Die Tastatur eines Taschenrechners

Facts and figures More transparency, greater impact

The BMZ regularly publishes data and documents on its bilateral development cooperation in line with the IATI Standard.

Screenshot from the transparency portal: Ongoing projects worldwide

Transparency is a guiding principle of German development policy and is considered a basic requirement of effective development cooperation. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development also emphasises the importance of transparency in development cooperation.

Disclosing information about finance flows and the way funding is being used makes Germany’s development cooperation activities clearer and more predictable for its development partners. This kind of transparency can increase partner governments’ sense of ownership, improve coordination between donors and lower the risk of corruption – all of which are key to achieving sustainable development results.

Comprehensive, up-to-date publication and explanation of the German government’s development activities also keeps the general public informed about how public funds are being used and enables the BMZ to make sure its development policy is evidence-based.

Transparent development cooperation:

  • provides an overview of the use of public funds
  • facilitates planning for recipient countries
  • helps combat corruption
  • enhances partner ownership
  • fosters mutual accountability.

In order to ensure that German development cooperation is as transparent as possible, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) follows international transparency standards when presenting its development activities.


IATI Standard Data on German development cooperation

Each month, the BMZ submits data and documents on German bilateral development cooperation to the IATI Registry in line with the IATI Standard. The BMZ’s IATI reports include ministry-wide information (organisation data) and information on specific activities (activity or project data). The data is machine readable and can be freely used as long as the data source is referenced. It is available via the transparency portal (External link), the IATI Registry (External link), d-portal (External link) and GovData (External link).

The BMZ’s IATI data includes detailed project information such as the project title, the IATI activity identifier, a brief project description, the country/region, sector, project term, status, organisations involved and financial information. The BMZ chiefly records information about the bilateral development cooperation projects funded through its own specific departmental budget (Departmental Budget 23) that are carried out by governmental implementing organisations (GIZ, KfW, the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (National Metrology Institute of Germany), the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources), the government service centre Engagement Global and non-governmental executing agencies (churches, political foundations, other non-governmental organisations). The projects listed may also, however, be implemented by multilateral institutions, co-funded by other donors or, in the case of KfW projects, supplemented by market funds. The BMZ’s project data can be found on the transparency portal via the advanced search function (External link).

The additional organisation data provided includes, for example, links to all of the BMZ’s key overarching, country-specific and topic-based strategy papers and its implementing organisations. This covers, among other things: company reports, country- and sector-specific documents, evaluation reports, contracting guidelines, transparency policies and information about projects and tenders. Organisation data can be found in the transparency portal menu under “Publications (External link)”.

Contact

Do you have questions, comments or criticisms?
Send an e-mail to:

BMZ Division 111
transparenz@bmz.bund.de (External link)

As at: 25/05/2023