A bottleneck for expansion of Norway’s prestigious Oil for Development programme is the shortage of experts. Norway aims to double funding of oil-related aid schemes, but only 30-35 man years are currently available. The capacity has to be expanded and one source might be World Bank expertise. Statoil and Norsk Hydro have been asked to provide staff, but this initiative is likely to be played down.

The Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs is aiming to direct increasing proportions of a growing aid pie to general budget support in Finland’s main partner countries in the face of continuing concern about corruption.

The Swedish Red Cross is seriously considering introducing a mechanism that would, in cases where SRC receives more donations than it feels it can use, permit the organisation to divert money to needy causes in other parts of the world.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg aims to broaden his involvement in reducing child mortality in developing countries beyond his GAVI engagement. The Prime Minister’s office recently announced that Norway will allocate NOK 300 million for broader programmes in a few big developing countries starting with India.

The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made public additional figures for disbursement to Africa, following a recent article in Development Today showing that, according to figures in the Finance Bill for 2007, disbursement to Africa would drop by 3 per cent by 2010. (See DT 13-06)