Tekijät

• Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland

Asiasanat

UN Millennium Development Goals, developing countries, development aid (international), economic recession, information sources, international cooperation, poverty, public expenditure

Sisällön kuvaus

The survey charted Finnish opinions on and knowledge of the country's development cooperation, its importance, content, objectives, and allocation. Some questions focused on the UN Millennium Development Goals.

The respondents were asked what came to mind upon hearing the word development cooperation, how important they regarded development cooperation, and to what extent they agreed with a number of statements relating to development cooperation (e.g. "Rich countries have an obligation to help developing countries"). Views on the effectiveness of development cooperation were charted as well as its greatest challenge. Familiarity with the UN Millennium Development Goals and views on the most important goals were surveyed. Factual questions relating to the Millennium Development Goals surveyed the respondents' perceptions on, for instance, whether the number of people living in absolute poverty had increased or decreased since 1990, how many children in all developing countries were able to start school, and the percentage of people with access to clean water. Opinions on the most important goals, activities (e.g. education, health care, industry), and key geographical areas for Finnish development cooperation were charted.

Factual knowledge was further charted by asking how much the respondents thought Finland was going to spend on development cooperation in 2014 (as percentage of the GNI and in euros), how many euros they thought Finnish farms had received in the form of agricultural subsidies in 2013, and how much Finland was going to spend on defence in 2014. The respondents were asked whether Finland should increase the amount of funding allocated to development cooperation in light of the current economic situation. Those who thought funding should be increased were asked how the increase should be financed (e.g. by cutting other state expenditure or by increasing tax revenue).

Some questions pertained to whether there was enough information available on development cooperation, development policy and developing countries, from which information sources the respondents had received information on these topics and from which of them they would like to receive more, whether more information should be available on certain topics, and how reliable public authorities, voluntary/civic organisations and the media were as sources of such information.

Views were surveyed on what the four most important forms of development cooperation are (e.g. bilateral, multilateral, cooperation through the EU) as well as how the respondents as individuals could best help developing countries. Finally, opinions on the importance of humanitarian aid were investigated.

Background variables included, among others, the respondent's gender, age, economic activity and occupational status, marital status, economic activity and occupational status of the household head, household composition, ages of children living at home, education, gross annual income of the household, municipality size and type, major region (NUTS2) and region (NUTS3) of residence, type of accommodation, and Internet use.