Finland

FINLAND IS A SMALL Nordic country that has adopted a development policy for aiding poor countries around the world. In February 2004, the government of Finland made the eradication of extreme poverty globally the main goal of its development policy program. Like all nation-states Finland has a foreign policy that serves its interests in its relationships with other countries. Its foreign policy seeks to achieve coherence in all areas of international cooperation. Finland is attempting to coordinate both domestic policies and foreign policies in the positions that it takes in relations with developing countries. This coordination includes the policy areas of agriculture, environment, forestry, health, human rights, immigration, information society policies, security issues, social issues, and trade.

For Finland, development cooperation is an important instrument of its development policy. It uses this instrument to strengthen its ability to promote development in the world's poorest countries. It does this also by seeking to strengthen the private sector, by increasing investment and trade opportunities, and by supporting economic growth in the world's poorest countries. By aiding the development of poor countries, it is aiding the development of their purchasing power and thereby the opportunities for marketing Finnish goods and services. Finland's development policy takes human rights as its starting point. Human rights are those individual rights agreed upon in the various international human rights agreements that it has signed with other nations.

The basic objectives of Finland's development policy include commitment to the values and goals of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals; commitment nationally to a broad, unified, and coherent agreement in all policy sectors; and commitment to a rights-based approach. The commitment Finland has made includes the principles of sustainable development, a broad view of development financing, a partnership approach to development rather than a paternalistic approach, and respect for the right of self-determination for all people. The objectives represent a long-term commitment that is transparent, open, and predictable so that the actions that Finland engages in do not mask a hidden agenda.

The driving motivation behind Finland's development policy is the eradication of extreme (absolute) poverty, which has been defined as having resources such that a person must live on less than one dollar per day. By adopting this goal Finland is also acting in [Page 367]accordance with the United Nations Millennium Declaration, which has set as a global goal the reduction of extreme poverty in the world from one billion people to only half that number by the year 2015.

The Millennium Development Goals, which Finland accepts, were adopted in light of the belief that achieving the goal of eradicating extreme poverty would also reduce global environmental problems, promote equality throughout the world, and strengthen respect for human rights. The policy that Finland has adopted is a development of its foreign relations since the 1990s.

Finnish policy reflects the belief that poverty reduction is a public good. Public goods, such as clean air and clean water, have costs that must be shared by all. However, it also recognizes that “free riders” that seek to gain some part of public goods while externalizing the cost to others are naturally attracted to arenas of public goods. Finland, the Finnish people, and the Finnish leadership do not want free riders that exploit public goods that they believe are not really marketable.

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