German development minister Reem Alabali Radovan unveiled an overhaul of the country's development architecture on Monday — a much-anticipated reform of how the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, or BMZ, will operate under the leadership that came in last year.
As aid levels plummet across the world, more of the development community is looking to Germany for a way forward. Germany remains the second-largest aid donor internationally, according to projections from Donor Tracker for 2025. However, BMZ described itself in the overhaul document as the largest aid agency in the world now that the U.S. Agency for International Development has been dismantled.
Experts told Devex that BMZ is moving in a positive direction with its reforms — focusing on least developed countries, or LDCs, offering loans rather than grants depending on the partner countries’ income level, and making a commitment to working with local partners.
About the author
Jesse Chase-Lubitz
Jesse Chase-Lubitz covers climate change and multilateral development banks for Devex. She previously worked at Nature Magazine, where she received a Pulitzer grant for an investigation into land reclamation. She has written for outlets such as Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and The Japan Times, among others. Jesse holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics.
