Fresh report calls for increase in Finnish international development funding
Paula Lehtomäki
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Matti Vanhanen
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Insufficient and partially faltering: this is roughly how a working group on development policy characterised the government's development cooperation policy in the group's first annual report. The report was submitted to Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) and Foreign Trade and Development Minister Paula Lehtomäki (Centre) on Thursday.
There were also some positive observations. The report of the working group, set up by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, praises the development policy programme drafted a year ago. The programme committed the whole government to remain consistent in its development policy, with a view to increasing aid to the target level set by the United Nations.
However, the report notes that consistency is still in its early stages, and that the goals cannot be achieved without rapid action.
In this context, consistency means taking the development angle into consideration at all political levels.
"If the pace is not rapidly increased, Finland will fall below the EU average with respect to development cooperation funding", noted the working group's chair Gunvor Kronman. She also pointed out that last week Sweden said that it was raising its development aid to one percent of GDP.
Both Lehtomäki and Vanhanen admitted that Finland is slipping from its goal to raise development aid funding to the UN target of 0.7% of GDP by 2010.
"The increases that we have made are not all that insignificant, but undoubtedly, in terms of percentages, the increases are not visible in the same way, because the economy is growing at the same time", Vanhanen pointed out.
Lehtomäki said that she will bring up the idea of raising funding before the government in March. "If there is enough will to speed up the increase in funding, the euros will soon show up", Lehtomäki said.
Kronman said that Finland has been more successful than many other OECD member states in helping the poorest of countries. On the other hand, she noted that only 26% of the aid that is channelled through the EU reached the poorest countries last year.
Lehtomäki was not enthusiastic about a proposal by French President Jaques Chirac, who has suggested a tax on aviation fuel as a way to raise money for poor countries.
She said that such a move could hurt Finland more than other countries because of Finland's remote location. "If we want to increase development cooperation funding, it is not primarily a search for new tricks, but rather a question of strong will."
Lehtomäki also said that Finnish bilateral development cooperation is far too dispersed, and called for cutting the number of countries receiving Finnish development aid in half, because of the limited resources of a small country like Finland.
She had no list of countries to be dropped, but said that they might be found in Latin America, or among countries seeking EU membership.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 18.2.2005 - TODAY |
 Fresh report calls for increase in Finnish international development funding
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