Anchor countries – indispensable partners for global development

Anchor countries is a term used to refer to states that are economically and politically influential in their regions and playing an ever larger role in shaping international relations. They are indispensable partners in meeting global challenges such as poverty reduction, climate and environmental protection, peacekeeping, creating a just global economy and establishing democracy and good governance. They play a key role for global stability and security.

The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) counts 15 states as anchor countries. Germany cooperates with nine of them in the field of development cooperation: Egypt, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa. Development policy cooperation will be phased out in the next few years with anchor countries Thailand and Turkey. There is no bilateral development cooperation currently with the anchor countries Argentina, Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The BMZ reacted early to the growing importance of certain major developing countries and in 2004 drew up a special anchor country strategy for cooperation with them. On this basis, development cooperation with these states is being steadily developed into a strategic partnership in the sense of a global structural policy.

The re-orientation of cooperation takes account of the development status and performance of each anchor country and the special challenges facing it as a result of the role it plays in its region and in the global context. In implementing the strategy the BMZ can draw on the many years of experience, extensive specialised knowledge and international contacts of its implementing organisations.

The new strategic orientation of development cooperation with anchor countries focuses in its implementation on three main aspects:

1. Concentration of cooperation in content terms

2. Building dialogue and expanding relations

3. Intensive exchange between scientists and business leaders from the partner countries and Germany.

Concentration of cooperation in content terms

Bilateral development cooperation between Germany and the anchor countries will focus increasingly on programmes designed to resolve structural and global problems. Thematic priorities are aimed at fostering social cohesion, protecting global environmental goods, good governance and strengthening social security. This process takes account of the anchor countries’ role as players in global governance.

In view of the growing financial possibilities in anchor countries, the partners’ own contributions to agreed development interventions under Financial Cooperation and Technical Cooperation are gradually being raised.

The assistance to anchor countries includes building up development cooperation structures of their own – for example through tripartite cooperation. In this case expertise from Germany is combined with the regional contacts of the anchor country to stimulate development in a third country. For example, environmental projects are being promoted under a Mexican-German partnership in other Central American countries. German development cooperation will advise Mexico on setting up its own agency for development cooperation.

Since other German ministries also implement programmes and interventions with these countries, full use must be made of synergies so that Germany has a clearly defined profile of services.

Building the dialogue and expanding networks

An intensive exchange of experience is one of the fundamental objectives of cooperation with anchor countries. This is on the one hand about helping the anchor countries to play a constructive role in their region and globally; on the other, it is about building up cooperation on the basis of partnership between Germany and the anchor countries and among the anchor countries themselves. With a dialogue series consisting of successive conferences on global public goods, German development cooperation aims to strengthen interexchange and contribute to networking among individuals and institutions in the fields of politics, economics and science and in civil society.

The 'Heiligendamm process' is one important step towards getting the leading anchor countries more closely involved in global structural policy. The five 'outreach' countries ('O5') – Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa – were invited to the G8 summit in Heiligendamm in 2007 under Germany’s presidency. A high-level dialogue, known as the Heiligendamm process, was agreed between the O5 and the industrial countries for two years initially. The issues on the agenda will include the protection of intellectual property, development cooperation with particular reference to Africa, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Exchange between scientists and business leaders

The "Managing Global Governance" programme was launched by InWEnt and the German Development Institute (GDI) to broaden the exchange between scientists and business leaders. It comprises a six-month dialogue and training programme which has a practical bias as well as a solid scientific base, and is addressed to young professionals from government organisations and research institutes in anchor countries. The programme’s aim is capacity building, to better integrate the anchor countries in global governance. A further aim is to establish and reinforce contacts between players in Germany, Europe and the anchor countries.