A new plan by the German development ministry BMZ, published Oct. 7, shows that it is strategically refocusing its efforts on economic cooperation and private partnerships that will aim to benefit the German economy.
The proposal is notable because it has support from both parties governing the country in a coalition — the center-right Christian Democrats, or CDU, and the center-left Social Democrats, or SPD — a win for the coalition government. But experts are skeptical that this public declaration will have a significant impact. German institutions have talked about engaging more with the private sector for years. The hurdle has less to do with BMZ policies, however, and more with the fact that German companies are not equipped to assist development projects at scale.
“[German companies] are typically in the wrong sector,” Heiner Janus, a senior researcher and project lead at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability, or IDOS, told Devex. “They tend to be in niche high-tech, not in large infrastructure or construction projects,” he said. Those areas, he added, are where “Chinese companies dominate the global market.” OECD data shows that despite efforts to engage more with private companies at home, BMZ projects have historically overwhelmingly gone to companies outside of Germany.