14 November 2008
Maputo — A Finnish delegation is preparing to visit Mozambique to assess the situation of the press as well as the stage of development of the country.
The delegates are to visit some of the undertakings financed by Finland and will meet with members of the Mozambican government. But their main objective is to learn about the way the money granted by Finland for development aid is being used.
The 15 member delegation will include representatives of the Foreign Ministry, media managers, and business people.
They will also meet with journalists and representatives of the public and private media to hear their opinions about the freedom of the press and development of the country.
A source in the Finnish Foreign Ministry told AIM that information collected by the delegation will be reported to the government and to the Finnish people. The source added that the Finnish government regards press freedom as a fundamental requirement for development, because it allows the media an opportunity to criticize state officials, and report objectively on the problems that affect the country.
This year's edition of the World Press Freedom Index, published by the Paris-based NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF), classified Mozambique in 90th position out of a group of 173 countries this year, down from the 73rd position in 2007.
However, Mozambique's score actually improved, from 23 points to 20.5. In the RSF classification, the lower a country's score, the better the conditions are for its journalists. Places that make life impossible for journalists, such as Eritrea or North Korea, have scores in excess of 90.
Mozambique's fall in the ranking, must therefore be attributed to RSF's belief that other countries are improving more rapidly than Mozambique.
The visit of the Finnish delegation comes at a time when some sectors of Finnish public opinion are arguing that direct support to the state budget of developing countries, including Mozambique, should be discontinued, because the donors lose control of those resources.
But, during Mozambican President Armando Guebuza's visit to Helsinki earlier this month, the Finnish government made clear it intended to continue direct budget support at the current level of seven million euros (about nine million US dollars) a year.
Budget support accounts for about 23 per cent of total Finnish aid of 31 million euros. Much of this money is for projects in agriculture and forestry, information and communication technologies and development of the private sector.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
