Tsunami takes 26% of Finnish humanitarian budget

In the past two years, the World Bank has had cases of alleged misconduct affecting the equivalent of one in 25 of its staff members. In the same period, there have been no allegations of fraud or corruption involving Norwegian or Swedish aid staff.

Duncan Smith states the Bank has steadily increased the resources available for investigations. “Nonetheless, like any such investigative agency, we have difficult decisions to make about how to prioritise and manage the caseload ... We [respond] by focussing resources on higher impact cases, increasing proactive means of finding cases of fraud and corruption and by using tools that give bigger results in a shorter time period," he says. During the past four years, 41 staff members of the World Bank have been fired due to fraud and other misconduct, while 114 Bank officials have received disciplinary measures. The number of new investigations into staff misconduct is rising.

The humanitarian medical NGO Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) has decided to divert some of the money donated in early January for tsunami victims to other crises, mostly in Africa.

In the midst of congratulatory celebrations marking 40 years of Finnish development cooperation, Finland announced new government spending limits for the period 2006-2009 that make it practically impossible for overall aid spending to be increased to the UN recommended level of 0.7 per cent of GNI by 2010, as set out in the current government programme.

The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has nominated Søren Jessen-Petersen as candidate for the position as UN High Commissioner. Jessen-Petersen is currently Special Representative of the UN Secretary General and Head of the UN Mission in Kosovo. He has a long record with the UN and was Assistant High Commissioner at UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva during 1998-2001. Jessen-Petersen is a lawyer and journalist by training.

Norway has cleared the last main hurdle towards setting up a high-level commission on the rights of the poor. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has given his blessings; the commission will be launched in September.  

Ministers from more than one hundred countries, donors and recipients, met in Paris at the beginning of March and agreed on a comprehensive declaration for improved aid effectiveness. The agreement includes 12 indicators for monitoring the process. (See Below)

More than 40 donors met in Stockholm earlier this month to discuss a new replenishment mechanism for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The new financing mechanism will be valid for 2006 and 2007.

The Right Livelihood Award (RLA) Foundation has still not totally given up hopes of being granted a place on the Swedish government’s special list of tax-exempt organisations.

Charges of involvement in an international terrorist network levelled last fall against the Danish Islamic NGO, the Independent Scandinavian Relief Agency (ISRA), remain unresolved.

The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has recently confirmed a multilateral unearmarked contribution to the World Food Programme for 2005 of SEK 390 million, which is a 46 per cent increase (SEK 100 million) compared with the previous year.