Current affairs

Finland will contribute EUR 68.4 million to the replenishment of the African Development Fund (AfDF), which is the concessional window of the African Development Bank Group. Finland is also preparing a loan of EUR 80 million for the AfDF. The AfDF supports the continent's poorest countries.

As part of the programme of Finland's Presidency of the Council of the EU, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the European Commission will co-organise a media event Stronger Together – Eastern Partnership Media Conference in Helsinki on 11–12 December. The aim of the event is to support the EU's Eastern Partnership (EaP) policy and to promote reforms, civil society activities and resilience of societies in the partner countries.

According to a new UN assessment, 168 million people in 53 countries are currently in need of emergency relief. The guidelines for persons with disabilities in humanitarian crises, supported by Finland, have recently been adopted at both EU and UN levels.

At the end of the Conference on Business and Human Rights, held by Finland in Brussels on 2 December, Minister of Labour Timo Harakka and State Secretary Johanna Sumuvuori published an Agenda for Action for the EU.

A bug bounty project provides opportunities for information security researchers and hackers to examine, within a set of defined boundaries, the information security of selected services on the Internet. The protective measures of the targeted systems will not be opened for the duration of the project.