Policy Updates

On December 17, 2024, the German political parties published their election programs ahead of the February 2025 elections, showing clear differences in their proposals for development cooperation and humanitarian assistance.

The two remaining parties of the governing coalition, the left-leaning SPD and the Greens, both embraced independent development cooperation, led by a strong, independent BMZ.

The center-right opposition party CDU/CSU, by contrast, proposed bringing development cooperation, led by the BMZ, and humanitarian assistance, led by the AA, together. The liberal FPD originally put forth the proposal to merge the BMZ and the AA.

The SPD and Greens emphasized Agenda 2030 and multilateralism as guiding principles and highlighted their continued commitment to 0.7% ODA/GNI. The Greens also proposed leveraging additional funding for climate goals. The CDU/CSU and FPD made no such commitments.

All parties, but the CDU/CSU in particular, stressed a shift to align development with German interests. The CDU/CSU noted its ambition to gear development towards migration management, with criteria intended to stem irregular migration flows. The party also sought to link development to geopolitical and security goals, as well as economic aims and the promotion of international trade.

The SPD and Greens noted their desire to maintain Germany's feminist foreign and development policy, and listed their commitments for global health, climate, and agriculture. The CDU/CSU and FPD did not specifically mention policy aims for health, climate and agriculture, but stated that they will focus on women's rights as part of development policy.

On December 11, 2024, German Development Minister Svenja Schulze presented the 17 ^th Development Policy Report, which highlighted key priorities of German development policy under Schulze, including feminist development policy, global partnership and multilateral cooperation.

Schulze emphasized progress in integrating gender equality across development projects, stating that German development policy is more female-focused, multilateral and based on partnership than before. Accordingly, the report noted that the share of projects addressing gender equality increased from 66% in 2022 to over 91% in 2024.

The report also highlighted Germany's leadership in reforming the World Bank, including increasing its lending capacity, and aligning it with climate, and poverty reduction goals. Also outlined was the enhanced partnership approach with African countries through the German-Africa strategy and activities to establish vaccine and pharmaceutical production in Africa.

On December 1, 2024, German Economic Minister Robert Habeck travelled to Kenya to participate in the 5^th GABS.

Habeck's agenda prioritized green energy, climate change, and skilled labor migration topics. Representatives from BDI called for an increase of investment in African digital infrastructure.

Following the expected success of the conservative-leaning CDU/ CSU parties in the February 2025 German federal elections, prioritization of the private sector is very likely.

GABS has been a central component of the increasing efforts of the German government to prioritize relations with African countries.

On November 19, 2024, Minister for Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock traveled to Baku to attend COP29 with Special Representative for International climate policy Jennifer Morgan.

Together with other countries, German Chancellor Scholz signed a statement of the country coalition High Ambition Coalition calling for an increase in international climate financing. The coalition demands increased ambition, yet financing models remain unclear.

The German position is weakened through the governing coalition's break-down on November 6, 2024. Moreover, the German government will likely fail to meet its climate goals, including for international climate finance.

On November, 18, 2024, Development Minister Svenja Schulze traveled to Chad, with the four-day trip focusing on the reception and inclusion of Sudanese refugees.

Schulze highlighted that the humanitarian crisis demands increased attention, and commends the government in Chad for its support to Sudanese refugees. She promised to intensify further support for Chad.

The Sahel region is a priority region. German efforts in the region seek to maintain and strengthen relationships to the West, in particular in light of the increasing role of Russia and the UAE in the region. However, Schulze's commitments come in front of a backdrop of an uncertain Budget situation and a new election scheduled for February 23, 2025.

On November 6, 2024, Germany's 'traffic light' coalition, consisting of SPD, Greens, and FPD, fell apart after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner and announced an impending parliamentary vote of confidence.

The coalition broke down following prolonged conflicts about economic policies and the budget, with the Lindner's pro-business FPD proposing drastically different approaches from those supported by Scholz's SPD and the Greens. Scholz announced a vote of confidence for the coming months, followed by an early election between January-March 2025. Until then, a minority government consisting of SPD and Greens will remain in place.

The budget for 2025, originally scheduled for confirmation on November 14, 2024, will likely not be passed until a new government is in place. A probable outcome is that of prolonged provisional budgeting. While the government will be able to finance its legal obligations, administrative costs, and continue certain necessary expenditures, it will not be able to finance new projects. This will likely impact funding for development and humanitarian assistance.

Passing of any measures will depend on the cooperation of the opposition party CDU/CSU (or less likely the FPD). They might agree to certain measures yet are unlikely to support the budget for 2025. They are also currently not expected to support a reform of the constitutional debt brake, which will also drastically reduce the fiscal leeway of the next government.

On October, 24, 2024, Germany committed additional funding of EUR96 million (US$106 million) for the crisis in Lebanon as part of the international conference for Lebanon in Paris.

Of this, BMZ will provide EUR60 million (US$66 million) for Lebanon and Syria. The AA will provide EUR36 million (US$39 million) in humanitarian assistance.

German support is channeled through organizations such as UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, and the Lebanese Humanitarian Fund, and WPHF. It aims to support internally displaced populations and help stabilize the societal, economic, and institutional situation in Lebanon.

On October 10 and 11, 2024, the G7's Health Ministerial Meeting took place in Ancona, Italy. The discussion focused on three overarching priorities: Global Health Architecture and Pandemic Preparedness and Response, healthy and active aging, and the One Health Approach.

The G7 Health Ministers Communiqué, released at the end of the meeting, highlights the G7's commitment to supporting SDG #3 through universal health coverage, primary health care, and sexual and reproductive health. This also includes maternal, neonatal, child, and adolescent health, strengthening the global health architecture by investing in PPR, promoting regional manufacturing of health products, and equitable access to quality health services.

The communiqué emphasized the health-related impacts of conflicts with a reference to the crises in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, and Sudan. Furthermore, in the communiqué, the G7 Ministries committed to continue to support Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Global Fund, whose replenishment processes will occur in the upcoming months.

The Civil 7 engagement group, a platform through which civil society can engage with the G7, reacted with a communiqué in which they expressed an appreciation for the re-commitment to ending HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria through robust support for the Global Fund in its replenishment next year. This support is crucial to ending the three epidemics as agreed upon in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Finally, the G7 Health Ministers also adopted a policy brief on the opportunities presented by AI for both healthcare providers and patients.

On September 26, 2024, the AA published its new Strategy on Humanitarian Aid Abroad, which was published in the context of severe cuts to humanitarian funding in the draft budget for 2025, with humanitarian assistance cut by almost 50%.

The new strategy put forth three high-level priorities:

• Enabling access to populations in need through humanitarian diplomacy;
• Increasing the efficiency, effectiveness, localization, forward-looking perspective, and gender and inclusion-sensitivity of aid; and
• Ensuring that assistance is needs-based, prioritizes the greatest suffering, and is flexible.

The strategy referenced several targets, including some that have been set out in other strategic documents. This includes the target to achieve 100% of funding for gender-sensitive projects, 25% of funding for international NGOs, 25% of funding channeled through at most one intermediary to increase the role of local partners, and 30% of funding that can be allocated flexibly.

In the context of the severe cuts to ODA, the strategy puts strong emphasis on the efficiency of funding, ensuring that the funds prioritize the greatest needs based on assessment and compatibility with other funders.

On September 11, 2024, German parliamentary negotiations of the federal budget for 2025 began, which saw plenary debates on the budget of the AA and BMZ include criticism of cuts to ODA and humanitarian assistance.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock claimed that the budget is not sufficient to address the multitude of global crises. Development Minister Svenja Schulze of the SPD criticized cuts and highlighted that with the allocated budget, the BMZ would not be equipped to respond to unforeseen crises.

Parliamentarians from the main opposition party CDU/CSU, as well as from the coalition parties SPD and Greens, voiced their criticism of the disproportionate cuts to the budget of the BMZ and AA. In particular, they reprimanded cuts to humanitarian assistance and global health funding, including funding for multilaterals such as Gavi, Global Fund, UNFPA and WFP.

In addition to stressing German international responsibility, parliamentarians from different political groups referred to domestic, economic, and security arguments to make the case for additional funding for development and humanitarian assistance.

In the draft budget for 2025, the budget of the AA is planned to be cut by EUR836 million (US$925 million), or 12%, including a decrease in funding for humanitarian assistance of 47%. The budget of the BMZ is reduced by EUR937 million (US$1 billion), or 8%.