Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin have agreed to normalise relations between the two countries. Ethiopia thereby lifts the restrictions that were place on the Norwegian Embassy in Addis Abeba last fall.

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Solheim aims to ease downward trend in aid for education

Norway will scale up the funding of primary education through the UN and the World Bank next year in a move to slow the sharp downward trend in its education aid.

The budget for 2009 represents a consolidation of the Centre-Right majority government’s fundamental policy change in Swedish aid. It includes a new private sector scheme for untied soft loans and subsidised guarantees.

FAO must radically reform in order to survive, a recent evaluation concluded. The point man for FAO’s reform tells DT a transformation of the agency’s culture is needed for it to function in the current century.

In his fourth major announcement of assistance in the forestry field since the Bali climate conference last December, Prime PM Jens Stoltenberg pledges NOK 200 million to the UN to help poor countries prepare for the inclusion of forests in a post-Kyoto climate regime.

Norway will increase budget support for the Palestinain Authorities by NOK 85 million, as an immediate response to a Palestinian donor meeting in New York recently, which calls for donors to fill a huge financing gap.