II. GOOD GOVERNANCE
– A PREREQUISITE FOR PROGRESS

In the coming years, the Government will intensify Denmark’s international efforts to promote good governance, democracy and respect for human rights.

Numerous international studies – including the Commission for Africa report (2005) – have found that good governance is absolutely vital for achieving development and poverty reduction. Without good governance, other political and economic reforms will often have only limited effect.

Good governance is seen in Danish development assistance as the supervision and management of society’s resources for use in promoting social and economic development. Good governance implies respect for human rights, democracy, pluralism, open public debate, rule of law, competent public administration, elimination of corruption, and sustainable economic development.

Good governance can only be secured through a strong sense of national obligation.

Fundamentally, the developing countries themselves are responsible for taking the necessary steps to implement the reforms that can promote good governance and foster development.

However, lack of resources and capacity often means that many developing countries have difficulty in efficiently delivering basic services to their populations and in implementing and sustaining the reforms necessary for ensuring good governance. In many developing countries, there will be a need for assistance over many years before the countries have the capacity themselves to create and finance an efficient public sector.

With the Danish efforts, the Government will contribute to creating an efficient, open and responsible public administration in our programme countries. The Government will strive to ensure that the programme countries which demonstrate commitment to change are not kept in poverty due to the lack of resources and capacity.

In 2005, Denmark allocated approximately DKK 1 billion to strengthening good governance and civil society in developing countries – and this assistance will be further strengthened in the coming years.

To serve as a basis for this increase in prioritisation, a strategy for good governance will be formulated in 2007. The aim of the new strategy will be to ensure that the Danish efforts in this area are further focused, effective and visible, with the aim of generating the best possible results from the Danish development policy.

The new strategy will in particular focus on strengthening public administration in developing countries, so that the countries in the long-term are themselves able to deliver basic services such as healthcare, education, water and infrastructure.

Another absolutely key element of the strategy will be a strengthening of the public sector’s capacity to offer good and reliable framework conditions for business development. This is a huge challenge in many developing countries – especially in Africa. The Government will continue to assign very high priority to efforts aimed at strengthening the framework conditions for private companies – especially within the framework of the Danish business sector programmes.

The World Bank’s “Doing Business” indicators – which describe the regulations for starting and running a business – will be applied in the Danish assistance in order to identify the precise obstacles to a favorable business climate in the respective Danish programme countries.

Indicators provide a good starting point for a targeted Danish assistance, in which help to self-help is given, aimed at eliminating the concrete obstacles to generating economic growth.

In its efforts to foster good governance, the Government will make a concerted effort to strengthen the role of civil society in the Danish programme countries – both through bilateral assistance and through the Danish NGOs. An active civil society is crucial for promoting reliable public administration and a strong focus on poverty.

In 2007, the Government will implement activities in the Danish programme countries amounting to a total of approximately DKK 500 million, with the aim of promoting good governance and democracy in these countries. The specific new initiatives are presented in Table 2.

Table 2: New bilateral initiatives in 2007 to promote good governance

At the same time, the Government will continue already initiated activities promoting good governance in the other programme countries and within other sector programmes. The Danish assistance to good governance will build up the administrative and judicial capacity in the Danish programme countries – and thereby their ability to assume responsibility for their own development.

The Government will also strengthen its multilateral efforts to promote good governance. Within the EU, Denmark will strive to promote good governance in Africa, and the Government will press for the adoption of credibility, willingness to embrace change and progressive reforms as important criteria in connection with the allocation of the EU Commission’s development funds. Within the UN, Denmark will strive to ensure strong initiatives on the part of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) to promote good democratic governance.

The Government will also continue to assign very high priority to efforts aimed at promoting democracy and human rights – both internationally and through bilateral development assistance. The Government will strengthen the Partnership for Progress and Reform – as well as efforts to ensure that populations in poor countries can live in freedom and dignity in open societies with responsible governments.

Multilaterally, the Government will work to strengthen the linkage between human rights and development. In 2007, the Government will give a multi-annual commitment of DKK 25 million to the World Bank’s work on integrating human rights in policies, guidelines and aid programmes. On an international level, the World Bank will be in a position to contribute to integrating human rights more strongly in development assistance.

An important part of the Danish efforts to promote good governance will be to strengthen the consistent Danish policy aimed at fighting corruption in developing countries, which hits the poor hard. The Danish development assistance is based on a principle of zero-tolerance for corruption, and Denmark will contribute to strengthening developing countries’ own capacity to eradicate corruption.

As an important element in the efforts against corruption, the Government will place emphasis on promoting ethical conduct in public administration. This implies, for example, introducing improved and transparent procedures for public procurement, strengthening the role of inspection authorities, and implementing initiatives to fight the culture of corruption that prevails in certain public administrations. In this regard, civil society has an absolutely key role to play as a provider of information and education on the eradication of corruption.

In the implementation of the Danish assistance, decisive importance will be attached to the ability of developing countries to demonstrate a commitment to fighting corruption. The same applies to the organisations receiving Danish assistance, and also to civil society organisations such as NGOs and industrial organisations, which can play an important role in the efforts to fight corruption in both the public and private sector.