SUNS  4314 Monday 2 November 1998


GERMANY: AID POLICY UPGRADED, MORE FUNDS PROMISED

Bonn, Oct 29 (IPS/Ramesh Jaura) -- Four weeks after catapulting Helmut Kohl out of power after 16 long years in power, Germany's new Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his 'red-green' coalition government has turned its attention to development cooperation.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Alliance 90/The Greens government has upgraded the federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and promised a "moderate and continuous" hike in aid funds.

Schroeder, sworn in as Chancellor on Tuesday, leads in a mixed 15 member government, including three ministers from the Alliance 90/The Greens. Their leader Joseph Fischer was appointed the Foreign Minister and will act as Schroeder's deputy.

But the BMZ ministership goes to the SPD's Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul with Green Party development expert Uschi Eid as parliamentary state secretary (deputy minister)

Schroeder is the third SPD chancellor in post-war Germany. He follows Willy Brandt, famed for his commitment to equitable and just North-South relations, and Helmut Schmidt, ousted by Kohl in a vote of constructive no-confidence in 1982.

During the election campaign, Schroeder had focused on Germany's national economic problems. But his party manifesto adds: "Willy Brandt's vision of a world of democracy and solidarity and a world at peace is the guiding principle for social democratic foreign and security policy."

At the same time, social justice at home is the best prerequisite for solidarity with other countries, it added. "Democracy and respect for human rights are the best means of keeping peace."

Before the SPD-headed coalition was installed in power Tuesday, socialists or social democrats headed governments in nine out of 15 member states of the European Union (EU), notably France and Britain, and serve as junior partners in coalition government s in Belgium, Italy and Luxembourg.

But the political direction taken by a government in Germany is more than just a matter of local interest. Germany, reunited peacefully eight years ago, has an economy which continues to serve as the locomotive that drives the rest of the continent.

While the detail of the new government's policies will not emerge until Nov. 10, when Schroeder delivers a policy statement to the German federal parliament, the 'coalition contract' signed last week is a clear pointer to the beginning of what an analyst called a "dynamic development cooperation policy".

The coalition contract constitutes the fundament of an agreed policy between the SPD and the Greens and is considered binding.

"We will see to it that the development policy chapter of the agreement is implemented in full," the new economic cooperation minister Wieczorek-Zeul said Wednesday.

The highlight of the contract is that for the first time in post-war Germany, the Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development will be given a seat in the national security council which decides on issues of strategic importance to the country.

Until now, only the Chancellor, the External Affairs, Economic, Finance, Defence and Home Ministries have been involved in the decision-making process.

Over the years this has evoked repeated criticism from non-governmental organisations engaged in developmental and environmental issues.

They complain that financial and technical assistance provided to developing countries is often undermined by policies determined to be of strategic significance for Germany's national interests.

Arms shipments can aggravate tensions between developing nations, while aid to countries that fails to take account of human rights records makes a farce of development cooperation policy, which has respect for rights as a cornerstone.

Against this backdrop, the authors of the coalition contract expect to sort out some of the anomalies which have plagued development cooperation policy over the years.

In recognition of the efforts of NGOs to have the BMZ upgraded, the coalition paper underlines the need to support their activities, even though Wieczorek-Zeul's predecessor Carl-Dieter Spranger always paid heed to the NGOs' significance.

The paper further promises steps to take Germany closer to a U.N. set target and disburse 0.7 percent of their gross national product (GNP) as official development assistance (ODA).

"In order to come closer to the 0.7 percent target, the coalition will reverse the downward trend of the aid budget and above all continuously and moderately increase the (mid-term) allocations," promises the paper.

"It would not be easy to implement this but I would do everything possible so that it is put into practice," Wieczorek-Zeul said.

In order to achieve the goal, the new economic cooperation minister will have to convince new Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine, also the SPD chairman. Circles close to Wieczorek-Zeul said she would not shy from challenging him.

But all that she would say on the first day of taking charge of the economic cooperation ministry was to quote Willy Brandt again: "Development policy is the peace policy of the 21st century."

No figures are mentioned. But sources close to the coalition said a small increase of some 30 million dollars in mid-term allocations in the aid budget was being considered.

The BMZ's draft budget more or less holds 1999 funding at 7,676 million marks (4,515 million dollars) for bilateral and multilateral development funds and support for NGOs.

Of this, 3,355 million marks (1,973 million dollars) will be outright aid: 2,205 million marks (1,297 million dollars) will be spent on loans and other 'financial cooperation' and 1,150 million marks (676 million dollars) on technical cooperation -- about the same as 1998.

Yet this is still a record low. German official development assistance (ODA) in 1997 totalled just 0.28 percent of the country's gross national product (GNP), down from 0.36 percent in 1993. This is well short of the UN target, though slightly better than the 0.22 % average of the industrialised world.

"That Germany's performance is better than that of the industrial countries as a group on the whole should not distract from the fact that we are still far from achieving the 0.7 percent target," Eid has
said.