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Germany: Second Biggest Development Cooperation Donor
Germany is the world’s second biggest development cooperation donor in absolute figures, after the US. This is shown by the new figures for 2007 which the OECD presented today. According to the latest OECD calculations, in 2007, German ODA funding (ODA = Official Development Assistance) rose to around 12.3 billion US dollars (8.96 billion euros). In 2006, the amount was 10.4 billion US dollars (8.31 billion euros). After taking exchange rate fluctuations and inflation into account, Germany’s contributions have grown by 5.9 per cent. That means, in absolute terms, that Germany is the second biggest donor, coming after the US and before France, Great Britain and Japan. In 2006, Germany was still fifth. The share of gross national income (GNI) spent on development cooperation has risen from 0.36 per cent (in 2006) to 0.37 per cent (in 2007). Federal Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul welcomed the news, but commented that there was still a great deal to be done: "I am pleased about the OECD’s good figures for German development policy. However, we still have a long way to go. We have made an international commitment to raise our ODA ratio to 0.51 per cent by 2010. We are still a long way away from that target. The German government has repeatedly emphasised that Germany will honour its international commitments. To do that, additional funds, further debt cancellations and innovative financing instruments will be needed."
She also said that the good figures for Germany were a sign of weak performances by other donors. International development cooperation contributions are stagnating. "Only one conclusion can be drawn from the OECD figures: despite huge efforts, the industrialised countries are not doing enough to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015," the Minister said. "The international community urgently needs additional innovative instruments for financing global poverty reduction efforts and for tackling the issue of halting climate change." One possible instrument could be using the revenues from emissions trading. The search for suitable, rapid-impact, innovative financing instruments must also be the key topic at the Monterrey follow-up conference on Financing for Development, due to take place in Doha in 2008, and at the UN General Assembly. The Minister recalled that total military spending worldwide was still about ten times as high as spending on poverty reduction. "Ending this imbalance is an ongoing task for the international community. Avoiding conflicts is always cheaper than military intervention." April 4, 2008 Links
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