Globalisation

Denmark has historically been amongst the largest donors of development aid in proportion with its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Since the middle of the 1970s, the country has been one of the few to live up to the United Nation’s goals for high income countries, that is, to provide at least 0.7% of GDP. In a short period in the 1990s, Denmark actually provided more than 1%. A large part of Danish development aid has been targeted at improving the conditions of the weakest groups and is primarily given to the poorest developing countries. Danish aid has often been praised in international evaluations. Even though a feeling of responsibility has played a big role in the high level of Danish aid, it has also been an integrated part of Denmark’s foreign policy in the period since the Second World War. It has been used to support international cooperation with, among others, the United Nations, and has been used to advance Denmark’s foreign policy priorities on the international agenda, such as, social development, equality and the environment. At the same time, it has been an important part of Denmark’s bilateral political and economic relations with many developing countries.

The Foundation for Assistance for Underdeveloped Areas, or India Foundation as it was known, marked the beginning of Norwegian international development aid in 1952. Against the backdrop of the Marshall Plan and the burgeoning Cold War, there were persuasive political reasons for the initiative, over and above its purported purpose to assist India.

The principles and aims of the United Nations resonate in the Nordic countries, which are small welfare states with an appreciation of international law, solidarity and multilateral problem-solving. From the time of the League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations) to the 1990s, the Nordic region developed and operated a caucusing and voting group with considerable authority in its own right. People from the Nordic countries have held influential positions at the United Nations, such as Trygve Lie and Dag Hammarskjöld in the 1950s and 1960s.

The internationalism of the Nordic countries is characterised by a general commitment to international institutions and law, agenda-setting and bridge-building between North and South, East and West alike. The Nordic countries traditionally provide high levels of development aid. These and other characteristics have elicited diverse responses, including the accusation that the Nordic countries behave like ’moral superpowers’ and that they engage in certain international issues so they are more easily able to bow out of others.