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The Finnish Ministry of
Foreign Affairs has the task of planning, managing and administering
Finland’s programmes of
bilateral development co-operation with developing countries.
The primary goal of Finnish
development policy is to promote peace, co-operation and welfare and to combat
threats to these values in a world of deepening interdependence between nations.
In its Decision in Principle the government defined the principles and
instruments to be applied in efforts to achieve the goals set for development
co-operation. The main objectives of Finnish development co-operation
are:
•
to reduce
poverty;
•
to combat
global environmental threats by assisting developing countries in solving their
environmental problems;
•
to promote
equality, democracy and human rights.
Finland gives priority to
sectors that promote its own development co-operation policy objectives, and
stresses participatory planning methods. As a rule,
Finland is involved in
3-4 major sectors in the partner countries.
The most important project
and programme sectors during the last few years have been water, forestry,
health, agriculture, education and culture. The growing interest in good
governance, democratisation, human rights, equality and environment is clearly
reflected in new projects and programmes. The trend is away from pure investment
projects towards integrated technical assistance and institution and capacity
building.
Their
support to publishing has mainly been support to the education sector. The
agency has had educational materials projects in
Ethiopia,
Mozambique,
Namibia and
Zambia.
In its support of educational
materials, Finland has put more
efforts on development of the procurement system
(Zambia) and on the
training of library and materials units’ staff
(Zambia and
Ethiopia). In the
West
Bank and
Gaza
(Palestine) support has been
for instructional media departments and for local material production units. It
is possible that in that field, the Ministry might also enter the
book/educational materials policy development.
The African Publishers’ Network (APNET) has
been supported through the ADEA Working Group on Books and Learning Materials.
Earlier, in1996, support was given to it via UNESCO to the Science for
Africa programme for
development of national educational materials on environmental
topics.
The Ministry has supported
the African Books Collective (ABC)
in recent years.
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