DEVELOPMENT-GERMANY: NGOs Protest Cut in Funds For UNDP

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ramesh Jaura

BONN, Feb 3 1999 (IPS) - Germany’s ‘red-green’ coalition government, celebrating its first 100 days in office, plans to slash its contribution to the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) by 25 percent – to the chagrin of non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

“This is a disaster,” said Manfred Kulessa, managing director of the ‘Joint Council Church and Development’ (GKKE) in reaction to the news Wednesday.

Newspapers reported earlier that the 1999 draft budget – yet to be approved by the Bundestag (parliament) – provided UNDP with about 47 million dollars, compared to the 62 million dollars that Germany contributed last year.

A spokesman at the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) confirmed the report but pointed out that the reduction was origionally planned in the budget drawn up by the government of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

Peter Molt, chairman of the Association of German Development NGOs (VENRO), declared that the new coalition government of Social Democrats and the Alliance 90/The Greenswas “repeating the mistakes of the previous administration in respect of UNDP in particular, and multilateral aid in general”.

BMZ spokesman Bukhard Port, however, said that funds for multilateral aid were being replenished. “We have increased our contribution to the African Development Bank to 290 million dollars for the next three years compared to the 197 million dollars allocated by the previous government,” said Port.

The commitment of the red-green government, led by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, to multilateralism was underscored by Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul in an interview with IPS.

“We attach great importance to international organisations and multilateral fiance institutions,” said Wieczorek-Zeul. She said the new government wanted to exert its influence in framing global framework conditions conducive to development and crisis prevention.

NGO critics now say the planned cut in Germany’s contribution to the UNDP was contrary to the declared intention of the Development Minister to give greater weight to multilateral cooperation.

Echoing the widespread dismay among NGOs, GermanWatch chairman Holger Baum said: “The contradiction is obvious. There appears to be a lack of political will to implement declared intentions.”

“However, we cannot hold Wieczorek-Zeul responsible for something for which the Finance Minister (Oskar Lafontaine) should be blamed,” added Baum. “Apparently, the Finance Minister has overlooked the political relevance of Germany’s contribution to the UNDP and does not realise the foreign policy significance of the decision.”

He said part of the problem was that in the past 25 years Development Ministers had little say in cabinet decisions.

With Wieczorek-Zeul, however, the status of a Development Minister had been raised as she now was a member of the Federal Security Council alongside colleagues from the Foreign, Finance, Defence and Economic Ministries. The Council decides issues of strategic importance to Germany.

“However the fact remains that there is still a long way to go to give the Development Ministry the political importance which Foreign, Finance and Defence enjoy,” said Baum.

He said the cutback in contribution to the UNDP was “not very helpful in promoting Bonn as the Centre for International Cooperation (CIC)”.

A driving force behind the CIC is the city’s Lord Mayor Baerbel Dieckmann, who belongs to the Social Democratic Party (SPD), headed by Finance Minister Lafontaine. The CIC will integrate a large number of institutions and organisations, active in the field of development and environment. It is expected to fill the gap left behind in the wake of the government ministries and parliament moving to Berlin coming autumn.

The backbone of the federal city of Bonn emerging into an influential Centre for International Cooperation is the presence of United Nations organisations such as the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) and the climate and desertification secretariats.

The UN Volunteers agency is under the umbrella of the UNDP, an organisation which the German government would like to have move its headquarters from New York to Bonn, noted the ‘General- Anzeiger Bonn’ which broke the story of cutbacks Wednesday.

The newspaper noted that in 1996 “the German contribution to the UNDP amounted to some 86 million dollars. That was the time when the federal (German) government wanted to have the UNDP based in Bonn – an objective the government apparently has not abandoned.”