Half of Sweden’s humanitarian assistance that was channelled through NGOs last year went via foreign players, Development Today’s review of Swedish emergency aid shows.

‘Sida respects NGOs’ independent role’

“A lot of foreign NGOs are very surprised when they receive Swedish funding [for humanitarian work] because their own governments tie aid to domestic NGOs," says Eva Asplund, who heads Sida’s Department on NGOs, Humanitarian Aid and Conflict Management, to Development Today.

At a recent press conference in Oslo, the President of the World Bank James Wolfensohn acknowledged that there “appears to be mounting pressure" for a more open selection process for appointing the President of the World Bank.

Norway was the only donor in the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD that made a reservation to the decision to permit donors to report projects under the Kyoto Protocol as official development assistance (ODA).

Using aid funds to finance CDM carbon emission reduction schemes will cause a diversion of resources away from the poorest countries and is tantamount to asking the poor to clean up the rich countries’ mess.

The Danish government will not be able to report as aid the DKK 100 million a year it plans to spend to buy carbon credits from Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects in developing countries.

Sweden has launched new strategies for the sub-region of West Africa, and for the countries of Burkina Faso and Mali.

An evaluation of Denmark’s special environmental aid facility for Southeast Asia is generally positive. But it expresses dismay over the way funding was suddenly with-drawn, and regret over the loss of a strong Danish international profile.

In Laos, Danes failed partnership test

The sudden termination of the EPSF in early 2002 has tarnished Denmark’s image as a trusted partner in Southeast Asia, according to the Scanteam evaluation. Denmark had presented the EPSF as a long-term instrument, and did not engage in any dialogue before the cuts took effect.