Current affairs

All Finnish missions abroad and organisations issuing visas, including the Border Guard, Finnish Customs and the Police, started to use the new EU visa sticker on 11 November 2019

Launched by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Salam project that promotes peace and reconciliation brought together young people interested in social influence. During the autumn, workshops were organised for young people to discuss peace building and the means of communication to promote reconciliation. For Iraqis, a workshop was organised in Erbil while in Afghanistan young people gathered in Kabul.

The series will consist of four separate discussion events to be held in October and November. The themes will look into the role of diaspora communities in Finland in the reconstruction and maintenance of peace in their former home countries. Two of the events will focus on Somalia, one will discuss Afghanistan and one will deal with Iraq and Syria.

The World Bank has carried out an in-depth review of the operation and finances of the Education Quality Improvement Program II (EQUIP II), a project of the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), carried out in 2008–2017. The ARTF is administered by the World Bank. Based on preliminary results, the review detected defects in documentation and possible mismanagement of procurement in the project.

The Embassy of Finland in Kabul is looking for Assistant.

It was spring, in May, and flowers were waking up for a new beginning when I landed in Jalalabad. The aim of the visit was to see the progress of the project called Support Afghanistan livelihoods and Mobility, SALAM.

Unicef’s Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene programme (WASH) has improved the quality of drinking water, sanitation and hygiene for hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan. Between 2017 and 2018, Finland contributed EUR 2 million to the programme.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs is planning and creating communication that will promote peace and reconciliation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Communication will focus on young people and the faith that young people hold in their own ability to contribute to society.

The Development Evaluation Unit of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MFA) commissioned an evaluation on forced displacement and development policy. The purpose of the evaluation was to increase awareness and knowledge of the concept of forced displacement and the links between humanitarian assistance and development objectives, and help to integrate these concepts into the practices in the MFA. The evaluation looked at how coherently Finland’s development policy and its targets relating to forced displacement have been implemented and how the coherence could be enhanced in development policy and cooperation.

Of the support, EUR four million will be channelled to Yemen, which is suffering from the worst humanitarian crisis of world with over 80 per cent of the population in need of assistance.