- The Swedish government has granted a US$ one million support to Guinea-Bissau in an effort to aid the political transition process here. Sweden traditionally has been one of Bissau's primary development partners, although relations had cooled somewhat off the latest years.
The new Swedish aid is to be channelled through the UN development agency (UNDP), which is involved in political development projects from its Bissau offices. The local UNDP fund for economic urgency management is to receive the Swedish financing.
UNDP operations in Bissau focus on establishing political and economic stability in advance of the upcoming national elections, where the current transitional government of Henrique Rosa is to be changed for a democratically elected government.
Mr Rosa's transition government was established after a popular military coup in September last year. The coup put an end to the democratically elected government of President Kumba Yala - who still is in house arrest - which had failed to stabilise the country politically and economically.
Most donor nations, including the Swedish government, had lost patience with the fruitless economic management of President Yala. Consequently, Guinea-Bissau received little foreign aid during his presidency, which in turn deepened the economic crisis.
Sweden in the 1980s and 1990s had been one of Guinea-Bissau's principal development partners. While Sweden's development agency, SIDA, was modernised in the early 1990s, aid to Guinea-Bissau was cut short as most projects in the country had failed due to rampant corruption.
While SIDA since year 2000 has deepened its activities in West Africa, aid to Guinea-Bissau during the Presidency of Mr Yala continued to be cut short. SIDA in December presented its new strategy for West Africa, which was valued at Swedish kronor 320 million (euro 34.7 million).
The Swedish agency had decided to enhance its work in Mali and Burkina Faso. Humanitarian aid to Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea (Conakry) was to be maintained. However, "in Nigeria and Guinea-Bissau, one expects cooperation to be maintained on a very limited level," SIDA concluded.
The US$ 1 million aid to Guinea-Bissau's political transition thus marks one of Sweden's first larger commitments to Bissau in several years.
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