Development policy as a policy for the future

Dirk Niebel, German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development
Speech at ceremony to celebrate 50th anniversary of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)

Berlin, 14 November 2011

Check against delivery!

President Wulff,
President Scheel,
My former fellow ministers, Mr Offergeld and Mr Spranger,
Deputy President of the German Bundestag and parliamentarians from many different parliaments across the world,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
and Dunja Hayali, who has stepped in at the last minute to help us out!

When faced with such a group of high-ranking and prominent individuals, it's almost impossible to get the protocol completely right. And so I'd like to demonstrate that we, too, are capable of learning something new on our travels across the world. In Africa, they have one single phrase to get round the problem: all protocol observed!

I am pleased that you have joined us today to celebrate the BMZ's birthday.

We have every reason to be proud and to look back with gratitude.

Anyone choosing to take on the challenges of development policy is taking on a Herculean task.

When Walter Scheel became the first minister for economic cooperation, the then Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer predicted that the office would be a "thorn without roses".

And he was not far wrong.

Until the parliament's administrators were able to give the minister an actual office of his own, he set up shop at a table in the parliament's own in-house restaurant.

Several weeks later, 34 members of staff were then able to move into a shed on the grounds of the Ministry of Finance.

So that was what Europe's first ever dedicated ministry for development affairs looked like.

A study conducted by the Federal Court of Audit shows how development policy was conducted in practice in those early years.

One single project required decisions from 45 officials from 10 ministries, and a total of 16 ministries with 231 working units felt responsible.

So it was less about development cooperation than about administrative warfare.

But Walter Scheel won the day.

A great deal has changed since those early days.

The BMZ and its implementing organisations have done good work.

The BMZ's ministers have helped write history, they have demonstrated commitment, taken action and shaped developments.

Here, today, we owe each and every one of them our sincere thanks.

So I do not want to pass up this chance to recall them all by name:

Walter Scheel, Werner Dollinger, Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, Erhard Eppler, Egon Bahr, Marie Schlei, Rainer Offergeld, Jürgen Warnke, Hans Klein, Carl-Dieter Spranger and Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul.

Together, they have made their mark on German development policy as an area enjoying cross-party support. And they have asserted Germany's position in the world as a strong and reliable partner.

Of course, each era has had its own specific issues and challenges.

All of us together can be proud to have lent vital impetus to international development policy.

Drawing on the experience of the Marshall Plan, policy in the 1960s was dominated by attempts to help our partners leapfrog forward in their industrial development by implementing large-scale stand-alone projects.

But it rapidly became clear that there is no easy panacea.

Development debate has been dominated by issues like modernisation following the western model, a focus on basic needs, and differing ideas about the role of the state, the private sector, civil society and, of course, of women.

Over the last few decades, development policy has shifted its focus a number of times and undergone a steep learning curve.

But one thing is clear:

we do not believe we have all the answers. What we want to do is find better answers.

Politically, we can achieve nothing unless we work together as partners.

Development policy always has been, and always will be, a task involving all stakeholders.

And we have achieved a number of successes.

In the last 50 years, life expectancy for newborns in developing countries has risen by 20 years.

And since 1960, the literacy rate has risen from 16 per cent to 75 per cent. Those are just two examples.

We can be proud that Germany is one of the biggest donor countries in the world.

All those achievements would not have been possible without the incredible commitment of the churches, the political foundations and the non-governmental organisations.

Germany's federal states, local authorities, towns and cities have also played a major part, as have the arts and sciences.

As the minister responsible, I would like to underline the debt of deep gratitude I owe to them all.

I would also like to express my special thanks to the staff of the BMZ.

My feeling is that a particularly large number of people want to work for the BMZ because it enables them to become professionally involved in creating a better world.

And last, but most certainly not least, I would like to thank our partners across the world.

On this, the BMZ's 50th anniversary, we are quite consciously turning our sights to the future.

Development policy is a policy of shaping the future, and shaping the future is about more than development aid.

"Aid" is a word I don't like anyway.

It divides the world into the aiders and the aided.

And those are the kind of divisions we are seeking to overcome.

The famous economist from Heidelberg, Alexander Rüstow, put it very aptly when he said, "If you need a helping hand – start by looking at the end of your right arm."

All too often in development cooperation it has in the past been assumed that those holding out their right, or indeed left, hand for help were only capable of holding out a begging bowl rather than actually taking their future in their hands.

Yet it is impossible to develop a country from without.

We can help countries to help themselves.

But that can be no substitute for their own efforts.

The task of development policy, when seen as a policy of shaping the future, is to set globalisation on the right course.

Because the challenges of the 21st century relate to global development issues.

By 2050, the world’s population will have reached nine billion.

Today, two thirds of young people in Germany believe that climate change threatens humankind's survival.

And, today, there are one billion hungry people in the world.

The shifting of growth and prosperity to new regions and emerging economies has changed the world and changed international development cooperation.

Two thirds of the world's poor now live in emerging economies.

It is the war-torn, fragile states in particular that have failed to achieve the key Millennium Development Goals.

Business as usual is not an option.

We do not have another 50 years.

I am often accused of focusing my development policy on the needs of a self-serving private sector and too little on the concept of selfless aid.

So I would like to call to the witness stand an African who could by no means be accused of being an economic liberal, because he was in fact a socialist.

He said,

"Experience has taught us that the whole concept of aid is wrong. It is a helpful palliative. But it is not a solution to the problem of world poverty. It is wrong in principle since, ultimately, it reduces poor countries to the status of beggars."

That experience – that aid does not solve poverty and reduces partners to beggars – was described by Julius Nyerere, interestingly enough back in the 1970s.

Today, we have a more holistic view of development policy, which takes hitting at the root causes of poverty seriously but is also of relevance for issues going beyond that.

That is one of the main thrusts of our new development policy strategy, namely that the BMZ is more than the ministry of poverty.

To me, politically, the "c" of cooperation in the BMZ's name also stands for "creating the future".

Let me list the seven criteria I believe are absolutely vital to good and effective development policy that can take us into the future.

(1) The willingness and capacity to innovate:
By that, I mean a mindset that embraces openness, diversity, the ability to engage in dialogue, and global connectivity.

(2) A focus on education:
Knowledge is the key to overcoming poverty, to overcoming lack of freedom, and for societies to develop independently and with a focus on participation.

(3) Ownership:
Progress can only be made on development if people take on responsibility and are in a position to do so.

(4) Human rights, the rule of law and democracy:
Nowhere should human rights ever be up for negotiation. Sustainable development is dependent on observance of human rights – civil and political, economic, social and cultural, women’s and children’s rights and those of people with disabilities.

(5) Good governance:
In fighting the causes of poverty, primacy must be given to the law, functioning structures, transparency, development-oriented government, a vigilant civil society and a free media.

(6) Market orientation and entrepreneurship:
Fair rules and the dismantling of discriminatory trade barriers are fundamental to successful development. Entrepreneurship is indispensable when it comes to generating tax revenue and improving employment, social protection, inclusive growth and life chances.

(7) Energy, climate protection and resource efficiency:
Development is reliant on energy. We need to sever the link between growth and the compromising of vital natural resources. In the interests of green growth, environmentally sound development and climate protection, resources and energy need to be used more efficiently.

Today, we have every reason to celebrate. A great deal has been achieved in the last five decades. In the last two years alone, the following initiatives have been launched:

• the reform of Germany's official implementing organisations through the creation of the GIZ,

• an agreement on improved cooperation with the Federal Foreign Office,

• a binding human rights strategy,

• the first education strategy in the BMZ's fifty-year history,

• the rural development strategy,

• the German government's Africa strategy,

• the strategy on raw materials partnerships,

• the end of traditional-style development cooperation with China.

Human rights and democracy are the foundations on which our work is based, and our guiding principle is global development that can take us into the future.

If human rights are being abused, we resolve any conflict of aims by putting values before interests.

It is important to me that development policy is open to change and willing to learn.

That is why we have instituted an Advisory Council on Innovation, that is why we will be establishing a Leadership Academy and that is why we staged the Minds of Change Forum yesterday and today, with guests from around the world.

I would like to express my sincere personal thanks to the participants from at home and abroad who devoted their time and ideas to the forum.

Poverty, population growth and migration, climate change, fragile states and unstable markets call for political action.

The key question I want to ask is simple. How can we create opportunities for a better world?

Any answer to that must inevitably look beyond the scope of what a ministry can do and look to society as a whole.

Perhaps the most decisive challenge of the 21st century is to show that development policy has relevance for our everyday lives, not least in the rich countries.

The opportunity is there, we have to seize it together.

We can create a better world.

And the BMZ wants to help create that better world.

In a democracy, development policy can only gain the support of those whose votes and taxes it relies on if the issues concerned are more prominently cemented within society.

To paraphrase John F. Kennedy,

When, if not now? Where, if not here? Who, if not us?

There should never be any doubt that a group of committed people can change the world.

That is why the theme chosen for this, the BMZ's 50th anniversary year, is:

"Building the future. Let's join forces."

So I say, join us in the future.

Join with us in building the future.