In a recent article in the Tanzanian newspaper This Day, six experts lash out at Swedish actors in the biofuel sector: the biofuel investor SEKAB, the development consultancy firm Orgut and the aid agency Sida.

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Biofuel and aid: Sharp fronts over land and food as plantations expand

Sweden and Norway are providing assistance to Tanzania to establish a policy framework for the burgeoning biofuel sector. The Prime Minister points to huge areas of unused land. But conflicts grow as plantations expand into farmland and conservation areas.

Parliamentarians in the Nordic Council, a body facilitating Nordic political cooperation, have played a key role in saving NDF from being closed down. Danish firms want Denmark to re-capitalise the fund.

Norway is channelling NOK 60 million in subsidies for the Bugoye hydropower project in Uganda through the risk capital fund, Norfund. The Ugandan Ministry of Finance has earlier refused to manage the Norwegian grant for the project.

Development Minister Erik Solheim has formalised a ban for the aid-financed risk capital fund Norfund on new investments in tax havens outside the OECD area, unless the tax havens have an agreement with Norway about exchange of information and tax issues.

SEKAB, Sida and Orgut attacked as ‘neo-colonialists’

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