The Geneva-based GAVI vaccine alliance plans a huge expansion of its programmes amid financial uncertainty among government donors. To pay for new activities over the next five years, GAVI will have to raise up to USD 4 billion - an amount equivalent to its total spending over the last decade.

Vidar Helgesen

Lack of EU membership colours Norway’s aid policy

Norwegian aid policy is strongly marked by efforts to compensate for the fact that Norway is not an EU member. This has resulted in Norwegian aid becoming fragmented and thinly spread.

OECD’s climate headache: measuring ‘additionality’

In Copenhagen last month, rich countries agreed to provide USD 10 billion a year between now and 2012 in new and additional climate aid resources. The question is: additional to what? Now it is up to the OECD, which monitors aid disbursements, to set the rules for how “additionality" is to be measured.

Finland pledges more Afghanistan aid

Finland was the only Nordic country to pledge new funds and troops to Afghanistan at the donor conference in London.

Seeks to avoid a tsunami funding dilemma in Haiti

While the public’s interest in supporting the victims of the Haitian earthquake continues, the Danish branch of MSF is raising money for its Haiti operations through a new unearmarked emergency fund. MSF is seeking to avoid the over-commitment of funds it experienced with the tsunami five years ago.

Shrunken Swedish NGO info budget

The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) has had to make some tough choices as a result of the goverment’s decision to slash the framework NGO information budget from SEK 130 million to SEK 60 million.

Swedfund makes its first Iraqi investment in private hospital

Swedfund has entered its first project in Iraq, an eye clinic in the city of Erbil, capital of Kurdistan. The aid-financed risk capital fund is pushing for more investments in Iraq, but Swedish companies tend to be reluctant, despite Sweden’s close relationship with the country.

Denmark must clarify its idea behind the Africa Commisson

A new report says the Danish-initiated Africa Commission does not distinguish between the roles of the public and private sectors in fostering private sector-led growth. This needs to be be clarified, says the author of the report Jørgen Estrup. “Otherwise, everything is allowed."

Opinions

Marja-Liisa Tapio-Biström

Mitigating climate change in smallholder agriculture

Agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, but there is also huge potential for mitigation through the adoption of known climate-friendly practices. Funds are needed to compensate farmers for this environmental service.

Bertil Odén

Inherent contradictions in Swedish aid reforms

The strong emphasis on results is welcomed, but it requires methods of measurement that are adapted to multi-donor basket funding, and a realisation that the Swedish part might not be identifiable. Otherwise, this effort will fail and it will strengthen the forces pushing for a reduction in Swedish aid.

Editorial

Rigorous and transparent

The Copenhagen Accord, as vague as it is, does call for “deep cuts in global emissions". To ensure that countries are really pulling their weight ...

Sida’s winter of discontent

First came the letter to the Development Minister from five Sida department heads. Then a second letter was sent to the Minister, signed by more than 100 Sida staff. They are genuinely upset. The Minister wants to focus on results, they say, but her expectations are “unrealistic".

DT Archive

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Quote: Standing outside the EU

“I am not against compensation efforts in Norwegian foreign policy because we are not an EU member. But there has to be more openness about it. Nobody talks about the challenges of Norway standing outside the European Union.”

- Vidar Helgesen, former State Secretary of Norway, Secretary General of International IDEA.

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