– Comprehensive assistance is needed more than ever.

The world has become more dangerous, says Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide. Figures from Uppsala University support it: they report more armed conflicts in the world in 2023 than ever before, a whopping 59.

The Institute for Peace Research, PRIO, reports that more people were killed in war in 2022 than in any year since 1984: more than 200,000 killed in direct combat.

Over a billion more people live in countries in conflict today than 20 years ago.

A very few of the conflicts receive the attention they deserve. Most of these never figure in any headlines, with the exception of when they get a place on the Norwegian Refugee Council’s list of the world’s forgotten crises.

And as always, when the number of conflicts increases, the human consequences of the wars explode.

In 2022, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 108 million people were displaced from their homes. That is more than a doubling from 10 years ago.

At least 337 million people are in need of humanitarian support. Available assistance is nowhere near enough. In 2023, only 40 percent of the UN’s emergency aid appeals were funded.

The world has more wars and these last longer. An average conflict in 1990 lasted around 16 years, now they last over 30 years.

We rarely succeed in ending conflicts and creating lasting peace, around half of all wars that have broken out after 1989 are old wars that flare up again rather than genuinely new conflicts.

War characterizes Norwegian and international aid. Today, Norad presents Norway’s official aid statistics for 2023.

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While just under a third of the country-specific Norwegian aid went to countries with conflict in 2010, two thirds now go to conflict countries. Ukraine receives historic levels of aid – from Norway alone, NOK 8 billion in 2023.

But in addition, in the last decade we have seen a large increase in Norwegian aid to conflict-affected countries in Africa and the Middle East – many of these are countries Norway has long cooperated with in development policy.

In just over ten years, the number of Norwegian cooperation countries with conflict has increased sharply, from 19 countries on average in 2010-13 to 26 countries in 2020-23. In a relatively short time, this increase has fundamentally changed the framework conditions for Norwegian aid.

A large number of countries, especially in Africa, with which Norway has had long-term development cooperation, have gone from being, at least relatively, peaceful to now having war.

This includes countries such as Ethiopia, South Sudan and Niger.

The conflict picture has also become more fragmented, and the number of conflicts in Africa has almost doubled from 2010 to 2023, in already vulnerable contexts.

Today’s wars undermine much of the development these countries have achieved, while at the same time making it even more difficult to achieve much-needed development in the future.

Aid is particularly important for countries in conflict. In Norwegian aid, we work purposefully to mobilize private investment in developing countries and to contribute to the countries mobilizing more of their own resources.

Both parts are critical for countries to become independent of aid. For countries in conflict, on the other hand, it is difficult and often impossible to attract risk-averse private capital or to mobilize their own resources.

After private remittances, aid is the most important source of financing for vulnerable states. When several countries experience conflict, much-needed aid funds must be spread thinner and thinner across all the needs the funds are supposed to fill.

War and development are closely related. Most wars today are internal within a country, fought between one or more rebel groups and the state.

What we colloquially call civil wars.

A civil war that results in more than 1,000 people killed in direct combat a year, miles below the intensity of many of today’s wars, steals an average of one percentage point from a country’s economic growth.

The more intense the war becomes, the more precarious for the economy the effect becomes. An average civil war wipes out a fifth of the country’s income in five years.

Considerable aid flows are needed just to be able to come close to zeroing out the negative economic consequences of war.

The research indicates that a country that receives 10 per cent of its gross national income from aid will have a percentage point higher growth than the country would have had without aid.

Conflict traps countries in downward spirals. We know that poverty is closely linked to the risk of civil war.

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In poor countries, it is easier to recruit for rebel groups at the same time that the state often lacks the ability to maintain law and order.

In other words – poor countries have more civil wars, and civil wars make countries poorer – war is development in reverse. Countries emerging from conflict are often characterized by distrust between groups and distrust of the state.

Work to strengthen state institutions and contribute to building strong civil societies, both very central objectives in Norwegian aid, is much more difficult in poor conflict countries than in poor but peaceful countries.

In order to meet this new reality for Norwegian aid, the government has made a concerted effort to become a guiding star.

This has been followed up by concrete reforms of the aid administration which will ensure that we are better equipped to both respond to, prevent and prevent crises.

The numbers speak for themselves, it is needed now more than ever.