MFA: EU development ministers to discuss cooperation with middle income countries and human development

With middle income countries, the EU aims to move away from traditional development cooperation to new forms of cooperation. A new financial instrument for EU’s external action, NDICI-Global Europe, enables more versatile cooperation with partner countries.

“Finland emphasises that the EU need to make greater use of the opportunities presented by investments and trade policy and the efforts to promote good governance when cooperating with middle income countries. We need to strengthen the partner countries’ own taxation capacity so that they can use the increased tax revenue to reinforce their economic foundations and generate better public services for all,” says Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari.

The EU development ministers will have an extensive exchange of views on human development from the viewpoints of better education, stronger healthcare systems and better sharing of COVID-19 vaccines. The aim is to provide an overview of future education summits.

“Support for school systems must be targeted at increasing the participation of girls and children with disabilities, improving learning outcomes, developing teacher training and adopting digital solutions available to all. The EU Vaccine Sharing Mechanism plays an important role in improving vaccine solidarity,” says Minister Skinnari.

Finland hopes that the cooperation ministers will discuss ways to promote school meals in the EU’s development cooperation. It is important for Finland that more EU Member States join the coalition the World Food Programme (WFP) is building to support school feeding worldwide. Minister Skinnari started as the WFP School Meals Ambassador in March.

Inquiries: Kirsi Airio, Special Adviser to the Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade, tel. +358 50 574 1729, and Satu Santala, Director General of the Department for Development Policy, tel. +358 40 752 1770.

The email addresses of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs are in the format firstname.lastname@formin.fi