20. janúar kl. 18.00, Fosshótel Höfðatorgi.

Dear guests.

Let me start by taking the opportunity to welcome the Chair of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD, Ms. Susanna Moorehead to Iceland. I am very pleased to have you with us here today and I am looking forward to hearing your insights on the future of development cooperation.

Iceland has been a member of the DAC since 2013. During this time, we have had unique opportunities for networking, peer-learning and growth. We highly value the DAC as an important venue to exchange experiences and best practices, as well as finding solutions to new development challenges. And we look forward to a continued constructive collaboration with the committee and its members going forward.

For a better and more sustainable future for all we need to work together to address the challenges at hand, building on prior progress in poverty reduction with the core principle in mind of leaving no-one behind.

And let me assure you that Iceland will continue to do its part in this regard. We are committed to assist where needed, share our expertise, help build capacities in key areas and uphold the principles of effective development cooperation.

In my remarks, I will attempt to underline how Iceland is adapting its development cooperation to changing international context, responding to emerging challenges.

First, a new five-year Development policy was adopted by our parliament last year – framing our priorities going forward. As a small donor, we cannot do everything, we need to focus on where we can have the most impact and I believe our new policy helps steer us in the right direction in this regard.

The policy takes a point of departure from the SDGs, with a strong focus on the least developed countries and reaching the furthest behind first, and at the same time building effective social infrastructures, ensuring the sustainable use of natural resources and enhancing resilience through humanitarian assistance and peacebuilding.

Gender equality, the environment and human rights are even more prominent in the new policy than before, both as cross cutting issues and as specific goals. We are reinforcing our results-based management and strengthening our focus on the private sector, thereby answering the call of donors and developing countries to step up on financing towards the SDGs.

Now, I would especially like to expand on a few priority areas that I feel warrant further attention, namely Human Rights, Gender Equality and involvement of the Private Sector.

1. Regressive trends on the human rights front in many countries, evidenced by shrinking civic space, threats to freedom of speech and increasing numbers of incidents of human rights violations is a growing concern. We must ensure that affected populations enjoy basic human rights and dignity and that vulnerable and disadvantaged groups are not left behind. Iceland is firmly committed to strengthening and promoting human rights globally, and in line with our new international development cooperation policy, we now apply a human rights-based approach in all our development cooperation.

2. Gender equality and women´s empowerment underpin and sustain economic and social development. Unfortunately, a large part of ODA worldwide does not target gender equality and we need to reverse this trend.

From Iceland’s point of view, the Gender Equality Policy Marker of the OECD/DAC has served us well. It has been a good tool to ensure that our development cooperation efforts take gender equality perspectives into account, and we have been striving to ensure that at least 80% of our aid targets gender equality.

Gender equality is an integral element of the 2030 Agenda and we will remain committed on this front, to better respond to the critical needs of women and girls.

3. Private sector-led growth remains one of the most important drivers of sustainable development given the right policy environment and regulatory framework. The private sector is well placed to tackle some of the major challenges in developing countries, including under-employment. Since 2018 we have placed increased emphasis on collaboration with the private sector, including by starting a new SDG fund for private enterprises. In this way, we hope to engage Icelandic expertise and encourage the private sector to play a leading role in realizing Agenda 2030. In this context, it is important to respond to the call made by the developing countries to involve private sector actors in order to accelerate financing.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Last but not least I would like to emphasize that we are blessed with committed and knowledgeable personnel dealing with development issues in the Ministry. But that is not enough, we need to have an effective organizational structure in order to support our work.

As some of you might recall ICEIDA was merged with the Ministry a few years back – a good step in my view … but not a sufficient one.

Why?

Because in spite of the merger I had the feeling that we needed to take the final steps towards a full integration. Institutional mechanisms supported by clear political commitment and integration of polices were called for.

Therefore, I have taken measures to bring the development cooperation – one of the cornerstones of our foreign policy – to the innermost core of the Ministry‘s work.

• As of 1 January this year, the office I carry has been named the Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Development Cooperation.

• Concurrent to this, the teams dealing with International politics and International Development now work within the same unit and on one floor at the Ministry. Valuable expertise is shared, policy coherence enhanced and synergies harvested in favor of a joint vision for achieving Agenda 2030.

• The end of last year also marked another important milestone for Icelandic development cooperation. After years of fruitful collaboration with the United Nations University we decided last year to part ways and in turn form a new partnership with UNESCO. The newly established Centre under the auspices of UNESCO brings four existing training programmes on geothermal energy, fisheries, land restoration and gender equality under one umbrella. Over 1500 young professionals from developing countries have been trained by the programmes in Iceland through the years. Today, around 100 complete training each year, not to mention all who benefit from the numerous short courses held in developing countries. The new centre has been appropriately named GRÓ, which refers to a seed in the Icelandic language. By sowing seeds around the world, we see knowledge and expertise grow around the world to contribute to sustainable development outcomes.

I am convinced that these changes will make our work more effective and coherent, as well as strengthen our profile internationally.

In concluding: Many thanks to all of you have joined us here today. I look forward to a lively discussion and exchanges of views that will help us pave the way forward. For my part, I am confident that the future of Icelandic development cooperation is bright!