German Deveopment Cooperation – Continuity through a new legislative basis
Gerd Müller, Germany’s federal minister for economic cooperation and development, has announced that he will introduce an investment law to promote economic development in Africa. It would also make sense to follow the example of many other countries and pass a law that applies to development policy in general. Such a law could ensure continuity in politically uncertain times. See the article at Development + Cooperation, Sept. 2018.
Coherence and Coordination in the Organizational Structure of Development Organization
The concept of policy coherence for development (PCD) has been in the focus of development politics for quite some time now. It applies to action taken by donor states at international level as well as to country level policy making. The concept reached its heyday when OECD/DAC, which had endorsed it heavily since the beginning of 21st century, introduced PCD as an assessment criterion to its peer reviews. Political scientists and legal researchers alike have to this day been unable to agree upon a unanimous definition on what policy coherence means exactly. There is consensus, though, that policy coherence requires, inter alia, the implementation of policy co-ordination mechanisms.
The German network of development agencies, consisting of the Federal Ministry of Economic Co-Operation and Development (BMZ) and its implementing organizations (GIZ and KfW) obtained rather low ratings by DAC as far as PCD is concerned. Unlike Germany, Britain’s development co-operation system is highly praised for its commitment to PCD, most notably in the last DAC peer review that was published in 2010. Unsurprisingly, OECD/DAC and several scholars regard the British system as a template for institutional reforms in countries with backlog demands for policy coherence in their development co-operation systems.
The article ‘Kohärenz und Kooperation im Organisationsrecht der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit‘ (Markus Kaltenborn and Lukas Luebben) in the journal Die Verwaltung (DV 47 [2014], 125-149) provides an overview of the main legal aspects of the PCD concept.
