BERLIN — A controversy that erupted at the end of last year over the nomination of a politician with no development background to the management board of the German Corporation for International Development, or GIZ, underscores that as Germany becomes a more significant player on the international aid scene, greater domestic scrutiny will follow.
Though technically a consulting corporation with a range of clients, GIZ counts the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, or BMZ, as its largest patron and the corporation is often the face of Germany's development activities to the rest of the world.
Determining exactly what those priorities are has become increasingly political as Germany’s aid budget has grown — it is now the second-biggest bilateral donor worldwide, although almost a quarter of that budget is spent domestically on hosting refugees.