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Sweden drafts new SA relations

07 October, 2008

JOHANNESBURG. Representatives of the Embassy of Sweden in Pretoria, The Swedish Development Agency (Sida), the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Swedish Trade Council, the Folke Bernadotte Academy and the National Police Board met in mid-September a range of South African counterparts to discuss the development of a new strategy for Swedish-South African relations.

The cooperation strategy will be the first to encompass the majority of Sweden’s bilateral relations with another country. Although bilateral development cooperation will be a vital part, trade and economic cooperation, political relations and regional cooperation will be equally important, explains the Swedish Embassy in Pretoria.

“This is not just a development framework, it’s much broader than that,” said Peter Tejler, Sweden's new ambassador to South Africa, who led the delegation from the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in the strategy talks.

In addition to Sida, the Swedish National Police Board, the Swedish Trade Council and the Folke Bernadotte Academy, who are all already collaborating with South African authorities and organisations, have been assigned to contribute to the strategy.

“We are convinced that the more actors are present in the relationship, the stronger it will be. That will benefit both our countries, as well as the region,” said Tejler, who emphasised that it was no longer a question of a traditional donor-recipient relationship between the two countries.

Elaine Venter, director of International Development Cooperation at the South African National Treasury, said Sweden and South Africa were entering ”a new chapter" in their relations. “I’m looking forward to this journey,” she said.

She thought, however, that it was too early to call Sweden and South Africa equal: “We can’t call ourselves equal when it comes to development. But we are equal in the sense that we share many values and priorities.”

Human rights, equality, trade, HIV and AIDS, climate and environmental issues and peace and security were mentioned by both countries as priority areas in their future collaboration.

“Trilateral cooperation will become an increasingly important vehicle for supporting peace, security and democratic development in Africa. There is an important role for Sweden there,” said David du Buisson, head of the Nordic Desk at the South African Department of Foreign Affairs.
Partner-driven cooperation one of four “legs”

Future bilateral relations between Sweden and South Africa can be divided into four “legs”:

-partner-driven cooperation with some development funding;

-regular bilateral cooperation with no development funding;

-grant-funded development cooperation in targeted areas such as HIV and AIDS;

-and regional and tripartite cooperation in Africa.

Partner-driven cooperation involves equal, co-financed partnerships between public authorities, institutions, municipalities and regions, universities, non-governmental organisations and trade organisations, to name a few. Partnerships can receive some development funding to kick-start relations, but should be self-sustaining in the long term.

Michaela Friberg-Storey from the Folke Bernadotte Academy and Håkan Öberg from the Swedish National Police Board emphasised the mutual benefit of their organisations’ partnerships with the South African peace and security organisation ACCORD and the South African Police Service respectively.

“There is a lot of expertise in South Africa that we can learn from,” said Michaela Friberg-Storey.

Anders Wenström from the Swedish Trade Council spoke about their involvement in a programme for broader economic cooperation in South Africa together with the South African Department for Trade and Industry, dti.

The Swedish government is expected to take a decision on the new cooperation strategy before the end of this year. The Africa Department at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs is coordinating the work on the Swedish side.