Welthungerhilfe and terre des hommes: A bad report for German development assistance!

Download: The Reality of Aid 2011

(9.11.2011) The relief organisations terre des hommes and Welthungerhilfe have given German development assistance a bad report on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Although billions of euros are made available in the space of just a few days to support the banks and the European bailout fund, the federal government's medium-term financial planning envisages a clear reduction in spending on development assistance up to 2014. "These plans for cutbacks are completely unacceptable in view of the already modest quota for spending on development assistance, which stands at 0.38 percent of the gross national income for 2010", said Danuta Sacher, Managing Director of the international child relief organisation terre des hommes.

She continued by saying that a planned financial crash like this is also in direct contradiction to the declared will of a broad majority of MPs from all factions, who called for the means for development co-operation and humanitarian aid to be increased by 1.2 billion euro per year over the next four years.

The federal government is also failing to live up to its obligations in the field of human rights. Although the new human rights concept produced by the Development Assistance Ministry highlights their importance, in her view it avoids a clear commitment in the case of conflicts of interests with other political fields.
"The protection of human rights must always take precedence. In order to achieve this, the government's planned human rights technical inspection agency must be applied to all political fields", claimed Sacher.

The short-term balance also turns out to be negative in terms of the actual effect of German development assistance. The earlier progress made, for example in terms of coordinating the technical co-operation, is disappointing. Furthermore, the federal government is failing to adhere to the obligations that it reaffirmed in key areas such as overcoming aid tying or the consolidation of democratic self responsibility. "The federal government is setting new focuses instead of implementing the agreements made during the last year to increase the efficacy of its assistance on a consistent basis. The strong focus on short-term results poses enormous risks for the developing countries, which must be considered", stressed Wolfgang Jamann, General Secretary of Welthungerhilfe.