After many years of negotiations, the international donor community has finally agreed to untie its aid to the least developed countries (LDCs). This breakthrough came at today’s session of the High Level Meeting of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee now being held in Paris. "This is very good news, and about time," says Minister of International Development Anne Kristin Sydnes.

Reaching this agreement has been a difficult process, and food aid and certain aspects of technical assistance are excluded from the recommendation. These are areas which will require further work.

The Recommendation on the Untying of Aid to Least Developed Countries was accepted by all member states today. Due to the change in government now taking place in Japan, member states have until 11 May to secure political endorsement for the recommendation.

It has long been a documented fact that development cooperation would be much more effective if recipient countries were not restricted to certain suppliers. We must now formulate a strategy to define how Norway will put the provisions of this recommendation into practice, says Ms. Sydnes.

The timing of this decision to agree on the recommendation is unusually good. The Third United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries will be held in the middle of May, and the decision to untie aid to these countries is thus an important contribution from the international donor community to this conference.