Aid commitments following the recent Maldives Donor Conference have reached US$487 million, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Foreign Minister Dr Ahmed Shaheed and State Minister Ahmed Naseem took to the stage this morning to dismiss claims made by the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) that the donor conference had raised less US$20 million in pledges.
“That is their own number,” Dr Shaheed said.
“If you add up the money from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the UN system, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) it’s almost US$200 million. That is 80 per cent of pledges coming from these big donors.”
Shaheed spoke about monitoring and implementation mechanisms, which would ensure the funds are used according to the donor’s wishes and the government’s pledges.
Coordinator for the UN in the Maldives Mansoor Ali said the donor conference had been very successful and it was “not the time to be negative” about the results.
Dr Shaheed also spoke of the recent climate change meeting held this week by the Progressive Group in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, where delegates from 23 countries met to advance negotiations before the next international climate change summit scheduled to take place in Cancun, Mexico in November this year.
The Progressive Group brings together the countries with a “forward-looking and constructive attitude to international climate change negotiations,” and played a key role in last year’s international climate change summit in Copenhagen.
Delegates from over twenty countries came together in Colombia to “exchange opinions and promote active participation towards the next climate change summit.”
The meeting focused mostly on creating ministerial-level communication between countries, in hopes to ease dialogue between nations and to advance on key issues such as fast-start financing, adaptation, low-carbon development and verification of emission cuts.
Maldives proposed a second ministerial-level meeting to take place in Malé in July this year.
Dr Shaheed also spoke of President Mohamed Nasheed’s recent visit to Europe, and confirmed that German Police officers will be arriving in Malé “very soon” to begin training Maldives Police Service (MPS) officers to work in a democracy.
“They are the ones who retrained the Stasi in East Germany after German reunification, as well as the police force in Kosovo,” Shaheed said. “They are the best in the world at what they do.”
He said the German team will stay in the Maldives from one year to eighteen months, depending on when they believe the MPS is ready, “all at the German government’s expense.”
Dr Shaheed added that Icelandic President, Ólafur Grímsson, will be visiting the Maldives soon to promote sustainable green energy alongside President Nasheed.
Dr Shaheed spoke of the recently signed agreement with the Rothschild banking dynasty, which has agreed to help the Maldives in the bid to become carbon neutral by 2020.
“There needs to be a study on where we have most carbon emissions,” Dr Shaheed said, adding that “they will also try to carbon-proof our current systems.”
The Rothschild group will secure international financing to fund a carbon audit of the Maldives. Dr Shaheed said the surveying will take approximately nine months.
Dr Shaheed ended the press conference with news of the UN Human Rights Council’s decision to draft a new international human rights treaty as an additional optional protocol to the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), which was proposed by the Maldives.
Maldives was chosen to chair the core group discussing the CRC in Geneva, joined by Slovenia, Slovakia, Egypt, Kenya, France, Finland, Thailand, Uruguay and Chile.
The CRC, which is the most ratified treaty in the world, was lacking in allowing cases regarding abuse of the rights of children to be submitted to international UN mechanisms.
The new treaty proposes to allow cases to be sent to international protection mechanisms to intervene when domestic institutions fail to offer protection.
Correction: In an earlier version of this story Dr Shaheed was quoted as saying the visiting German police trainers were responsible for retraining the Gestapo after the Second World War. This has been clarified as the Stasi, the East German secret police, who were retrained after the reunification of Germany post-1990.
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The forecasted requirement for for the next 3 years (at 150 mn usd per year) is 450 mn usd.
The Government has already obtained / had been 'pledged' 487 mn ( a surplus of 37 mn). This includes 313 mn usd raised by the donor conference.
This means the Government has all the money it needs.
From now on, we should not hear anyone saying there is no money
By the way, I suggest the surplus of 37 mn usd be loaned to one of those poorer countries as Foreign Aid from Maldives.
What the hell is a donor conference? Why should we ordinary citizens care? My home does not even have stairs to go from one floor to another. We use a metal ladder. For god's sake! Water itself is a luxury at my home. We fight over a single 1l bottle of Taza. When is our lot going to change. When can my grandmother sleep in a bed and not on a stool in the alleyway! Answer me Anni!!!
now i least try to fix the things and move on with your work.show the people in 3 year time mdp goverment can build maldives.dont talk about it & dont waste ur time.keep it up
Any Proof this Government can show to the people..... ?????
@ Seni Naim, thank god you got internet.
This is good news, I hope that things would get better, the government has good ideas, green ideas and if everything goes as planned, it will be a bright future.
This all rubbish. Shaheed is there any one on earth who doesn't know ICeland?? A bankrupt country. A bankrupt president who was prepared to give all his time to you and MDPs bullshit about climate change. This is not the first time MDP said they have raised millions. Even before coming to power Nasheed said his party has arranged to get 300 million to deal with the take over and bla bla bla.
Tell us something new. you old storeis, no one buys anymore. people are fed up of this bulshit by you Shaheed and Anni. WHo beleives you??
now thats a thought.Isn't it??
Have a good day shaheed
"Dr Shaheed also spoke of President Mohamed Nasheed’s recent visit to Europe, and confirmed that German Police officers will be arriving in Malé “very soon” to begin training Maldives Police Service (MPS) officers to work in a democracy.
“They are the ones who trained the Gestapo in Germany after the war, as well as the police force in Kosovo,” Shaheed said. “They are the best in the world at what they do.”
They trained WHO? The Gestapo in Germany after the war??? The Maldivian FM must be off his rocker! The Gestapo was Hitler´s storm troop and was certainly not trained "by german police" that also trained police in Kosovo. What crap outrageous crap.
LOL, Oh man Spin Doctor, you just wanted to make it look so big LOL..GESTAPO was trained by German Police? LMAOL...oooooh "farting" ooooh
Dr.Shaheed, you cant fool us all the time, with nonsense. Why do we need the Gestapo level of police training, we are just few hundred thousand law abiding people in small islands, its just few of you who want steal everything belong to them, in the name of democracy everyday and trying to be smart. But at the end of the day you are fooled by your self.
I don't know that German police trained the GESTAPO after the 2. world war. That's a mistake. The GESTAPO the Geheime Staatspolizei (German
for Secret State Police,
was formally organized after the Nazis
seized power in 1933. Later in 1936, the Gestapo
was merged with the Kriminalpolizei (...or “Kripo,” German
for Criminal
Police).During World
War II, the Einsatzgruppen
(Task Force) was formed, and came to be an integral part of the
Gestapo.
It was the Task Force's job to round up all the Jews and other
“undesirables”
living within Germany's newly conquered territories, and to
either send
them to concentration
camps or put them to death.The army units within the Gestapo were taught many torture techniques, and were also taught many of the practices that German doctors in Dachau tested on the inmates of concentration camps. The Gestapo, during its tenure, operated without any restrictions by civil authority, meaning that its members could not be tried for any of their police practices. This unconditional authority added an elitist element to the Gestapo; its members knew that whatever actions they took, no consequences would arise.
If the Government has been able to secure over 300 million USD that is wonderful news. But is it true? Several reasons lead us to believe that the Government is once again bluffing.
Dr. Shaheed is known to us as a spin doctor. He made several false allegations against reformers, and voiced false stories when he was the most strongest supporter of the Government of then. Later he joined New Maldives, subsequently Gaumee Party, and made similar fabricated statements several times. However much we want to believe him, how is it possible to believe this man. We know that he is capable of joining DRP again and claim that no donors supported Anni's Government for so and so reason.
The character of Dr. Shaheed is one reason why it is hard to believe this story. There are of course many other reasons.
Pledges for donations have been made by international bodies in several circumstances but they are never realized. The are pledges and they always come with conditions attached. And it is these conditions that become the hurdles for not realizing the so called committments.
Donor representatives would have liked to spend their few holiday-like conference in Maldives. Who will turn down an opportunity to visit Maldives? The Maldives they experienced would have been not so poor and desperate compared to many other countries that the same donors have to keep in their minds. Take for example, Haiti and several African nations. While tourism in on the rebound, it would have been difficult for Dr. Shaheed - even with his superb spin qualities - to convince donors that Maldives is in such a desperate situation.
The third reason for donor's to be skeptical was presented to them while in Maldives. The Auditor General that the Government defended with such committment was thrown out by the first democratically elected parliament with overwhelming majority. What message does that send to the donors? Certainly they know that this Government now has little support among the public. They also know that Maldives faces days of instability.
Dr. Shaheed and President Nasheed would go a long way if they give up this spinning strategy and adopt a more realistic and honest strategy. Maldivians are not stupid, they know that is going on. And Maldivians are also forgiving. So, if the Government can change, even now Nasheed has a chance of winning back the support once he had.
I support the person who sais the money should go to ensure that his grandmother has a decent place to sleep. I am very pleased with this money, but we must make sure that we use it wisely and that at the end this money does not indebt us. The IMF gave huge amounts of loans to Latin American countries and Indonesia etc. But the IMF also ensured that there was no way this money could be paid back. The indonesian's did not know what hit them. Us Maldivians have to make sure that this money is not an opportunity for IMF to manipulate our newly elected democratic president.
Stop talking, Do something machaa...
Only 3 years left for these big talks.
Show me the money.
Donor conference ah ai beyfulhun Dr Shaheed dhakkaafa hee, heefa bunyo mee kon kahala meehehey, kuree faharu "Noo" tie eh alhaigen ais aharumen kairi bunyey "MDP very bad, DRP very good..Give money ey" mifaharu hama eyna "Reedhoo" tie eh alhaigen ais mibunanee ey "DRP very bad, MDP very good..give money ey"
I am DRP. I am really sad that ANNI government is becoming a success. if this is a success then they will win the next election as well. This means all the corrupt deals I had from Maumoon (the great leader) will be gone and I will not be able to make any deals any more. I urge Umar Naseer to bring a coup as soon as possible as I will lose everything i have stolen.
Sorry for the misunderstanding about the Gestapo: Dr Shaheed actually said the Stasi, the East German secret police, who were retrained after the reunification of Germany post-1990.
It was my mistake, I have corrected it now.
Apologies, Dr Shaheed did not say Gestapo.
Laura, damage is already done, well we dont believe what you said anyway....it was reported on all other mainstream media...he did say Gestapo. cmon Laura, you wanna stop your small baby crying?
Can anyone tell me what happened to the money for 25000 flats that the Chinese government pledged in November 2008 and the multi-million dollar Thimarafushi airport project.
Hello Laura. Thank you very much for the correction.
For Fatumath...
“They are the ones who retrained the Stasi in East Germany after German reunification, as well as the police force in Kosovo,” Shaheed said.
I think you should have a look at what is written before throwing your anger at Shaheed. He says these officers RE-Trained the Stasi. "Stasi" is the name of the East German police during communist rule.
Does not standard journalistic procedure require that the original article remain unchanged and any changes be indicated in a separate brief note? Changing the original is, well, rather Stazi-like.
Why does Dr. Shaheed want Rothschild to mobilise funds to do a Carbon budget when the Environment Ministry and Foreign Minitry knows there are funds already available from the Global Environment Facility to do exactly that.