Good morning everybody, ministers, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Villa Koul and I'm the director general of NORAD and it's my great pleasure to welcome all of you to Norah's traditional conference in December. As last year we have filled the SAS Rison to its absolute rim.
I would like to extend an especially warm welcome to our distinguished guest, many of whom have traveled far to be with us today. The topic for the conference this year is human rights and democracy as goals in and of themselves and as means to fight poverty. Poverty is more than absence of material wealth.
Without voice and agency, which are central aspects of democracy and human rights, people cannot influence their conditions and take charge of their own destiny. A democratic society is transparent about public spending and service delivery and allows a free public debate. Later today, I will present Nora's results report 2014, which presents examples of results of Norwegian Development Corporation to promote democracy and human rights.
The results and findings in the report will then be discussed by members of parliament at the end of the conference. I would now like to invite our first speaker, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Burger Brenda to the podium. The topic to be discussed here today are high on the minister's agenda.
In fact, he will present a white paper on human rights to parliament tomorrow. Mr Please.
