Women and highly educated people are more positive about development aid than other groups in Sweden, and more and more people are aware of the UN's 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development. This is shown by a new survey from the Swedish development assistance authority Sida.
The survey, like Swas released on December 13, has been done annually since 1974 to measure the Swedish people's views on aid. The measuring areas are the willingness to develop aid, one's own commitment to development aid issues, the perceived effectiveness of Sweden's development assistance and the knowledge of Sweden's development assistance work and the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.
The 2021 survey states that more and more people in Sweden are aware of the Global Goals, ie the 17 goals for sustainable development that the UN member states have set for the year 2030. In the survey, 51 percent of those surveyed answered that they have heard talk about the Global Goals. In 2018, the figure was 37 percent.
- It is a positive development that more and more people are aware of the Global Goals. This is important because we all have to contribute in order for us to achieve the goals, says Sepideh Imani, communications manager at Sida.
The willingness to assist was higher until 2018
The general willingness to provide assistance in Sweden has been at approximately the same level in recent years and it is generally a matter of minor changes compared with the previous year. What distinguishes the surveys of recent years is that the own commitment and willingness to provide assistance was higher until 2018.
In the survey, Sida also states that many of those surveyed in this year's survey believe that Sweden's work with development assistance is somewhat diffuse. Half of them state that they do not have a good idea of how the goals are achieved and the approaches to getting there, even though the goals are well known.
On the other hand, the Swedish public has a clear interest in development assistance and this year's survey shows that more than half of the respondents want greater knowledge about Swedish development assistance. The basic idea of solidarity also receives a great deal of support - in other words, the desire to provide support to people living in inhumane conditions is great. In addition, the majority believe that it is of great importance that Sweden contributes to the development of poor countries.
- What is gratifying is that we see that the interest in knowing more about Swedish development assistance is high, as more than half want to know more - which means that we can communicate even more about it, Sepideh Imani explains.
Knowledge of the world is poor
Sida's survey shows an overly critical picture of certain parts of the world and its development. In matters concerning development in Vietnam, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Kenya and the average life expectancy of these countries, literacy, infant mortality and childbirth, knowledge is generally very low. For example, only five percent know that the number of children born in the world is not increasing and that infant mortality has decreased markedly, only 15 percent of respondents know. On the other hand, the picture of the countries' situation has changed to more positive over time and now it is more in line with the truth than in previous years.
How did the survey go?
The collection of data has been done by Sifo on their web panel.
1 people consisting of the Swedish public, living in Sweden and aged 500-18 have been interviewed by Sifo.
The measurement was performed between 12–19 October 2021.
The background variables gender, age and region have been processed by Sifo during the processing of data in order to guarantee the representativeness of the answers.
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