(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
While rising food prices have brought 78 millions more people below starvation, the government praises the new "development model". No more for food, but more of the aid for asylum measures in Norway and for rainforest protection.
It was a not unexpected policy that was pushed when the state budget came. Already 17. In September, Minister of Development Erik Solheim was out in Dagbladet and launched the "model of the future" for development assistance. There was more climate assistance and less focus on traditional development measures. But we have not got a new model for development. We have got a new model for who will pay the climate bill.
There is a mistaken impression that we are reaching the target of 1 per cent of gross national income (GNI) in aid. The fact is that the government now finds that one krone cannot be spent twice. One cannot pledge the same money to both poverty reduction and climate change mitigation. That is why the government is now doing something whimsical: They portray it as money to save the rainforest is in fact also targeted development aid.
Few would disagree that climate change will hit the poorest the hardest. But it is unworthy that this argument is now used as a lever to shelve the development policy objective that development assistance should amount to at least one percent of GNI. To mix measures that we should have taken the prize for ourselves is not only a betrayal of the world's poorest, but it is also contrary to the report from the UN Climate Convention, which was based on the financing of climate measures in addition to traditional development funds.
When funds that should have gone to the poor are instead used for other measures, the government undermines the entire escalation of aid. The percentage of traditional aid goes straight to the floor. In reality it will be about 0,87 per cent. And even worse, by encouraging other donor countries to follow the same model as Norway, it will lead to an overall global reduction in aid. This can hardly be the development the government wants.
There has long been agreement in Norway that we should be able to afford to spend one hundredth of our income on the world's poorest. With the government's new model, I fear that this agreement is now crumbling. At best, it is erased. The struggle for development and climate is closely linked, but it must be fought separately. The government must understand this as soon as possible!
At a time when food prices have risen by 52 per cent in the last year alone, traditional aid is even more badly needed. All five major aid organizations, and even the Rainforest Fund itself, are critical of Solheim's strong political guidelines for aid and his spread of aid money to uncertain projects. The double minister has more money to spend than any of his predecessors as development minister. Nevertheless, he chooses to downplay the fight against extreme poverty. For the poorest must look far for increased focus on health, education or food aid. Instead, he buys us a good conscience with the world's poorest money.
There are many reasons why there is poverty in the world. But one thing is certain: Much more could have been done by the richest to eradicate it. We now know that the situation will worsen, partly as a result of more extreme weather. This will hit the poorest hardest. But the emissions that cause climate change come mainly from the prosperous development of western countries. In other words, our prosperity has a cost for the climate, and then in turn for the world's poorest. The answer to who should pay to avoid climate change should then obviously be the rich countries.
