Danish development assistance takes the most urgent problems in the developing countries as its starting point, and at the same time it reflects the values underlying Denmark’s international behaviour.
Since 2001, the Danish Government has worked consistently to reorient and reprioritise Denmark’s development assistance in order for it to carefully reflect current global development challenges, threats and opportunities and with a view to ensuring maximum impact and sustainability of the development initiatives. The promotion of sustainable development through poverty-oriented economic growth is the fundamental challenge for Danish development cooperation. At the same time, Danish development policy is a central and integral part of Danish foreign and security policy.
Denmark’s development assistance is focused on a selected number of developing countries (so-called programme countries) that work with efficient, long-term national strategies for poverty reduction. Additionally, the assistance is focused on a selected number of multilateral organisations. Africa south of Sahara remains the main recipient of Danish aid. The aid flow to Africa annually accounts for around 60 p.c. of the Danish bilateral assistance to the Danish programme countries.
The Government constantly works to ensure that Danish assistance fulfils its original goal of helping the poor by providing critical investments in education and health, infrastructure plus support for the development of a private sector as an engine for growth.
Special emphasis is put on the effort to promote the respect for human rights and poverty reduction for women and their participation in the development process.
As a key element of the long-term strategy to meet the threat of terrorism, the Government has enhanced the development effort to prevent and manage violent conflicts, to stabilise and consolidate peace, and to promote reform and modernisation in developing countries which appear particularly vulnerable to political radicalism and religious extremism.
In the coming years, Denmark will continue to strengthen its foreign and security policy by focusing Danish development assistance on five areas:
The administration of Danish development assistance to the programme countries was decentralised in 2003. Accordingly, capacity has been transferred from Copenhagen to the missions in the Danish programme countries.
The decentralisation of the assistance and a greater emphasis on donor coordination and harmonisation have significantly reduced the need for personnel assistance, whereby Denmark has obtained a substantial efficiency gain.
With additional initiatives such as the untying of Danish aid, Denmark has successfully managed to free a substantial amount of resources to new concrete initiatives in the developing countries.
