Finland Times

 

Centre Party lawmaker Aila Paloniemi. File Photo – Lehtikuva.

The government on Thursday appointed a new Development Policy Committee for the next four years beginning from 2016, said a press release of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

 

Headed by Centre Party lawmaker Aila Paloniemi, the committee consists of representatives from  all the political parties in the Parliament as well as interest groups and stakeholders that are central from the development policy point of view.

 

The Development Policy Committee formulates visions of development policy shared by the parties and stakeholders.

 

It follows and reviews the implementation of Finland´s development policy guidelines and interna-tional commitments.

 

The Committee's mission is to follow the implementation of the global sustainable development agenda in Finland from the development policy perspective and to monitor the implementation of the government programmes and the government's development policy guidelines.

 

It seeks to ensure the effectiveness and continuity of development cooperation. It is to promote de-cisions that support development in policy sectors influencing the situation in the developing world. It issues statements and commissions reports on the implementation of development policy.

 

The objective is to encourage national and in particular parliamentary discussion on development policy.

 

The parties were asked to name a full member and a substitute, of whom at least one should be an MP. In the new Development Policy Committee that will assume its functions in January, the num-ber of members representing interest groups and stakeholders is somewhat smaller than in the pre-vious Committee. In determining the membership, attention was paid to the development policy priorities of the government.

 

In addition, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs will appoint a necessary number of permanent special-ists to the Committee. The term of the Committee will begin on 1 January 2016 and end on 31 De-cember 2019.

 

Other members of the committee are National Coalition Party lawmaker Saara-Sofia Sirén, Swedish People's Party lawmaker Ida Schauman, Social Democratic Party lawmaker Susanna Huovinen, Green League lawmaker Jani Toivola, Left Alliance lawmaker Hanna Sarkkinen, Christian Democrats Antero Laukkanen, MP, Finns Party leader Kari Kulmala, MP, Timo Lappalainen from KEPA, Finnish NGO platform, Rilli Lappalainen from the Finnish NGDO Platform to the EU Kehys, Satu Vasamo-Koskinen from Confederation of Finnish Industries EK, Timo Palander from The Federa-tion of Finnish Enterprises (FFE). 

 

Representatives from the Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff in Finland (AKAVA), the Finnish Confederation of Professionals STTK, and the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions SAK, Adviser to International Affairs at SAK  Aleksi Kuusisto, Central Un-ion of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK) director Seppo Kallio, UNIPID (Universi-ty Partnership Network for International Development) director Jussi Pakkasvirta, and Tarmo Heikkilä  from Foreign Ministry's partnership organisations - Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission (FELM) are also in the committee.