The Matter of Will

On 15th of March there was a big conference in Helsinki about aid for the undeveloped countries. President Tarja Halonen and a former president Martti Ahtisaari both stated that the Finnish output financially should be bigger.

The President of Finland Tarja Halonen and Former President Martti Ahtisaari (Suomen Kuvalehti)

Already in 1970’s Finland has promised to give 0.7 percentages of GDP for underdeveloped countries, but we haven’t accomplish it yet.
Now the goal is by the year of 2015 to fulfill those goals. The Secretary-General of Unicef Finland Kotoaro emphasized that the 0.7 percentages is not much for the Finnish government, it’s only worth of building 80 kilometers of new highway. On 26th of March the government will publish next years aid budget.

Both presidents want to improve women’s education and position in the third world countries. President Halonen has always been activist of the women’s rights and in the conference she said how in some countries girls are discriminated from the day they have born because of their sex. 

This conference has been the whole week in Finnish media coverage and it has raised a lot of conversation whether this is a good time to discuss about helping other countries when Finnish people are worried about their own problems due to the financial crisis.

As our former president and Nobel peace- price winner Ahtisaari said: “Politics is a matter of will. I hope that we will find it in this case.”