ABSTRACT
The Nordic states are major donors of development assistance and disaster relief in Africa. For the Nordic countries, national interest in most political fields is not understood in traditional and explicit strategic or economic terms. The political sphere, more-or-less independent from security and defence policy, in which the large-scale contributions to United Nations peacekeeping had been possible, disappeared. The political mobilization against apartheid was one of the unifying issues in Nordic foreign policy. All Nordic states have either formulated strategies on how to coordinate efforts in order to address development and security simultaneously, or pointed to the need for such strategies. Contemporary Nordic foreign policy is less about handling threats or geopolitical challenges directly than about seeking influence through international institutions. None of the Nordic states have successfully sustained an independent grand strategy built on a broad range of civilian and military capabilities in Africa.
