Mr Chairman,
Mr President,
Distinguished Governors,
Ladies and Gentlemen.

Today, I have the honour to address the Governing Council of IFAD on behalf of the Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and my own country, Sweden.

First of all, we are happy to see another female professional joining the senior management team. On behalf of all the Nordic countries I would like to extend a warm welcome to Vice President Omura, who brings important experience and knowledge to IFAD.

One year ago, when we met for the 32nd Governing Council of IFAD, the food, fuel and financial crises were, in addition to the issue of climate change, key external factors influencing our discussions. The international community has since taken action in many different forums and great efforts have been made to find ways to address these issues. New crises have emerged since then, Haiti being the latest and the most tragic one.

While our attention is now focused on Haiti, we must remind ourselves that, while the present crisis is due to a natural disaster, Haitians – like others – also suffer from all the types of crises mentioned earlier. We welcome IFAD’s readiness to assist Haiti on this difficult situation, including your readiness to explore options for further debt relief.

If IFAD is to play a role in addressing the economic crisis, the food crisis or the changing climate it will be necessary that efforts are stepped up in the five broad areas pointed out in the IFAD 8 Replenishment Report:

• maintaining the commitment to organisational reform;
• accelerating progress in human resources reforms;
• maintaining and improving staff morale;
• strengthening focus and partnerships on innovation; and
• mainstreaming knowledge management.

Mr President,

we attach the greatest importance to these reforms agreed upon in the Action Plan and reiterated in the IFAD 8 Replenishment Report.

In particular, we would like to underline the great importance that we attach to the human resources management of the Fund. The highly motivated and skilled staff of IFAD must be given the right incentives, tools and institutional setting if IFAD is to succeed in meeting the targets set out for IFAD 8.

The Nordic countries would also like to take this opportunity to emphasize the importance of  additional efforts to increase the mainstreaming of gender equality and women’s empowerment within IFAD as well as in IFAD’s projects during the eighth replenishment period. We are looking forward to the upcoming evaluation on gender equality in 2010.  

In this past year we have seen continued progress from IFAD on addressing our common remaining challenges, and IFAD is increasingly seen as an important and serious partner. We have seen many updates of policies and regulations that govern the internal effectiveness and efficiency of IFAD. In spite of positive progress, internal challenges still remain.

As major donors and strong supporters of IFAD, the Nordic countries care a great deal about the efficiency in both operations and administration. As an increasingly important player in tackling the development challenges, IFAD must meet the highest standards, including reducing overhead costs.

Furthermore, we stress the need for IFAD to remain at the forefront when it comes to disclosure, transparency, supervision and independent evaluation. Openness and transparency are core values in the Nordic societies and we promote these values in the IFI:s, the UN and also in IFAD. We do so because openness and transparency lay the foundation for both efficiency and effectiveness, as well as trust.

Ultimately, it is because of the very strong commitment of the Nordic countries to the mission of IFAD, to enable poor rural people to overcome poverty, that we keep on pushing the Fund forward to become even more efficient and effective, producing long term development results.

Mr President,

we wish you every success in this mission.
Thank you for your attention.

17 February 2010