D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 2, March/April 2002, p. 4 - 5)

The terrorist attacks of September 11 have shown drastically also those who previously refused to accept it that no part of the world is safe if all of it is not so. German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul proposes a new pact between the industrialised and developing countries. A 'New Global Deal' aimed at sustainable, humane development and a long-term peace policy.

Nothing is the same since September 11. That particularly affects development policy. The role development policy plays in the global shaping of our future is now clearer than before to many politicians and many people who are interested in politics. In the German Bundestag I reduced it to a simple formula: "We must contribute to enabling people in all regions of the world to live in security. Otherwise, insecurity will also come to us."

The development community has long discussed the link between unfulfilled development needs and the emergence of violence. But the new and dreadful dimension of the terrorist attacks have shown drastically to all in the industrialised, highly-developed societies that no part of the world is safe without the others being so, that no part can isolate itself from what happens in another.

Development policy as
peace and security policy

For the German Federal government, development policy is part of its comprehensive peace and security policy. It is a cornerstone of securing the global future. At the opening of the United Nations General Assembly on November 10 last year, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also pointed out that the challenges on the agenda were still those which politicians involved in development policy had formulated long before. He said: "Let us remember that none of the issues that faced us on 10 September has become less urgent. The number of people living on less than one dollar a day has not decreased... The factors that cause the deserts to advance, biodiversity to be lost, and the Earth's atmosphere to warm have not decreased. And in many parts of the world afflicted by the scourge of wars innocent people have not ceased being murdered, mutilated, or dragged or driven from their homes. (...) We face two possible futures: a mutually destructive clash between so-called 'civilizations', based on the exaggeration of religious and cultural differences; or a global community, respecting diversity and rooted in universal values. The latter must be our choice."

Whoever chooses the second alternative decides for development policy. What must German development policy do to fulfil the tasks it has been set?

Everywhere in the world we now witness non-state or, as it were, privatised violence. Wars between countries have become fewer, being replaced by civil wars. Sometimes the hostile sides in civil wars are nothing more than criminal gangs that, at best, claim political goals as a pretext for violence. We saw that, for example, in the Balkans, we are seeing it in Africa in the Great Lakes region, and we experience it in terrorist attacks. Since 1990, such conflicts have cost the lives of up to one million people every year.

Oppose privatised violence

The international community is duty bound to oppose this privatised violence - if necessary by military means, quasi as a police measure. This calls for a rethinking by some - among the peace movement to which I feel attached, and among the military. Terror must be prevented everywhere in the world. Therefore the action against terrorist networks is not a war of aggression but an attempt to make terrorists, who have demonstrated their capability for action in the most brutal way, incapable of action. There must be no more attacks like those in New York and Washington - nowhere in the world.

Development policy must aim at promoting democratic government, particularly in the developing countries. We must take steps towards an international monopoly on violence which recognises only equal partners. What is needed is an International Criminal Court which serves the globalisation of the rule of law - one which the US government should also support following the example of the 43 countries that have ratified the ICC agreement [the Rome Statute of July 1998]. The shaping of a sustainable and just world order also includes tackling the shortcomings in democracy arising from the hastening of economic globalisation ahead of political globalisation. I have therefore suggested that the international community establish a 'Global Council', a high-calibre body in which all the world's regions are represented and in which the most important economic and political issues can be discussed and decided upon coherently.

Moreover, the answer to terrorism must be a global coalition for justice and solidarity. The terrorists count on being able to mobilise people in the countries of the South, particularly the Islamic countries, who feel powerless and inferior - especially in the face of the economically powerful countries of the North. They rely on those who live in poverty and without hope.

Poverty and hunger, the feeling of being utterly inferior, favour violence. Development cooperation can provide a bit more justice. This is not a charitable act. Industrialised nations that engage in development cooperation also gain something. They gain a more peaceful world and a more secure future.

But what are the real power relations in the world of today? The G7 (industrialised) countries have more than 70 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product, although they account for little more than 10 per cent of the world population. While we can choose among culinary specialities from countries around the globe, 24,000 people starve to death worldwide every day. More than 1.2 million people live in extreme poverty.

The German government has set, and helped others to set, important courses to fight global poverty. An example is the multilateral debt relief initiative totalling US$ 70 billion and its linking with combating poverty. In future it will also be a question of whether we expand this assistance to protect the poorest developing countries from the economic impact of the terrorist attacks. The German government has advanced the new EU agreement with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, concentrated its development policy on core countries, successfully enhanced its development partnership with the private business sector, and established the German Peace Service as a new instrument of conflict prevention.

Solving the Middle East conflict

Besides the causes of violence and terrorism already mentioned, the current debate must not pass over another decisive factor: the conflict in the Middle East. The Middle East is one of the key regions in the fight against terrorism. Not least, it is from there that Islamic fundamentalism everywhere in the world is fuelled.

The international community must finally contribute to ensuring that the State of Israel and an independent State of Palestine can coexist without violence and that the Israeli government's settlement policy will be brought to an end.

The future of Afghanistan

Afghanistan obviously plays a special role in the current debate. The most important thing to do here following the end of the Taleban regime is to supply the people of Afghanistan and the Afghani refugees with food and the medicines they need. The German government has made DM 96 million available for this humanitarian aid and for assistance to the refugees. The UN World Food Programme, German Agro Action, and many other NGOs providing this aid are either already in the country or can speedily be there. All refugees who wish to return to Afghanistan should have the opportunity to do so in the long run. It must not be forgotten that in recent years, that is, before September 11, eight million Afghans fled the cruelties of the Taleban and the threat of hunger and drought. For more than two decades the international community did not really worry about the plight of the people in the region. That must never happen again.

The German government will do all it can to restore to Afghani women, whom the Taleban deprived of their rights, a voice and participation in Afghanistan's affairs. The international community is insisting that women's rights are realised. The German government is also pressing that women are represented both at the future conferences on the reconstruction of Afghanistan and in a future Afghani government.

Together with others, the development cooperation which we are making available for reconstruction will ensure that Afghani girls can finally attend school again and that women have access to work and health services. The international community, and thus the German government, are doing everything possible to push ahead an overall strategy for peace and stability in and for Afghanistan and the region. The reconstruction of Afghanistan is key to peace and stability in that country. It must not take place only when a government is firmly installed there. It must be a core element of the transition phase. Reconstruction work should and must integrate all people who previously wasted their strengths senselessly in fighting each other in a civil war.

International cooperation, including ours, will fit into the overall aid concept: what is necessary is that the people of Afghanistan are enabled to secure their food supplies in the long term and develop their own agriculture, that housing is reconstructed so the people have shelter, that basic social services, schools, training opportunities and public health stations are set up and also made accessible again to the majority of Afghanis. This was not possible for most of the people for decades. The German government is in close contact with all other donor countries and the World Bank in order to speed up this social and economic reconstruction and, in a next stage, to assist in building up necessary institutions. The government has made DM 160 million available for the first phase.

Prospects for development
cooperation

The German sociologist Ulrich Beck sums up the challenges we face thus: "To dry up the wellsprings of the hate of billions of people from which new bin Ladens will emerge time and again, the risks of globalisation must be made calculable and the freedoms and fruits of globalisation distributed more justly."

Therefore I advocate a new pact between the industrialised and developing countries, a 'New Global Deal'. In this pact we must actually advance development interests in all international agreements. The initial important touchstones are the planned new world trade round, the UN development finance conference 'Financing for Development' in March 2002, and the conference on sustainable development 'Rio Plus Ten' the following September. The main issue of all of them is the democratic, social and ecological shaping of globalisation.

Sustainable, humane development and a successful reduction of poverty in the developing countries means it is vital that all sources of financing development - from mobilising those countries' own funds to private capital transfers, trade, debt relief and ODA - are considered as parts of the whole and better framework conditions for both national and international assistance are created. At the same time, we must examine innovative financing possibilities for development, such as a global solidarity fund which could be fed from levies on global, short-term currency transactions.

Development policy as a necessary condition for a long-term peace policy must not be in fashion only at times of crisis, wars and in the light of terrorism threats. If we wish to succeed in pursuing our developmental goals we must act steadily and resolutely. That is why I have proposed that the conference on sustainable development in September 2002 should end with agreement on an international action plan. This plan should contain the following elements:

• concrete timetables for all participants for achieving the 0.7 per cent ODA/GDP target (our goal in Germany must be to achieve the quota step-by-step in a defined and clear timetable);
• enhanced debt relief for the poorest developing countries and new possibilities for financing them;
• proposals for financing global goods, on market launching of renewable energy, and on combating AIDS and overcoming the digital gap;
• further market opening for developing countries' products; and
• clarification of the conflict between WTO and environmental regulations.

Former German Chancellor Willy Brandt once said: "The task is to free mankind from dependency and suppression, hunger and need. New bonds must be forged which improve decisively the prospects for peace, justice and solidarity for all. This a great task for the present generation and for those that follow it." This task has not yet been fulfilled. But that it must be fulfilled - and also that it can be - has become ever clearer among the international community since September 11, 2001. The German government will make its contribution to that.