Ministry ends state agencies’ monopoly on technical aid contracts

The GAVI Secretariat has lobbied Norway and the Netherlands in an attempt to make the donors stop channelling GAVI funds directly to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). The move has reportedly caused some tension within the GAVI alliance

Direct GAVI funding from Norway and the Netherlands is still important for the World Health Organization (WHO), says Director of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals at WHO Daniel Tarantola to DT. Such funds have helped bridge delayed disbursements from the Vaccine Fund, which is occupied with fund raising for 2004-5, he says.

Sida is preparing an in-depth audit of the Education Ministry in Mozambique following a report by Ernst & Young that indicates significant misuse of funds. SEK 7 million worth of transactions are not accounted for. This figure refers only to samples, and the auditor assumes the total to be “considerably higher".

As the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency continues to decentralise its administration, the profile of the field offices is changing radically.

NORPAK, the Norwegian consortium behind the Karuma Falls hydropower project, which lost out to the controversial competing Bujagali project, has been given a new chance to present its proposal to World Bank officials in mid-March.

An evaluation of the Danish Association for International Cooperation (MS) urges Denmark’s largest development NGO to send fewer Danes to the field and instead hire more non-Danish local staff.

DANISH EYES ON CHINESE CO2: Denmark and China have signed an agreement on cooperation in the area of climate. The agreement gives Denmark the possibility to purchase carbon credits from China, and to use these as part of its greenhouse gas emission reduction obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. The agreement was signed in Beijing by the Danish Ambassador to China Ole Lønsmann Poulsen during Prime Minister Ander Fogh Rasmussen’s recent visit to the country.