Sweden defends spending foreign aid at home: 'We are the good guys'

Sweden shocked the international development world recently when it announced plans to use almost one-fifth of its annual aid budget to cover the costs of hosting Ukrainian refugees domestically. The move is allowed under Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development rules on aid accounting, though local civil society and politicians, as well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, decried the decision, saying it could trigger a “domino effect” from other top donors. Since then, Norway has also announced plans to reallocate around $400 million in official development assistance for internal refugee costs — earning its prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, a call this week from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. Meeting with European Union development officials in Brussels on Friday, Filippo Grandi — the U.N. high commissioner for refugees — told reporters his message would be that despite the costs for European countries of hosting refugees and rebuilding Ukraine, “this is not the time to reduce ODA.” “We have told the OECD that for countries, domestic costs of dealing with refugee crises should not be counted against ODA. [They] should be separate,” Grandi said. “But in the end, this is their decision, not ours. This is our recommendation.” As she went into the same meeting, Devex asked Matilda Ernkrans, Sweden’s minister for international development cooperation, for the latest on the controversial move. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Are you expecting any blowback from your colleagues, given Sweden's recent move to reallocate around one-fifth of its annual ODA budget to Sweden? No, because I assured them that even though we are increasing our in-donor refugee cost, we will still be top three in the world when it comes to humanitarian aid and development cooperation. So we stick to our promises. And we will do that in the future as well — at least this government. The projection for the number of Ukrainian refugees expected in Sweden this year has been revised down, but the amount of ODA that the government has reallocated has not changed. Why hasn't there been a change to liberate this important money? We've got a new prognosis from the agency of migration, and we are looking into that now. Of course, we will not use one single Swedish krona more than we absolutely need to for our solidarity when it comes to in-donor costs for refugees from Ukraine. It's still early in the year, but if I'm able to take another decision, I will do that. I will also let the Swedish population know that first, and I think civil society is our top priority because they're doing amazing work. When is the next moment when you may be able to shift some of this money back to the needy people around the world? We are now looking into the latest prognosis, and if we can come with other other messages, I will do that. But for the moment, we need to take responsibility also for the situation. We didn't know, when the budget was sent to the Parliament in the autumn, that we would have a big humanitarian crisis in our continent. The Gates Foundation says you're setting a bad example for the rest of the world. We are not setting a bad example. Sweden has been committed to 1% of … [gross national income being spent on ODA] since the ‘70s, and we still are. And this government will stick to 1% of GNI. We are the good guys. We are one of the top three countries in the world supporting international solidarity, and I'm proud of that. Of course, it's an exceptional situation with the war in Ukraine due to Russia's invasion. And of course, it's something that we need to address also in Sweden. It's money for refugees — women and children. We do that every year in Sweden. We've done that since the 1990s. We used our development aid budget to welcome Syrian refugees in 2015, and we are using the development aid budget to welcome Ukrainian refugees. I'm very proud that we can be a country that gives 1% out of GNI to our humanitarian aid and development cooperation. It's only three countries in the world who actually do that. I think more countries should try to at least reach 0.7% of GNI, because the needs in the world are massive and we need to do more.