By Jennie Lorentsson
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 28 2010 (IPS)

Sexual violence against women has become part of modern warfare around the world. In some countries, women cannot even go out to draw water without fear of being attacked and raped.

Margot Wallström Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

On Apr. 1, Margot Wallström became the Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Her job is to investigate abuses and make recommendations to the Security Council.

The appointment of Wallström, currently a vice president of the European Commission, comes amidst continued reports of gender violence, including rape and sexual abuse both locally and by humanitarian aid workers and U.N. peacekeepers, mostly in war zones and in post-conflict societies.

The incidents of sexual attacks, both on women and children, have come from several countries, including Cote d’Ivoire, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Haiti, Burundi, Guinea and Liberia.

One of Wallström’s first assignments was a trip to the DRC, a nation she calls “the rape capital” of the world. Excerpts from the interview with Wallström follow.

Q: Tell us about your trip. A: Congo has attracted attention in the media [as a place that is suffering] systematic rape in war. One statistic quoted is 200,000 rapes since the beginning of the war 14 years ago, and it is certainly an underestimate.

When in Congo, I met government representatives and particularly women who had been raped and violated. It was interesting but also disappointing – nothing is getting better and more and more civilians are committing rapes.

But I should be fair and say that there has been progress, the government has introduced laws against rape, it has a national plan and there is political will. There is a lot to do to implement the legislation, but now there is an ambitious legal ground to stand on to be implemented by the police, judiciary and health care.

Q: What are the roots of the problem? A: The sexual violence in Congo is the result of the war between the many armed groups. To put women in the front line has become a part of modern warfare.

Men often feel threatened in times of conflict and stay inside, but the women have to go out and get water and firewood and go to the fields to find food. In many cases they’ll be the first to be attacked. Especially if there is no paid national army that can protect civilians, rape is a part of the looting and crimes against the innocent. In addition, there is almost total impunity for rape in the Congo.

Q: The U.N. has its own force, MONUC, in Congo to protect civilians. What is being done to help women? A: MONUC has had to adjust their operations after the conditions in the country. For example, MONUC has special patrols which escort women to health care clinics and markets.

Q: The U.N. and the Congolese government are discussing when the U.N. should leave the country. What would happen if the U.N. left the Congo now? A: We have reason to be worried if the United Nations would leave the Congo. It is still unsettled in some parts of the country and the U.N. provides logistics for many of the NGOs operating in the country, and they rely in the U.N.

What is happening right now is that [the government] wants to show that it can protect the country itself – it’s a part of the debate on independence.

Q: How do feel when you hear about U.N. peacekeepers committing atrocities? A: Just one example is too much. It destroys our confidence in the U.N.’s ability to do great things.

Q: There is criticism that the U.N. is a bureaucratic and inflexible organisation. Do you agree? A: In every large organisation there is critisism like this. After 10 years in the European Commission, I can recognise such trends here, there is always. But basically, there are high hopes and great confidence in the U.N. and the energy and passion that exists for the U.N. is very useful.

Q: The Security Council has promised to focus even more on the issue of violence against women. Which countries should be focused on? A: Congo is a given, also Darfur and a number of other countries in Africa. We will also focus on Liberia, where it is more a post-conflict society which has been brutalised and where rape is the most common offence. We cannot be in all countries with conflicts, we will comply with the Security Council agenda. This is a problem that not only exists in Africa.

Q: What can your staff do on site? A: Our team of legal experts can help a country to establish a modern legislation. Impunity is the foundation of the problem, the women have to go with guilt and the men go free. We must try to understand how such a culture is created and how it can be a method of warfare. Then we can stop it.

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If nothing is done to slow the pace of climate change, many small island developing states (SIDS) will be at risk of being wiped out, both economically and literally.

This was the warning held out before the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD), which is holding a two-week session at the United Nations this week.

“Political will and national action plans are needed, more than money,” Amjad Abdullah, director-general of the Ministry of Housing, Transport and Environment of the Maldives, told IPS.

Asked if the threat of climate change would trigger an exodus from the country, he said: “It’s our right to enjoy where we are.”

The CSD meeting comes five years after the Mauritius strategy, which called for a range of actions to promote sustainable development, and 18 years since Agenda 21 was adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio.

At a press conference Monday, delegates to the CSD both looked back at the shortcomings and looked forward to full implementation.

Abdullah said that SIDS had done its part, but that partners in the developed world were slower to put carbon-reduction plans into action.

He was joined at the press conference by Ambassador Colin Beck, permanent representative of the Solomon Islands, who noted that “the review process has found new trends and emerging issues have emerged within the last five years and that places a lot of stress on our limited capacity”.

He said there were several new issues that were not envisioned when the strategy was first negotiated, including the food and energy crises and, of course, the mounting climate change crisis.

Beck also said that the commission doing the best it can within its framework. “Certainly, we have moved forward in the energy area, some states have already announced to achieve carbon neutral. We are really working as much as possible,” he said.

“The challenge before us now is really to try as much as possible to have what we have within the international framework, more response to our needs and make the mechanisms work effectively for us.”

He said immediate action means insuring the enhanced implementation of the Mauritius strategy, which identifies the special needs of the small island developing states, and also to ensure that there is a provision to ensure them access to financing.

He also stressed hopes for “an effective and ambitious outcome” at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Cancun, Mexico, at the end of the year. Beck said the SIDS are hoping for legally binding agreements to limit carbon emissions when they meet in Cancun, a follow-up to last year’s conference in Copenhagen.

SIDS are very vulnerable to climate changes, sea-level rise and changing weather patterns. Maldives, a tiny South Asian Indian Ocean island, has 80 percent of its area one metre or less above sea level. Conscious of the dangers, the Maldives has a plan to become carbon-neutral in 10 years.

“We have initiated the intention of becoming carbon-neutral within a very short time frame, in 10 years, that is a very short time,” Abdullah said. “It is more about intentions and leadership than about money, and that is what we want to show the world in order to reduce the greenhouse gases. Even though our share is negligible, we want to show the world [we are] leading by example.”

Unfortunately, partner countries have not made the same commitment and if the trend of increased emissions of greenhouse gases continues, countries like the Maldives will likely go under.

“The impact would be great. We have not identified the time, but if the trend is proceeding, I cannot even imagine… very short in human time,” Abdullah told IPS.

There are about 50 small island developing states around the world. Their fragility was most recently tested by the impacts of the global financial, food and fuel crisis, as well as devastating earthquakes, tsunamis and tropical storms.

The challenge for CSD is to make sure that lives and livelihoods of people living in small island developing states are not put in jeopardy by their geographic vulnerabilities.

The U.N. General Assembly will hold a high-level meeting in September to review the implementation of the Mauritius Strategy.

By Jennie Lorentsson
UNITED NATIONS, May 6 2010 (IPS)

Over the last century, 90 percent of the cheetah population in the world has been killed, and it is now the most endangered animal in Africa.

Laurie Marker Credit: Courtesy of Laurie Marker

During the 1980s, the cheetah population of Namibia was cut in half, to less than 2,500, Habitat loss, population, land pressure and a lack of genetic variation placed great pressure on the famed cat.

But thanks to Laurie Marker, the founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, who has worked to protect the cheetahs from extinction for 36 years, the world’s fastest land animal has a future.

IPS spoke with Marker, who was recently awarded the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, commonly known as the “Nobel of Ecology”. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: You started your career in a wildlife park in Oregon. How did you end up in Namibia? A: No one knew anything about [cheetahs] back in those days, and they became the focal part of my research. I ended up in Namibia in 1977 doing research on cheetahs. I actually took a cheetah back to Africa to find out if a cat or cheetah can go back and learn how to hunt. And I taught it how to hunt.

Q: In reality, how large is the amount of damage to domestic stock caused by cheetahs? A: It became more of a perceived threat than it was actually… the fact is that worldwide ranchers do not like predators, so where there was a cheetah and they could see it, they were killing it. The world has killed off most of our predators, unfortunately.

Q: What did the ranchers think about cheetahs in 1977? A: When I first moved there people said “take all your cheetahs with you back to America”. Now they kind of like me, and they almost think that cheetahs are a pretty special animal. Over the last 30 to 40 years we have learned a huge amount on the integrated system of nature and what key role different species do play – like the honeybees and the bats being key pollinators, and a top predator being a regulator of healthy large systems.

The town which I live outside of, a ranching town, has coined their town the cheetah capital of the world, that is pretty interesting.

Q: How do you teach people the importance of biodiversity, and are they interested? A: In Africa we do it through education, working with school children, working with subsistence and commercial farmers, working with government, agriculture department, ministry of environment, education and business.

I think people are interested. Namibia was the first country that actually put protection of its environment in to its constitution. The constitution for the last 20 years has talked about the fact that people are interrelated to their natural environment and that we have to protect it… After almost two generations in Namibia, you really see a change.

Q: Another problem was habitat loss because of the spread of thorny bushes – a problem that limits the cheetahs’ ability to see prey when hunting and also reduces the open space cheetahs need to accelerate and catch their prey. How did they spread so fast? A: The thorny bushes came 50 to 60 years ago when ranchers were overgrazing the land and particularly when drought seasons came. When all the grass went, because the cows ate all the grass, the thorn bush – which is very fast growing and has very, very deep roots and sucks out all the water so grass does not grow – it took over a large part of the land. In a very simplistic way this bush that stands twice your size has reduced much of the biodiversity as well the habitat.

Q: You came up with a solution for both cheetahs and people. How does it work? A: We cut the bushes down and chipped them up in a chipper and then we made through high pressure a fuel log of them. The fuel is an eco-log because it burns with a very hot heat and very low emissions, so it is carbon neutral. If you can affect the economies then you can help people out of their poverty cycle.

Q: Today, there are approximately 10,000 of these endangered cats remaining in Africa and Asia. How many cheetahs would it take to be safe from extinction? A: I would actually like to see us double the population in the next 10 years. It is actually doable and we can even do better than that. Less than 100 years ago there were 100,000 of them, in 90 years 90 percent of them have been killed. It can happen so quickly.

Q: Are compensation programmes for the ranchers a solution? A: We are trying to encourage most countries not to have a compensation programme. We would rather, through good livestock and wildlife management, pay a compensation for our predator-friendly beef, so that they would then be compensated for not having losses. If you have good livestock management you can live with any predator in the world. Our cheetah work has actually taught us a lot about that and we teach this to people who live with wolves.

Q: You use a special dog to protect the livestock from cheetahs. Does that really work? A: We are using large breeds from dogs from Turkey. We breed them and donate them to the farmers… It is an old European method that people had forgotten about.

Q: What is the U.N. doing for the cheetah and what needs to be done? A: We would like the U.N. to help to support more programmes like ours – which are trying to get these models through to other countries… we need funds to actually put some of these programmes into affect.

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Last year, at least 77 journalists were killed simply for doing their jobs. So far this year, the number is 17 – and rising – with three of them killed last Saturday.

“I condemn these murders and insist that the perpetrators are brought to justice,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at a panel discussion here Thursday.

Freedom of expression is a human right, enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. This right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers,” he said.

Still, governments all over the world are trying to undermine it. Harassment, high taxes, censorship and the risk of getting imprisoned or even murdered are a part of many journalists’ workday.

And the violence against journalists is increasing, according to an UNESCO report.

In November 2009, 30 journalists were killed in a single day in an ambush in Philippines, and last weekend three reporters were killed in two separate incidents in Nigeria.

The proportion of murders cleared and that lead to convictions is also very low.

On Thursday, the Department of Public Information, in conjunction with civil society groups, held a panel discussion about “Freedom of Information: The right to Know”. This year’s focus was Southeast Asia.

Clothilde Le Coz, director of Reporters Without Borders (RWB) in Washington, said Southeast Asia fares very poorly in terms of freedom of the press.

“All these countries are ranked on the last third of our index that we publish annually. And we ranked 175 countries and they are all in the last third of it,” she said.

She pointed out that there are currently 40 reporters and bloggers who are jailed in the region.

Mary Patricia Nunan, a journalist with experience covering Asia, pointed out some differences between the working conditions for local and foreign press.

“There is a pretty stunning double standard that exists between journalists like myself from the Western press working in Southeast Asia, and the local press. Quite simply, it takes a lot more courage to work as a local journalist in these places than it does for a foreigner,” she said.

“As a foreign correspondent or a freelancer, you always get a reassurance that you have a passport, probably a credit card, a news organisation that supports you, so if there ever is a situation of harassment or threat, you can simply leave the country,” she noted. The reason local journalists are more vulnerable to threats is obvious to Nunan. “It is simply because all politics are local, so if there is a corrupt politician or criminal, they are more likely to feel threatened by the local press.”

“When local press is targeted it tends to be much more indirect retribution for something that has been reported, but when Western journalists are arrested, harassed or kidnapped, it is more often the result of opportunism, as they accidentally fall into the laps of people that wish them harm,” she added.

Censorship is another problem facing journalists in Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand. About 2,500 websites have been blocked by the government, and in the last year, 10 bloggers have been sued.

“From the safety of New York, I have written a few sentences to say, ‘The Thai King has been on the throne for more than 60 years and has been an extraordinarily powerful presence. He is now 82 years old and he has spent his lifetime dedicated to doing good work for the development of the Thai nation, which is starting to understand the enormity of his impact and what will emerge when during legacy of such a magnificent figure.”

“If I said something like that in Thailand, even though it sounds nice enough, I could go to jail for the simple suggestion that the king is not immortal,” she said.

Vietnam is another country that supports censorship, as is China. Google just left the country because of trouble over Internet filters and alleged hacking.

“Everything that is reported in China is totally biased,” Le Coz said.

Asked what the U.N. can do about it, she told IPS: “Instead of condemning the Chinese government, they should make a specific report of how human rights are respected in every region of the country. In particular, how the 1738 resolution that guarantees reporters safety is respected would be welcomed.”

People’s access to electricity, especially modern electricity, must increase even as greenhouse gases are reduced, according to a report issued Wednesday by the U.N. Secretary-General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change.

Some 1.6 billion people worldwide still lack access to electricity, a significant barrier to development. And approximately 3.0 billion people, half of humanity, rely on traditional and harmful biomass for cooking and heating, according to U.N. data.

The smoke from the biomass can cause serious health problems. Every year, 1.5 million people, mostly women and children, die from pulmonary disease caused by smoke inhalation.

“I convened this group last year for one simple reason: we need to urgently transform the global energy system,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “The decisions we make today on energy will have a profound impact on the global climate, on sustainable development, on economic growth, and global security.”

A reliable, affordable and clean energy supply is the key to economic growth, according to the report. Developing countries in particular need to expand access to modern energy services if they are to reduce poverty end achieve the anti-poverty targets contained in the Millennium Development Goals.

The report sets two key objectives for the year 2030 – universal basic access to modern energy systems and increases in energy efficiency. It also calls for a 40 percent reduction in global energy intensity by 2030, which would mean reducing the global intensity by 2.5 percent per year.

There are important synergies between these goals.

Modern, efficient energy systems will contribute to a more rapid reduction in net energy intensity. Increased energy efficiency allows existing and new infrastructure to reach more people. Similarly, energy-efficient appliance and equipment make energy services affordable for consumers.

At the report’s launch, Ban was flanked by the Group’s chairman, Kandeh Yumkella, director-general of the U.N. Industrial Development Organisation, Helge Lund, CEO of Statoil, and Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme.

Yumkella described the report as an action plan. “It sets forth ambitious but achievable ways to provide everyone access to electricity and other modern energy services,” he said.

He added that the technology and business models already exist, but the initiative will need significant commitments from national governments and the international community.

And it is up to each country to choose which solution, or mix of solutions, that should be adopted. Availability of resources, the regulatory and policy environment and costs would be key factors.

The capital investment required to achieve the goal of universal access, a “basic human need”, is 35 to 40 billion dollars per year, based on cost estimates. Grant funding of 10 to 15 billion dollars a year and loan capital of 20 to 25 billion dollars a year will also be needed.

While this may sound like a lot of money, it represents only around five percent of the total global energy investments expected during this period.

The investment required to provide sufficient energy production would, according to the report, be almost entirely for concessional loan capital rather than grant funding. This is because the additional energy capacity will provide people with income opportunities and therefore their ability to pay for their energy service.

There are already some success stories, such as Brazil, China and Vietnam, which have managed to rapidly expand energy access, Yumkella said. China, Japan, Denmark and Sweden were cited as countries that have improved their energy efficiency.

The advisory group was set up last year to advise Ban on the energy-related dimensions of climate change negotiations. It comprises 20 members, including business leaders, academics and representatives of the United Nations and civil society, from different parts of the world.

In September, world leaders will meet at the U.N. to assess progress on the Millennium Development Goals and to chart a course of action for the next five years. Later in the year, government delegations will gather in Mexico to continue working towards a climate change agreement.

As African countries continue their relentless battle against the spread of malaria, a global fund to fight the deadly tropical disease has fallen short of expectations.

In a report released Monday, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said that total annual global funding reached about 2.0 billion dollars from external sources by the end of 2009, an almost 10-fold increase.

Still, that amount was less than the estimated 6.0 billion dollars required annually by the Global Malaria Action Plan (GMAP) to ensure universal coverage of malaria control interventions.

The good news is that there was a five-fold increase in global production of insecticide-treated nets, to 150 million, and a more than 30-fold increase in the procurement of artemisinin-based combination therapies, to 160 million doses.

On Monday, UNICEF commemorated World Malaria Day 2010 while the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership campaign vowed to eliminate malaria by 2015.

“We hope to achieve the RBM-target of universal coverage for all populations at risk for malaria this year and by 2015 reduced the deaths caused by malaria to nearly zero,” Dr. Nicholas Alipui, UNICEF’s director of programmes, told IPS.

According to the UNICEF report, much has been accomplished; for example, nearly 200 million of the 350 million insecticide-treated nets needed to achieve universal coverage have been received by people in African countries.

Investments in insecticide-treated nets and more effective treatments have made a significant contribution towards the achievement of the Roll Back Malaria and Millennium Development Goals.

A 50-percent reduction in malaria deaths has been recorded in nine countries in Africa – Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Gambia, Ghana, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Tanzania and Zambia. Still, every 30 seconds, a child dies of malaria.

Insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs) are one of the most effective ways to prevent malaria.

The mosquito dies soon after being in contact with the net, and the person sleeping under the net will not get bitten.

According to the report, the nets have markedly improved child survival and between 2000 and 2010, ITNs saved over 908,000 lives.

The nets have also been shown to have a protective effect on non-users living near households with nets.

In Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, Muslim and Christian leaders are working together to provide their people with nets.

Funding for 60 million ITNs has been secured and the nets will be delivered this year, but for the rest of the sub-Saharan countries, 47 million nets still need financing.

Indoor residual spraying is another effective way to prevent malaria. It involves spraying a long-lasting insecticide on the inside walls of houses where people sleep.

When it comes down to diagnostics and treatment, the report is negative, though the number of children receiving the effective, but expensive, artemisinin-based combination therapy is rising. In five years, ACT treatments have increased from five million to 160 million, but it is not enough.

One part of the problem is the lack of functional health systems and infrastructure. Another is poverty.

“Families can live next door to the hospital, buy they cannot afford to go there. That is why we will try to reach the urban poor children within the cities,” Dr. Alipui said.

The use of correct diagnostics and malaria testing must also increase, to make sure that the right treatment is given and that people are not treated with anti-malarial drugs when they do not have the illness, experts say.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently updated its recommendations to strongly encourage parasitological diagnosis in children under five years of age who present with febrile illness.

Still, many countries use ineffective ACT Mono-Artemisinin, though they have adopted a malaria treatment policy of ACT use as the first-line drug. In large countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Niger, the use of ACT is below 10 percent.

WHO considers the use of monotherapies as an inappropriate public health policy, because the treatment is poor and may increase the risk of selecting resistant parasites.

Even if the goals for malaria are achieved, there will be costs for maintaining malaria control. The costs peak now, but 3.8 billion dollars will be needed in 2025.

The WHO estimates that approximately 250 million malaria episodes occurred in 2008, leading to some 850,000 deaths. Ninety percent of the deaths, especially among children under the age of five, occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa.

By Jennie Lorentsson
STOCKHOLM, Jan 12 2010 (IPS)

Sweden has pledged to maintain its current level of development aid to the world’s poorer nations – roughly at about one percent of gross national product (GNP) – despite the global financial crisis.

Gunilla Carlsson Credit: Simone D. McCourtie/World Bank

“We are probably alone in the world to do so,” Development Minister Gunilla Carlsson told IPS.

However, she warned, the levels of aid decrease as the volume of the economy decreases. “Therefore, we have given priority to poverty reduction in our budget.”

Sweden’s official development assistance (ODA) to developing nations rose from about 4.3 billion dollars in 2007 to about 4.7 billion dollars in 2008.

The same figure is likely to be sustained in 2009, as the latest statistics are released later this year.

The Swedish minister said the focus is directed at humanitarian aid, specifically to Africa where the need is greatest.

“Thus, our priority is also aid through multilateral organisations [because] it often has a good chance to reach the most vulnerable,” Carlsson said in an interview told IPS correspondent Jennie Lorentsson in Stockholm.

Sweden, which wrapped up its six-month presidency of the 27-member European Union (EU) last month, is operating on a 2010 budget which aims to moderate the decline in employment, defend core welfare services, encourage more business growth and protect the climate.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has complained that the global financial crisis is thwarting some of the world’s poorest nations from achieving the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals, including reduction of poverty, hunger and maternal mortality, by the targeted date of 2015. What role is the EU playing in rectifying this situation? A: The world’s donor community has a shared responsibility to meet the Millennium Development Goals. EU is also the largest donor and has thus an important role to play. This was also highlighted as EU development ministers recently met in Brussels.

Then the question was raised that the member states really should put timetables to show how they intend to increase its self-own commitments and to reach the U.N. target of 0.7 percent of GNP for development aid. Sweden is here already at a level of 1.0 percent. While stressing the importance of other donors in the world to assume their responsibilities, eradicating poverty is one of the objectives of aid.

Q: How far has development aid from Western nations helped developing nations in their battle against poverty? A: There are many good examples of how aid has made a substantial difference for many poor people. But there is a problem to measure and define the results of development cooperation. Botswana is a good example where assistance has contributed to its development.

However, Sweden has been able to phase out assistance to Botswana. While it is important to see aid as one of several key elements for poverty eradication, trade and agricultural policy [should also] come into play. This is also the case in Botswana.

Q: How important is good governance – rule of law, multi-party government, respect for human rights and freedom of the press – in a country’s development process? Is EU development aid conditional to good governance? A: These are all fundamental prerequisites for a viable development. Actually, the lack of food is not the basic problem in many countries, but the lack of freedom is. EU’s total aid has risen sharply while the EU also has taken important steps to promote political pluralism and continue to create conditions for the functioning of the rule of law.

Q: Does the EU plan to penalise countries such as Sudan, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Myanmar who are accused of human rights violations, bad governance or war crimes? And how? A: It is often in harsh dictatorships that people also suffer the most. Thus, it is always a difficult balancing act to not work with undemocratic regimes, but at the same time we try to help the people affected. Humanitarian aid to victims can be made even though the EU does not cooperate with the regime. That is the case in, for example, Zimbabwe or Burma.

Q: What do you think are the major political and economic results of the Swedish presidency which ended last month? A: Sweden had two overarching priorities for the presidency: to overcome the global economic crisis in various ways and to handle the climate issue. In the development field, I think we have come a long way in both these areas. We have consolidated the importance of countries’ will to reach the level of aid that the U.N. demanded, despite the global economic crisis.

We have also taken a number of conclusions on efforts in the field of democracy, greater efficiency in development cooperation and greater coherence between aid and other policies. In the climate field, climate efforts have now become an accepted and important component of the overall development policy.

I am also particularly glad that this year’s European Development Days (EDD) in Stockholm drew a large number of participants, with over 6,000 visitors. There were both state governors, academics, aid organisations and the public jointly participated in all the important discussions on everything from climate and maternal mortality to democracy and human rights.

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