UN, EU push back as Sweden drops 1 percent aid target

Sweden’s incoming coalition government signaled its intention to drop the share of gross national income going to foreign aid Friday, and the move, by one of the world’s leading donors, has not gone unnoticed in New York and Brussels.

“We’ve always appreciated Sweden’s leadership in responding to global development needs. Sweden has always been a step ahead,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, told Devex by email Friday. “The Secretary-General has urged all countries to reconsider cuts that will affect the world’s most vulnerable at a time when they are struggling to recover from compounding crises. All countries need to meet the 0.7% of GNI target.”

In a press conference Friday, incoming Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Sweden’s target of spending 1% of gross national income on aid will be abolished and “aid will be reduced,” Development Today reported. Decoupling the amount of aid from the 1% target, the government will instead set fixed amounts for the next three years — a move it says is designed to make spending more predictable.

Sweden’s center-left Social Democrats lost power in an election last month, with the far-right Sweden Democrats winning more than 20% of the vote. The Sweden Democrats will not have ministers in the government but the coalition of Kristersson’s Moderate Party, along with the Christian Democrats and Liberals, will rely on the far-right’s support in parliament.

The Sweden Democrats’ influence loomed large over the 62-page coalition agreement released Friday. The text does not mention the 1% aid target but highlights the need to use aid to counter irregular migration, both through tackling its root causes and by freezing aid to countries that do not cooperate on readmitting their citizens.

Friday’s news was met with concern by Swedish aid advocates, with the NGO platform CONCORD Sweden calling the move to cut the aid budget  “completely wrong” and accusing the center-right parties in the coalition of failing people in poverty.

Parliament will vote Monday to make Kristersson prime minister with his 2023 budget expected in coming weeks. That will reveal which areas of aid spending are subject to cuts, with Christian Democrats leader Ebba Busch indicating Friday that humanitarian aid may even increase, according to Development Today.

The Moderate Party, Christian Democrats, and Liberals (the latter two of which had supported keeping aid at 1% of GNI) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tomas Tobé, chair of the European Parliament’s development committee and a member of the Swedish Moderate Party, told Devex that he expects Sweden to remain a leading aid donor internationally but that others needed to do more too.

“One country alone cannot meet the skyrocketing humanitarian and development needs worldwide,” Tobé wrote to Devex Sunday. “We need a sustainable solution, which is to broaden the donor base. The EU can and should take the lead on this, but ultimately it will require a collective effort by the international community.”

According to preliminary figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for 2021, Sweden was the third most generous donor and ninth-highest in absolute terms, spending almost $6 billion or 0.92% of GNI.

“Sweden has been one of the EU Member States most committed over the years in terms of ODA to help us reach our collective target,” a spokesperson for the European Commission told Devex. “When the world is facing multiple [crises], we are not turning our back on our partners. Now more than ever we all need to step up efforts, in a Team Europe approach, to support our most vulnerable partners.”

The secretariat of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee, which argued in April for protecting official development assistance, or ODA, spending due to the global food crisis and effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, declined to comment.

“There is never a good time for such a radical shift in policy and severe lowering of ambitions but I could not think of a worse one,” Sweden’s Social Democratic Minister for International Development Cooperation Matilda Ernkrans — who will step down once the new prime minister is installed by parliament — told Devex. “We have a war on our continent and across the world we see an increasing number of people suffering due to famine, conflict and climate change which in turn will become drivers for migration and humans in need.”

Reacting to the news, an official from an EU member state, who called the move “foremost populism,” told Devex Friday: “It hurts reading it, but it is so inconsistent that it can't even be implemented. No? Root causes of migration = everything. Raising humanitarian assistance = needed when you don't act in time and adequately.”

Meanwhile, one European Commission official summed up the news on Friday: “One of the good ones lost.”