Dialogue in Pursuit of Development - Are you looking for one of ...

ple are in agreement, but solutions to more specific problems are discussed,
and a situation where there is fundamental disagreement on basic issues. In
the latter case, there is a clear limit to what a donor can do. If there are
neither prerequisites nor any interest for a democratic development, we, as
donors, must ask ourselves if we want to continue our support. So far, aid
relations have been much too bilateral in character. The unfair relationship
between an economically strong donor and a financially weak recipient must
change. This is the reason why I think the African initiative for economic
and political co-operation, NEPAD, is so interesting, as well as ECA’s present
work with developing criteria and guidelines for good governance and peer
pressure, i.e. a mutual learning process in Africa very similar to the one that
Europe has pursued over the last fifty years within the OECD and even
more so within the EU. Look at what is required of the countries trying to
enter the EU. They have to face real ‘dialogues’ in the form of negotiations,
the basis is the EU aquis. Something similar is lacking in our relations with
the developing countries. However, some of these elements exist in agreements
from the UN Conferences on what good policy for sustainable development
is. Also, the four elements within the Cotonou agreement are
important for Sweden in its bilateral dialogues, particularly the paragraph
according to which a dialogue on political questions should be started before
problems develop which lead to clashes and abrupt discontinuation of
development co-operation.
So, according to you, the Cotonou agreement is normative even for bilateral
relations?
Yes, of course it influences them! We are a party to that agreement, and we
participated in the formation of all other EU policies towards different countries
and international situations. These policies have institutionalised the
dialogue and created an order for how and when assistance should be discontinued,
thereby increasing the impact, even if we, in our bilateral relations,
can act independently of these policies.
CT: The dialogue with reference to human rights and democracy is more
complicated and much more dependent on specific circumstances. Take
Kenya, for example. Everybody was aware that the real problem for the
democratic process, to stop corruption etc, was the central leadership. Though
there was a multiparty system, we were aware of how it was manipulated.
We did protest against many things, among others the closures of the university,
but one could argue that we should have done more. In practice,
however, we were hostages of the recipient. We had to assess if we thought
the situation to be completely unacceptable and if so our only option was
to withdraw completely. Kenya knew that the world was watching what
they were doing and we thought our job was to watch that they didn’t go
too far.
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