Q&A: Sweden's aid chief on Trump, multilateralism and the securitization of aid

Multilateral institutions such as the United Nations offer the only route to solving global problems, according to Sweden’s international development chief.

Speaking exclusively to Devex, Ulrika Modéer, Sweden’s secretary of state for international development, said that her country — the world’s third biggest donor — will continue channeling a large portion of its aid money through multilaterals.

She also said that a “sustainable world” benefits all nations.

Her comments come amid concern about Donald Trump’s skepticism of such institutions. The United States president has signaled that he plans to cut the foreign assistance budget by more than a third, including heavy cuts to the U.N. and other multilaterals — leaving the development community to grapple with the question of how to fill the funding and leadership gap.

Sweden is the world’s third-largest aid donor relative to the size of its economy, spending $4.9 billion — just under 1 percent of its gross national income — on official development assistance in 2016, about a third of which was disbursed through multilateral organizations.

However, its government has been criticized by some NGOs in recent years for spending a large proportion of its ODA budget domestically to support refugees.

Modéer talked to Devex about Trump, multilateralism and the future of aid on the sidelines of the recent European Development Days summit in Brussels. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What are Sweden’s development priorities going forward?

We continue to stay with the goal of spending 1 percent of GNI on aid, which we think is very important at a time when formerly like-minded donors are decreasing their funding. But we focus on both quantity and quality of aid effectiveness, in line with the principles that were decided in the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation — which means emphasizing the importance of local ownership and coordination with others. More donor countries should stay with what was decided in Busan.

We are focusing on three areas where we see a lot of change happening. Firstly, improving our action in conflict-ridden areas of the world. This means bridging humanitarian support with long-term development efforts since many of the poorest countries are also those which experience conflict.

Secondly, we need to integrate climate much better into our development cooperation. Climate finance should be increased, but we also need to have climate smart policies in all areas of development since climate change risks rolling back so much of the development we have been supporting.

Thirdly, we are concerned about the shrinking space for civil and political rights, which can endanger the democratic development of many countries — not least the rights of women and the threats we see to their sexual health and reproductive rights, but also threats against the rights of environmental activists, journalists, and even academia and universities.

What is Sweden’s response to the “America First” policy of the Trump administration?

The Swedish government firmly believes that what is good for a sustainable world is also good for Sweden. We think a sustainable world should come first, and that this is in our interest as a country, but also in the interest of the European Union. So we need to respond with global solidarity and multilateral solutions to global problems.  

There is no way we will be able to have security for our own populations — from the threats of climate change and antibiotic resistance, for example — if we don’t look for global solutions, and the global arena is the only place where we can solve these problems.

Sweden is one of the world’s biggest multilateral donors. Why does it give so much multilateral aid?

Even though we sometimes think the U.N. is too slow and bureaucratic, it is the place where we can meet and decide upon a normative agenda, and how we should deal with the problems of our world.  

The normative agenda is so important — we are taking human rights as a given, but would we have had the human rights we have now if the world leaders of today were deciding them?

We need to defend the normative agenda, but also develop it to make sure it is an agenda which actually defends the rights of people, and that these rights give possibilities to our societies.

What is your view on recent debates about the securitization of aid?

One concern is the discussion of what should be defined as good development cooperation and aid and Sweden has engaged a lot in the discussion of the ODA criteria within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee [which sets the boundaries of aid]. While it is important to move towards broader engagement in the Sustainable Development Goals, we think we need to maintain the quality of aid and stay within the OECD DAC criteria on what can be counted as aid. We need to focus on what is most needed.

Even though security is important, development cooperation cannot pay for all the security that is needed in the world. Sweden has been negotiating for a limit to what can be financed by ODA with regard to security costs.

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