0.7%. Compared to 2004 (US$ 680 million), Finnish ODA increased by 29%, however. The government plans to further scale up its development spending to 0.44% of GNI in 2007 and 0.7% by 2010. The bilateral share of Finnish aid is around 55%.

 

Finland’s bilateral development co-operation is based on the idea of partnership. The underlying objective is that the partner country has ownership of the development process, which Finland supports according to a mutually agreed set of principles. Bilateral co-operation in the form of projects and programmes is limited to selected long-term partner countries. Wherever possible, Finland seeks opportunities for co-operation and harmonization with other donors and financing organisations. The 2004 resolution on development policy stipulates that in order to enhance the effectiveness of Finnish aid, the government directs the majority of appropriations to bilateral development co-operation work and gradually raises the share of countries that are Finland’s long-term co-operation partners to 60 per cent of all country and regional support. Aid is concentrated on countries with preconditions for positive development. The target is to increase the annual support in each country to a minimum level of Euro 10 million. Finland’s long-term co-operation partner countries are:

• Africa: Mozambique, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia, Kenya
• Latin America: Nicaragua
• Asia: Vietnam, Nepal

Finland’s participation in other partner countries is characterized by limited duration of involvement, participation as a committed member of the international community, and arrangements for joint financing. Co-operation is guided by the same principles and goals as co-operation elsewhere. Bilateral grant-based co-operation is adopted in projects that:

• Enhance peace and security
• Promote co-operation with the private sector from the point of view of comprehensive development funding
• Support the realization of human rights, democracy and good governance

Finland is also engaged in co-operation of limited duration as part of the international community’s actions in crisis or post-conflict situations. Currently, such co-operation is being undertaken in Afghanistan, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, South Africa, and the Western Balkans. Finland’s development co-operation is not limited to these countries, however. The government explicitly encourages NGOs to use its funding opportunities to establish projects in countries where Finnish development assistance is not yet practiced.

Apart from Finland’s development activities as a member of the European Union, the UN organisations and the international development and environmental financing institutions are central to Finland’s multilateral development co-operation. The UN and its agencies and programmes constitute a significant channel of the country’s multilateral development assistance. Finland supports UNDP, Unicef, UNFPA as well as the World Food Programme with recurrent annual, unspecified funding. Of the development financing institutions, Finland co-operates with the World Bank Group and several regional development financing institutions. With its multilateral co-operation, the Finnish government aims to strengthen the multilateral system by

• Securing predictable and long-term basic funding for multilateral organisations
• Promoting Finland’s special initiatives
• Supporting the organisations’ reforms
• Actively participating in international negotiations, partnership projects and processes such as the Helsinki process.

 

 

Finland supports sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and HIV/AIDS programmes via a comprehensive reproductive health approach that emphasizes prevention and especially targets women and children. In particular, the government aims to strengthen national health systems in order to create the preconditions for effective and sustainable prevention, treatment and care programmes.

 

According to the governments HIV/AIDS policy formulated in 2004, Finland stresses a holistic approach to combat the disease, in which it emphasizes the following themes:

• Proactive prevention measures
• Support for civil society measures
• Human rights
• Gender equality and strengthening the work with young people

Moreover, Finland supports the “Three Ones” principle developed by UNAIDS: one internationally agreed HIV/AIDS action framework, one national HIV/AIDS co-ordinating authority in each, and one agreed country-level monitoring and evaluation system.

The Finnish government channels most of its HIV/AIDS support via UN agencies in order to strengthen global co-ordination and enhance the efficiency of the fight against the pandemic. In addition, Finland also allocates funds to NGOs for activities, which complement the work of national governments.

In 2005, Finland contributed Euro 7 million to the UNAIDS budget, one million of which went to the “Global Coalition on Women and AIDS Programme”. UNFPA received Euro 14.15 million in the same year. Estimates of the Resource Flows Project put the total amount, which the Finnish government spent on population and HIV/AIDS activities in 2003 at US$ 23.7 million.

Civil society organisations play an important role in Finnish development co-operation. The Finnish government views NGOs as important agents in the development process as NGOs can provide more direct channels for co-operation at the grassroots level, thus creating more open and participatory societies in partner countries. The work of civil society organisations is also regarded as being cost-efficient and effective in reaching the most vulnerable parts of society. The government encourages Northern and Southern organisations to work together to reach common objectives in a two-way learning process. Thus, the nature and contents of NGO co-operation should be bottom-up, based on mutual interests. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has established the following general objectives for its support to NGOs:

• NGO support should aim at strengthening the development of self-reliant and democratic civic organisations, especially targeting grassroots level initiatives reaching the poorest population groups
• NGO support should aim at widening co-operation relationships beyond official channels to the level of people-to-people
• NGO support should aim at supporting and encouraging the poorest groups in order to enable them to take care of their own development
• NGOs should foster a sustainable social development in order to establish more self-reliant production patterns
• NGO support should aim at providing ordinary Finnish citizens with possibilities for direct and personal co-operative experiences with people and organisations from developing countries
• NGOs should widen Finnish development co-operation to countries with which Finland does not practice official development co-operation

In 2006, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs supported the development co-operation and information activities of Finnish NGOs with approximately Euro 67 million. The government aims to increase the share of its development aid channeled via NGOs to 14% by 2007.

pdf download

Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland: Development Policy Government Resolution (05.02.2004)

Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland: "Development Co-operation Manual for Non-Governmental Organisations"

Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland: HIV/AIDS as a Development Issue – Foreign Ministry Policy 2004.

OECD DAC: Net Official Development Assistance in 2005 (preliminary data)

OECD DAC: Finland Donor Aid Chart 2004

UNFPA: Donor payments and pledges for 2004

UNFPA/UNAIDS/NIDI: Projections of Funds for Population and AIDS Activities, 2004-2006

Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland: global.finland.fi

OECD Development Assistance Committee: www.oecd.org/dac