Pressure to set new deal before Georgetown trip

Sudan and Egypt are likely to shoulder the negative consequences of the massive Mandaya hydropower project, one of several dams that Ethiopia plans to build on the Blue Nile River. Consultants’ studies, financed with Norwegian aid, will however focus mainly on impacts within Ethiopia’s borders. For environmental and social impacts in Sudan and Egypt, they will rely on secondary sources.

The recent British aid review and the Swedish multilateral assessment of 2009 came to similar conclusions about the efficiency of UN agencies that both donors examined. Habitat and ILO received low scores in both reviews, and are being pressed financially to reform. FAO’s troubles are well known; DfID has placed the agency on probation.

Norwegian Development Minister Erik Solheim has turned down a new Finnish request for support to the WIDER institute, the Helsinki-based UN development think tank.

The child sponsorship agency Plan Sweden and the union-related Palme Center will this year receive the same amount of funding from Sida: SEK 45 million. But over the past five years, Plan’s funding has surged to reach this level, while Palme Center’s has been cut in half. These shifts reflect dramatic changes in Sweden's approach to NGOs.

The justification for the Amaila Falls hydropower dam that Guyana plans to build in the Amazon rainforest is unconvincing, says a water resources expert hired by the Inter-American Development Bank to assess the project.

The next Finnish government should concentrate development assistance on the priority recipient countries, and avoid scattering aid geographically, the Development Policy Committee warns in its annual report.

Nordic donors have a mixed track record on addressing the transboundary impacts of hydropower projects in the Mekong River Basin.