6 June 2006

Guest of Honour – Hon. Dr Juma Ngasongwa, Minister of Planning, Economy and Empowerment
Hon. Ministers and Officials of the Government of Tanzania and the Government of Zanzibar
Excellencies and Members of the diplomatic corps
Invited Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

A warm welcome to all of you who have joined us in this celebration of the Swedish National Day. Celebrating the Swedish National Day is still new to us and we haven’t really developed strong traditions for this particular day. So we are very happy and pleased that you are here today and helping us to shape some local traditions in Tanzania.  

A special welcome to our guest of honour, Hon. Dr. Juma Ngasongwa, Minister of Planning, Economy and Empowerment.

We in Sweden have been and still are a bit reluctant to celebrate ourselves and our country. That kind of national manifestation is considered as something of the past and should not form part of a modern, open, pluralistic society that should focus on global issues and international solidarity. Nevertheless, I think that the Swedish National Day provides an excellent opportunity for us to celebrate the Swedish partnership and friendship with Tanzania - combining commitments to global development and international solidarity with Swedish festivities. 

The Swedish National Day has a rather short history, it was introduced in 1983 and became a Public Holiday only last year. However, the reasons for celebrating it are far from recent. This day in 1523 King Gustav Vasa was elected king of Sweden. He is often referred to as the king, who built the Swedish nation after the Union with Denmark had collapsed. On the same day, but almost 300 years later – 1809 to be precise - the first Swedish constitution of a more modern design was adopted.
It paved the way for a democratization process, where an elected Parliament took shape and with - for the first time - a clear division between the executive and legislative powers. So it is basically up to each individual in the spirit of free choice to decide whether to
celebrate Nation or Democracy Building – or why not both?

Today we celebrate our close relations and long term cooperation with Tanzania. A cooperation that started more than 40 years ago and has gone through various phases and changes over the years. Now our development cooperation is guided by the Millennium Goals, the Mkukuta, the so called “Paris Declaration” and the JAS. The Swedish Government is expected to approve a new cooperation strategy  later this month.
We foresee a increase in GBS. There are two basic values guiding Swedish development cooperation;
the Poverty Perspective and the Rights Based Approach or in other words:

The goal of Swedish development assistance is to eradicate poverty.

All people have the same rights whether they are poor or rich, women or men, illiterate or literate, old or young, living with HIV/Aids or not.

This year Sweden will again reach the 1% target, which means that development assistance will reach 1% of the GDP. Africa is one of the priority areas for the increased development assistance budget. Tanzania is likely to benefit from this increase. Contributions to the UN system, the World Bank, the Regional Development Banks and the European Commission will also increase.

Hon Minister,
Yesterday, we marked World Environment Day to remind us of our responsibilities to future generations. On this note, the Swedish Government last year took a decision to break its oil dependency by 2020. In spite of Norway’s success in the oil business (that we heard about recently) and Tanzanian prospects of finding oil,
we believe that oil will be in constantly diminishing supply and therefore increasingly expensive.
We are also aware of the negative effects on the global climate of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.
Sweden is committed to become more energy efficient and to replace oil by CO2-emission free alternatives.
Some of it will be produced in Sweden the rest has to be imported. This is a big transformation that will mainly be driven by the market forces. It will not be easy but Brazil has shown the world that it is doable. It is the hope of my Government that other countries will join in setting ambitious targets to reduce their oil dependencies to the benefit of the environment.   

Hon. Minister,
Allow me to jump to something entirely different – to a Swedish writer – Selma Lagerlöf, who was the first women to receive the Nobel prize in literature. Her book “The wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson” was published a hundred years ago. She wrote it on request by the Swedish government, and it turned out to be a success that has touched generations of Swedish children. The idea was simple, a young boy,
Nils, travels around the country on the back of a goose and we read and learn from what he sees and experiences. The book taught us Swedish geography, history, culture and traditions. We think this idea could be translated and applied to Tanzania. Together with a partner in Tanzania the Embassy will launch  a competition for established Tanzanian writers and invite them to write about Tanzania inspired by the idea and book of Selma Lagerlöf. To give you a bit of the flavour of Selma Lagerlöf’s book, we will later be able to listen to a short passage from the book .

Talking about culture. We are very pleased to have four musicians called Mora Mix with us here tonight. It’s not a secret that they are playing Swedish Folk Music and will entertain us through the evening. Food is also culture. I hope you will be able to enjoy some Swedish specialties – in both solid and liquid form - at the tables out there.

Let me then take this opportunity to congratulate the Swedish community here in Tanzania on the Swedish National Day. I think most of us find it more appropriate to celebrate the National Day when not being in Sweden.
Somebody said that Swedish national sentiments increase by the distance we are away from Sweden.
Should the Swedish Football Team be victorious in the forth coming Word Cup, I am sure the national sentiments will overflow.

I would also like to take this opportunity to wish all those from Tanzania and elsewhere, who in one way or other are engaged in the Swedish Tanzanian development cooperation every success in their important endeavours. Tanzanian success is Swedish success.

Coming to the end of my address, I will invite Hon. Dr Juma Ngasongwa to say a few words.
After that we will listen to the two national anthems.

Before that, it is now my duty and honour to propose a toast to the health and wellbeing of H.E. Jakaya Kikwete, President of the United Republic of Tanzania and to the prosperity of the people of Tanzania.