Sweden scales up support to UN and World Bank, Africa key priority

Sweden continues to step up its development assistance through the UN and the World Bank to record levels. In a few years, Sweden has doubled its funding of IDA and UN agencies like UNFPA, UNAIDS and the WFP. Swedish aid is rising by no less than 20 per cent next year. This is impressive, but it’s not quite the 1.0 per cent of GNI that the government claims. SEK 638 million of the budget frame, mainly for Eastern Europe, cannot be reported as aid to the OECD. Moreover, the Swedish aid administration will be hard pressed to swallow this increase. Last year unused Swedish aid funds from earlier aid budgets amounted to SEK 2.2 billion.