Väyrynen: Humanity policy responds to the challenges of globalisation
The draft development policy programme compiled at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs defines humanity policy as a comprehensive policy, aiming at globalisation management, that takes into account both human rights and people’s responsibilities. “As a concept, humanity policy may be surprising. To my knowledge, it was first used in the 1960s by Pekka Kuusi”, the minister stated.
Elimination of poverty remains the most important aim of development policy, but work to attain this goal takes place on the terms of sustainable development, Väyrynen continued. He pointed out that the three dimensions of sustainability — the economic, social and natural economic dimensions — are inseparable.
“We are speaking specifically of development sustainable to society. The term ‘social development’, which has been in use previously, may have led to overly narrow thinking. Development sustainable to society also comprises ensuring democracy and stability in society as well as respect for human rights”, the minister explained.
The draft programme stresses development sustainable to the natural economy. Minister Väyrynen regretted that the perspective of sustainability to the natural economy has remained in the background recently in international discussions.
The draft sketches the principles of development cooperation compatible with sustainable development by means of examples. According to Minister Väyrynen, forestry is an important sector. “Cooperation in forestry can contribute to all three dimensions of sustainable development”, he said.
“The departure point of poverty reduction is the international experience of recent years, which shows that favourable economic development is the most effective in eliminating poverty. Trade plays a central role here”, the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development emphasised.
The close links interlocking trade and development were highlighted already in the previous Development Policy Programme.
The draft programme also underscores other concepts familiar from its predecessor, such as a concentrated focus and coherence.
“The concentrated focus of activities stresses thematic concentration. This gives room for manoeuvring with regard to regional targeting”, Väyrynen explained.
Coherence is also prominent, as it was in the previous programme, but its implementation emphasises development sustainable to the natural economy. “A stronger stand is taken on the content of coherence than was the case earlier.”
The intention is to continue budget support, the minister said, but increasing budget support should be considered carefully.
The draft programme does not propose changes to the main target countries, but the door is open to discussion concerning review of the list of target countries. The base for classification of cooperation countries will differ from that applied before: “In the draft programme, partner countries are divided into two categories according to the Swedish model: on the one hand, those that are long-term cooperation countries and, on the other hand, cooperation countries that are recovering from violent crises”, Minister Väyrynen stated.
The draft has arisen from brisk debate and a thorough process, Väyrynen said. “It is my hope that the programme will spur active discussion also within the Government and the Finnish Parliament. These issues have been discussed amazingly little, although they involve large sums of money.”
Next year, 830.1 millions euros will be use for development cooperation.
“This is a political question: What sort of development do we wish to promote? I would sincerely hope to hear a good debate on this in Parliament.”
Preparation of the Development Policy Programme began with a public session where civil society organisations had the chance to express their views. Then the draft was compiled by the executive group for development policy, and during the final stage the minister and his staff made their own contributions.
The draft programme is now being circulated for comments to other ministries and to the central civil society organisations. Only a week has been set aside for the round for comments, because the intention is to submit the draft to the Government and Parliament for handling as quickly as possible, the minister said in explaining the tight timetable.
Discussion about the draft programme continues at the discussion forum on global.finland.fi, an Internet publication site of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.