Kauppaa ja kehitystä, mutta kenen ehdoilla? Suomen ja Egyptin kehitysyhteistyön muotoutuminen 1970-luvulla

Abstract

Abstract

This article examines why and how Egypt became a priority country in Finnish development cooperation during the 1970s.The decision by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) to grant Egypt programme-country status and a dedicated budget was controversial, particularly among some Social Democrats, who viewed the cooperation as a vehicle for promoting Finnish export interests. While commercial motives were evident, this article argues that the aid allocation and distribution policies were more an outcome of diplomacy and bargaining between Finnish and Egyptian actors than Finnish unilateral motive to provide foreign aid. Drawing on the Finnish and especially MFA archival sources, the article explains how the Finns laid their eyes in Egypt after the 1973 Oil Crisis as an emerging market but also as a gateway to more prosperous Arab markets – and how the diplomacy and bargaining between the two countries shaped such initial interest into the aid relationship. Doing so, it underlines the impact foreign aid recipients like Egypt had in the aid (and trade) policy undertaken, contradicts the often-elevated role of the donor in the aid dynamics, and outlines a way to acknowledge aid recipient’s agency even from one-sided sources.