Finland’s Aid Freeze: Somali Women, Mothers and Children Pay the Price of a Political Dispute

By Abdikarim Haji Abdi Buh

Finland’s decision to withhold €4.2 million in development funding for seven projects in Somalia raises serious questions about the humanitarian consequences of using aid as leverage in a dispute over migration. The people most likely to suffer are not the officials negotiating deportation arrangements, but vulnerable women, mothers, children and people in need of healthcare and other essential services.

Finnish Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Tavio has rejected funding applications submitted by four Finnish non-governmental organisations for projects planned between 2027 and 2030. He justified the decision by arguing that Somalia had not done enough to cooperate in receiving Somali nationals ordered to leave Finland.

The seven proposals covered vocational training and employment, maternal healthcare, mental-health services, waste management, women’s economic empowerment, nutrition and the prevention of gender-based violence. The Finnish Somalia Network alone sought approximately €1.19 million for vocational training and employment, €594,000 for maternal healthcare and €486,000 for waste management. Other proposals included programmes supporting vulnerable women in Hargeisa and Burao and people requiring mental-health treatment. ( Project details and funding figures – Somalia Today )

These are not projects designed to reward or strengthen the Somali government. They are intended to address urgent needs among communities whose access to basic services remains severely limited.

Making vulnerable people pay for a diplomatic dispute

Somalia has endured more than three decades of state collapse, conflict and institutional weakness since the central government fell in 1991. It continues to confront the Al-Shabaab insurgency, with African Union forces supporting Somali security operations. Poverty, displacement, drought and inadequate public services have left millions dependent on humanitarian assistance and support from international organisations.

Against that background, withholding funding for maternal healthcare, mental-health treatment and women’s livelihoods raises a fundamental question: why should vulnerable Somali communities bear the consequences of a disagreement between two governments over deportation and readmission?

Finland is entitled to pursue cooperation with Somalia on the return of its nationals. Governments have legitimate responsibilities to manage migration and establish arrangements for the return of citizens who have no legal right to remain in another country. But there is a distinction between holding a government accountable for its diplomatic commitments and penalising people who have no control over those negotiations.

Women seeking maternal care, families needing vocational training and people living with mental-health conditions are not responsible for the policies of Somalia’s federal authorities. Treating development assistance as leverage in a migration dispute risk turning those with the least political power into the principal victims.

Questions over fairness and good governance

The decision has also triggered criticism within Finland. Fingo, the umbrella organisation representing Finnish development NGOs, argues that Somalia had not been excluded from the funding competition and that applicants had not been informed in advance that projects operating there would be rejected.

Fingo says organisations had sought clarification from the Foreign Ministry and were given reason to believe that applications for projects in Somalia could still be considered. The ministry’s officials reportedly recommended funding four of the seven proposals, worth approximately €2.2 million. Tavio nevertheless rejected all seven.

Fingo has questioned the fairness of allowing organisations and their local partners to spend considerable time and resources preparing applications when the minister was apparently unwilling to approve any new projects in Somalia. It also criticised the minister for announcing details of the applications publicly before organisations had received formal decisions.

Prime Minister Petteri Orpo initially said he wanted to examine the decision and its grounds. He subsequently stated that the minister had the authority to reject the applications. Fingo does not dispute the minister’s formal authority; its central objection is that the manner in which the decision was reached and communicated fell short of good administrative practice. ( Fingo’s explanation of its objections ; Yle’s coverage of Orpo’s position )

The dispute also highlights an apparent shift in Finland’s earlier policy. When Finland suspended its bilateral country programme with Somalia in November 2024, it maintained that the suspension did not extend to humanitarian assistance, civil-society organisations or private-sector support. Fingo says Somali projects remained eligible for a separate funding round last year and that Somalia was not excluded from this year’s application process. ( Fingo’s account of the previous policy and this year’s application process )

A disproportionate response

The Finnish government may argue that development cooperation should advance national interests and that readmission agreements are part of its migration policy. But a policy can fall within a minister’s authority and still be disproportionate in its consequences.

The rejection of these seven projects does not, by itself, resolve the disagreement over deportations or make Somalia’s institutions more capable of receiving returning citizens. Instead, it risks disrupting programmes that could improve healthcare, livelihoods and community resilience.

There is also a broader question of consistency. Finland has long presented itself as a country committed to human rights, effective public administration and international development. Those principles are tested not only by its treatment of governments, but also by the consequences of its decisions for ordinary people.

Somalia’s authorities must engage seriously with questions of readmission and establish workable arrangements with Finland. But responsibility for that process belongs to the governments involved. It should not be transferred to pregnant women, unemployed young people, survivors of gender-based violence or patients who need mental-health care.

The most troubling feature of this decision is its human cost. A dispute over migration has become a reason to withhold support from projects intended to protect some of the most vulnerable people in Somali society. In seeking to pressure Mogadishu, Finland risks imposing the heaviest burden on those least able to bear it.

Humanitarian development assistance should not become a bargaining chip in a diplomatic contest. When political disagreements are settled at the expense of the sick, the poor and the displaced, it is ordinary people—not the governments negotiating across the table—who pay the price.

Abdikarim Haji Abdi Buh

Email: [email protected]