Press release 260/2012
Ministry for Foreign Affairs
6.11.2012 14.07
Finland must concentrate its development cooperation
efforts and clarify their goals and benchmarks applied to
them. At the same time, Finland must confirm how it can
fulfil its international commitment to provide 0.7 per cent
of GNI to development cooperation by 2015, the OECD points
out in its review of Finnish development policy and
cooperation system, published today, 6 November. The OECD
makes 13 recommendations to Finland. By implementing these,
Finland could improve the impact and predictability of its
development policy, and therefore better support developing
countries in their own efforts.
"The review highlights many issues that have already been
addressed in the new Development Policy Action Plan. In
addition, the Government has committed itself to increasing
the otherwise frozen development co-operation funding by
using the auction revenues obtained from the EU Emission
Trading System," said Minister for International
Development Heidi Hautala in the publication event.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has also addressed the
issue of enhancing the focus in development cooperation.
"The new country programmes, used for steering the Finnish
cooperation in the long-term partner countries, are an
important tool for this purpose. Our assistance to
multilateral organisations, such as the UN and development
banks, will be reviewed during the winter and reformed on
the basis of results obtained. As concerns NGOs, we are
currently in the process of selecting new partner
organisations, which will increase the programme-based
work, as recommended by the OECD," Hautala explained.
The review also emphasises the role of policy coherence for
development. According to the OECD, this is an area where
Finland still has room for improvement.
"Reconciling different interests is not always easy, but we
are making progress in this arena as well. We have selected
food security as a specific theme and, for example,
agricultural, fisheries, environmental, trade and
development policies are all associated with it,"
Minister Hautala pointed out.
The OECD commends Finland for, for example, respect of the
priorities set by the developing countries themselves,
flexibility and the emphasis on the outcomes. The OECD
considers, for example, the new business forum, aiming at
seeking new opportunities for public-private sector
partnerships for reduction of poverty, an excellent
initiative.
Furthermore, the OECD encourages Finland to hold on to
competent staff, to concentrate humanitarian aid efforts as
well, and to inform openly and actively about this work.
The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) reviews the
development policy and cooperation systems of the member
states every four to five years. The peer reviews are
carried out by the OECD secretariat and representatives of
two other member states. In addition to the secretariat,
Finland's examiners this time were Switzerland and Austria.
The OECD also follows up on the implementation of the
recommendations made. The previous OECD review of Finnish
development policy and cooperation was conducted in 2008.
Further information:
Hanna Rinkineva, counsellor, Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
tel. +358 9 16056230, forename.surname@formin.fi
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