Norway is weak on gender equality assistance

Norway is below average when it comes to aid efforts on gender equality, statistics from the OECD show.

Despite repeated statements from the government that Norway should be at the forefront, Norway is far below the list in the statistics of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), writes Vårt Land.

In the report “Aid to gender equality and women’s empowerment” from 2018, Sweden, Iceland and Ireland perform best. They have gender equality as the main or intermediate target in more than 80 percent of their assistance.

The average in the OECD countries is 37 per cent. In Norway, 33 per cent of the aid is aimed at gender equality.

Development Minister Dag-Inge Ulstein (KrF) promises improvement.

“We have now set ourselves a specific goal: Half of all bilateral assistance must have equality as the main or interim target,” Ulstein told the newspaper.

The same is promised by Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide (H) who says that all the leaders in the system have been told that they are responsible for promoting women’s rights and equality. This applies whether they work with climate and energy, forests or agriculture, education or health, peace and reconciliation, humanitarian response, business, security sector reform or other issues.