Development and Cooperation


	Contributions from the Column Tribune No poverty alleviation without redistributive action EU development programmes lack efficiency Little attention paid to sexualised war crimes 06/2005		“Efficiency is the most important criterion” If the millennium goals are to be achieved, more needs to be done than simply increase development assistance. Aid money must also be better spent. Many multilateral organisations are prone to inefficiency and in need of reform, according to Christian Ruck, the opposition spokesperson on development issues in Gemany’s Federal Parliament, the Bundestag. In a conversation with D+C/E+Z in April, the conservative politician also demanded that policies in the fields of development, foreign affairs and security be coordinated more closely. [ Interview with Christian Ruck ] What do you make of the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as the new president of the World Bank? Others before him have moved on to the World Bank from the US Defence Department without the Bank suffering. However, I am going to keep a close eye on Mr. Wolfowitz’s macroeconomic ideas. Neo-conservative recipes for economies have not always proven to be productive . We expect Mr. Wolfowitz to be sensitive to the specific problems of developing countries. Are you afraid that the World Bank might return to the Washington Consensus under Mr. Wolfowitz? I am not afraid of anything yet. I only know that we have a very specific macroeconomics approach. Our model is an international social market economy that allows the weak to participate in and even benefit from international competition. That is the measuring stick I will apply to Mr. Wolfowitz in office. When the US president nominated Mr. Wolfowitz, some Europeans expressed their disapproval... …but not for very long… ...and soon Europe’s leaders decided to support him. Is that not a sign of Europe’s weakness in development politics? I don’t think that is the right question. Mr. Wolfowitz was nominated, and, due to the way the game is played, Europe simply had to accept him without prejudice. The success of the World Bank depends on its most important members working together. On the one hand, I think Europeans need to make themselves felt more in the World Bank. The German government is also not involved enough, both in terms of drafting policies and in monitoring results. On the other hand, you have accused the German government of pursuing a “pointless multilateral focus”. Are you of two minds? We always have to begin by asking ourselves how to best promote development with the limited funds we have. My answer is: on the one hand, we will do that with our bilateral institutions that have proven to be successful, that have a solid reputation all over the world and that we can influence. On the other hand, we must work through international organisations that operate efficiently and we should only give money to institutions if we can influence their efficiency. That is so in the case of the World Bank. So you are mainly criticising the European Union… . . . and the United Nations. There are more than 30 organisations in the UN system that deal with development, and some of them are tackling identical issues. The cornucopia of international organisations is growing, but the whole apparatus is becoming inefficient. Before we waste precious funds, I have to take a close look at whom I support and whom I want to reform. How can the EU’s development efforts become more efficient? When it comes to development, the EU Commission is currently the 26th player among 25 member governments. The Commission does everything, without paying any attention to what the member states are doing. On the other hand, we need a division of labour. In the Bundestag, we proposed that the EU focus on countries that are overburdened with dealing with a large number of bilateral donors. We could also use criteria based on sectors, for instance by saying that the Commission will handle the field of health. But I think the current situation is a catastrophe. Second, the EU member states need to clarify their organisational mandates. Should the EU Commission steer politically and work through the agencies of the member states? Or does it need its own organisation, such as EuropeAid, which costs a lot of money and will draw resources from existing agencies? What do you think are the basic strengths and weaknesses of working bilaterally and multilaterally? Once again, the decisive criterion is efficiency. If all donors everywhere do the same thing with too little funding, the result will not be good. This is why, for instance, we have said time and again that the battle against AIDS is mostly a task for multilateral institutions. But now we can observe how more and more organisations pursuing various and sometimes even incompatible approaches to health and population growth are competing for limited funds. This sense of splintered activity is much worse among non-governmental organisations… Indeed, we should be worried to hear that the countries receiving aid no longer have a clear knowledge of what organisations are helping them. NGOs therefore have to look for ways to improve their coordination among one another. I also think that governments and NGOs need to coordinate their activities, which will require a lot of tact and sensitivity so that everyone feels respected. What do you think of mixed types of bilateral and multilateral action, such as sectoral programs and joint financing? They make sense under certain conditions. The best thing about them is that they force people to work together. But the efficiency gains are slight if they destroy established development structures and only offer a temporary alternative. I am sceptical about budget aid. For instance, I think the way the EU Commission uses budget aid to solve its disbursement problems is extremely problematic. Non-governmental organisations are especially worried that Europe’s development policy could fall prey to concerns of security and foreign affairs. Should they be? There is a certain trend in this direction. In Europe as in its member nations, development policy has to remain an independent field supported, but not dominated by foreign policy. I do not think that Europe has mastered this balancing act yet. Nonetheless, along with your fellow party member Christian Schmidt, you have been demanding closer coordination of development and security policy… The German tradition of an independent development ministry is important because development policy has to be drafted within a special setting – not in terms of day-to-day affaires, but in a long-term perspective of uninterrupted work. However, globalisation and the emergence of new risks have changed the situation. Development activities have become both more important and more multifaceted. For instance, the problem of state failures, which also threaten us, cannot be solved unless measures are closely connected to foreign and security policy. These three areas of policy have to become more closely interwoven than they used to be. The leaders in the German Development Ministry should therefore work much more closely with those of the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence. That would also strengthen the Development Minister’s position in the Cabinet. Germany’s current development policy stands in stark contrast to the promises of the governing coalition. As the opposition, we have adopted the goal of increasing Germany’s ODA ratio to 0.33 percent by 2006. We have also presented a financing plan to do so, which takes account of the currently tight budget. So the proposals are there; they just need implementation. You have also said that security and development policies should pay more attention to German interests – such as access to markets, resources, and energy supplies. Does that leave any space for genuine development priorities? I believe that modern development policy is based on three components. First, it must continue to pursue the goal of solidarity in practice, fighting poverty wherever necessary. On the other hand, I need allies to reach this goal; I need the support of our people, especially in times of tight budgets. Therefore, I have to be able to point out that development programmes also serve to reduce risk. Third, we have to make it clear that development policy can serve to intensify the economic relations that are important for our jobs. If we reduce development policy to just one of these three aspects, it will become less relevant. For some time, there has been a heated debate on the future of the agency GTZ, German Technical Cooperation. What is the opposition’s view on that? We are considering the options. But we think it would be a mistake to completely privatise GTZ. There are some tasks that profit-driven companies cannot perform. However, GTZ also has to ask itself whether it is properly positioned under the current conditions. Furthermore, we need to find out whether all of the actors in GTZ complement each other, whether some are redundant, and whether the tasks need to be redefined. We are willing to consider some kind of restructuring without having that mean that GTZ has to become part of the KfW development bank. Questions by Tillmann Elliesen. Dr. Christian Ruck is a member of the Bavarian Christian-Social Union and the development spokesperson for the Christian-Democrats in the Bundestag. christian.ruck@bundestag.de