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Contributions from
the Column
Studies and reports
Development assistance by federal states: steady decline since 1990
Millennium Development Goals:
UNDP calls for greater efforts
AIDS: Africa faces prospect of economic collapse
UNCTAD: FDI declining by 20 percent
E-commerce: no business for the poor
Food aid and development – Doing more harm than good?
10/2003 |
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[ Germanwatch takes stock ]
Development assistance by federal states:
steady decline since 1990
Around eight percent of Germany’s official development assistance (ODA) is dispensed by the Länder, the federal states. However, the lion’s share of that portion (87 percent) goes to fund places for students from developing countries at German universities. If that spending is discounted – and it is a moot point whether it should be declared as development aid in the first place – the federal states’ share of German ODA shrinks to about one percent. In a guide released in July, the north-south initiative Germanwatch presents a collection of statements on the ODA of the Länder and highlights long-term trends.
Excluding the funding of places for students in tertiary education, the development aid spending of the federal states rose to some 70 million euros at the beginning of the 1990s. Since then, however, it has steadily declined, moving down to 53 million euros in 2002. Commitment to development issues differs considerably from one Land to another. Last year, per capita spending ranged from six cents in Thuringia to less than two-and-a-half cents in Bremen. Admittedly, much of the money spent by some of the more generous states goes to support development-related research. Funding for the Overseas Institute in Hamburg, for example, has accounted on average for a good 70 percent of Hamburg “development aid” in recent years. A surprisingly small amount, however, finds its way into development sensibilisation and education work – less than six percent, in fact, of the average state development budget. That, Germanwatch says, stands in contradiction to state premiers’ statements (three of which are contained in the guide) that this ought to be a focal area of state development aid – if only to win public support for development spending.
Net resource: www.germanwatch.org/ez/bulae03.htm
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