The war in Ukraine and Danish aid

By: Johnny Baltzersen, joba@ciced.dk

We've been a bit quiet here at CICED news for the last month.

The war in Ukraine has consumed focus and energy of CICED board members.

We are now again ready with news and updates related to our partners and our joint interventions.

However, we start with commentary on how the war in Ukraine is affecting Danish aid.

The Danish government backed by a majority in the Danish parliament has decided that the costs related to welcoming the many Ukrainian refugees will be financed by aid funds. CICED, like many other organizations, has protested against this.

CICED is fully in line with the analysis and views in the update from CISU – (translation by JB):

As many of you may have seen, the Minister of Development has now presented where the two billion of development aid that will be used to pay for temporary asylum for Ukrainian refugees in Denmark will be saved.

The overall conclusion is that 1.869 billion will be found through reprioritization, while the remaining 146 million will be found through so-called cancellations, which are not specified.

Pooled funds, and the funds allocated to Danish organizations that have a strategic partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will go free. There are also no cuts in humanitarian aid.

Here are some other points for your attention about the cuts:

- There are equal cuts from each 'pillar' of Sharing the World - that is, from the pillars 'Fighting for climate, nature and environment' and 'Creating hope' (neighbourhood, migration and fragile states)

- The cuts hit vulnerable target groups, both through the cuts in the pillars in general and in particular through the cuts in Burkina Faso and the whole Sahel region as well as Syria.

- Part of the funding for the DAPP - Arab Partnership Programme is 'deferred.'

- Themes that some CISU member organisations work on, e.g. reproductive health and funds for peace and stabilisation, are also being cut or postponed.

In CISU, we still believe that it is important to help Ukrainian refugees coming to Denmark, but that it is both morally and practically very wrong for Denmark to make the poorest in the world pay for it.

In the short term, this will mean that a number of existing and future crises in e.g. the Sahel, MENA and Syria will be left behind - and this will have negative consequences. Just as poor people in other remote areas such as Bangladesh will pay the price.

We will therefore continue to criticize the cuts and stand in solidarity with the many important actors in development cooperation and the world's poorest who are affected by this.

We at CISU continue to monitor the situation closely and will continue to encourage you to contact us if you hear more about how the specific cuts may affect parts of your work other than that funded by CISU pools.

Best regards

Jeef Bech

Head of Secretariat, CISU