Minster Väyrynen would link development policy into more extensive political framework and create a wider financial base for development cooperation
Press Release 218/2010
14 July 2010
Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen commented the outcome of a citizen survey on development cooperation and policy released in the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday, 14 July. Minister Väyrynen agrees with the majority of citizens who believe that development cooperation alone is not enough to achieve sustainable development results.
”Development policy should be tightly linked with trade, environmental, energy and climate policies and the common EU foreign policy. My proposal in the Development Ministers meeting in June for the EU global strategy encompassing these links has been welcomed, for example, by the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton and Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs.
In spite of the global recession, the Finnish citizens continue to support development cooperation. A clear majority, 80 percent, considers development cooperation and development policy as very important or quite important. However, the share of those who were ready to cut the development cooperation appropriation (20%) was larger than before.
Rather inconsistently, only 16 percent of the respondents supported increasing of the appropriations in this year's survey, while 48 percent stated that the appropriations should be at least 0.7 per cent of the GNI by 2015 at the latest, which presumes increasing the appropriations.
The majority of the respondents believe that the increase in development cooperation appropriations should be financed by creating new financing sources, such as travelling tax for air passengers, and by increasing the role of the private sector.
According to Minister Väyrynen, new financing sources are already looked for.
”I appointed a working group in the spring to discuss opportunities for extending the financial base for development cooperation appropriations and finding new partnerships between the public and the private sector in development cooperation. The working group also considers tax exemption for donations intended for development cooperation. I'm looking forward to the results expected in late November and hope for concrete proposals to advance the matter," Minister Väyrynen said.
The results of the Foreign Ministry's annual opinion survey on development cooperation and policy, conducted by market research company Taloustutkimus, were released in the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday, 14 July.
Further information: Päivi Nevala, Advisor to the Minister, tel. +358 9 1605 6171 or +358 40 753 4375, and Pirjo-Liisa Heikkilä, Information Officer, tel. +358 9 1605 6388