Conference call: The future of German aid

Germany is the world’s second-largest bilateral aid donor, spending around $23 billion per year on official development assistance. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the country’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, or BMZ, was about to launch a major revamp. If implemented, it would have significant implications for Germany’s approach to aid. “Not every strategy is significant; this one is. It is widely considered as the largest kind of structural reform for the ministries of the past 12 years,” said Raimund Zühr, project manager at SEEK Development. But the pandemic has raised new challenges for Germany as a donor and provided an opportunity for it to step forward as a global development leader. Devex Correspondent Andrew Green spoke with Zühr for insights into the potential reform of BMZ and how current events might affect Germany’s development offerings. Highlights from this conference call include: • Germany’s global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential impact on existing aid funds. • BMZ’s reform package. • Germany’s development strategy and where the country sits among other donors. • The future of German development policy after Chancellor Angela Merkel. Speaker: Raimund Zühr, project manager at SEEK Development. Zühr brings expertise in comparative analysis of donor financing and policies for international development. He leads SEEK’s work on the Donor Tracker, a free, independent website for development professionals that provides strategic information on and analysis of 14 major Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development donors. Moderator: Andrew Green, Devex correspondent based in Berlin. Have follow-up questions? Send them to webinars@devex.com.