Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik / Analysen

This article examines the link between universality aspirations of international organizations and member state funding by focusing on the United Nations system. Centering on financial input as a key proxy for ownership and collectively shared responsibility, we show that the UN Scale of Assessments has provided a surprisingly stable formula for calculating obligatory membership fees in the regular budgets of the UN Secretariat, Specialized Agencies, and other UN entities. We argue that the Scale of Assessments embodies a commitment to differentiated universality as it applies to all member states while considering key differences among them, notably their levels of per capita income and debt burden. While large parts of UN budgets currently depend on voluntary contributions by a small number of wealthy member states and thus stray far from universality ambitions, we suggest that assessed contributions are an underexploited tool for operationalizing multilateral universality in an uneven world. We propose four concrete measures for strengthening and expanding the use of assessed contributions that can contribute to making the UN system a more universally owned set of international organizations.

Bonn, 16.01.2023. Das Jahr 2022 ist für viele von uns eine Zäsur, die das Ende einer über dreißigjährigen Hoffnung bedeutet, die Hoffnung, dass wirtschaftlicher Handel zu politischem Wandel führt. Angesichts des Zusammenbruchs der Sowjetunion und der hoffnungsvollen Demokratiebewegung in Osteuropa hat Francis Fukuyama 1989 die These des Endes der Geschichte vertreten. Er meinte damit, dass sich die liberale Demokratie und die Marktwirtschaft als Ordnungsmodelle durchsetzen würden. Für viele Länder Osteuropas, die heute Mitglied der Europäischen Union und der NATO sind, hat sich Fukuyamas These – zumindest in Teilen –  durchaus bestätigt. Auch die Menschen in der Ukraine hatten diese Hoffnung, die aber spätestens am 24. Februar 2022 durch den russischen Angriff zerschlagen wurde. Es war auch die Angst vor der Ausbreitung der Demokratie und deren Absicherung durch eine Anbindung an den sogenannten Westen, die Putin und sein Regime zu diesem irrsinnigen Krieg verleitete. Putin hatte auf die Schwäche und Unentschiedenheit der Demokratien gesetzt und dabei ihre Wehrhaftigkeit unterschätzt. Dass die Mitglieder der G7, der NATO und der Europäischen Union so viel Einigkeit zeigten, ist für mich einer der wenigen Lichtblicke des vergangenen Jahres.

Ist es eurozentristisch, den russischen Krieg gegen die Ukraine so ins Zentrum unseres politischen Diskurses zu rücken? So lautet der Vorwurf, der aus den Hauptstädten vieler Länder mittleren oder niedrigen Einkommens zu vernehmen ist. Die Bedrohungslage, die man in Berlin, Warschau oder Bukarest empfindet, ist sehr viel unmittelbarer als in Delhi, Pretoria oder Dakar. Auch mit dem Vorwurf der Doppelstandards, die wir bei anderen Krisen und Kriegen, vom Irak bis nach Libyen, angelegt haben, müssen wir uns kritisch auseinandersetzen. Gleichzeitig sind die Auswirkungen des russischen Krieges zweifelsohne globaler Natur, so zum Beispiel hinsichtlich der Versorgung mit Nahrungs- oder Düngemitteln. Zudem tritt Russland mit seinem Angriffskrieg und den massiven Kriegsverbrechen, wie sie etwa in Bucha verübt worden sind, das humanitäre Völkerrecht und die multilaterale Rechtsordnung mit Füßen. Russlands Krieg verschärft humanitäre Notlagen und hat Rückschritte bei der Erreichung der nachhaltigen Entwicklungsziele zur Folge, die bereits infolge der Corona-Pandemie ins Stocken geraten ist. Es ist diese Polykrise mit wechselseitig verbundenen und sich gegenseitig verstärkenden Krisenlagen, die auch 2023 prägen wird.

In Deutschland müssen wir die Energiewende mit entschiedenerem Nachdruck als bisher vorantreiben, um unabhängiger von fossilen Energieträgern zu werden, die wir oftmals aus autoritären Regimen importieren. Überdenken sollten wir auch unsere Wertschöpfungsketten, die insgesamt resilienter werden müssen. Resilienz bedeutet dabei nicht notwendigerweise De-Globalisierung oder das aggressive Entkoppeln von China, wie es die USA betreiben, sondern besonders die Diversifizierung des Imports von kritischen Rohstoffen und Vorprodukten aber auch der Absatzmärkte. Auch negative Spillover-Effekte müssen stärker in den Blick genommen werden. Dies sind unerwünschte wirtschaftliche, soziale, ökologische und sicherheitspolitische Ausstrahlungseffekte von Industrieländern wie Deutschland, welche die Erreichung der nachhaltigen Entwicklungsziele in anderen Ländern untergraben. Diese Transformationsprozesse sollten immer abgestimmt mit unseren europäischen Partnern geschehen, denn nur so können wirtschafts- und nachhaltigkeitspolitische Reformen globales Gewicht erfahren.

Im September 2023 steht der nächste „SDG Summit“ an, auf dem alle vier Jahre auf Ebene der Staats- und Regierungschef*innen die Erreichung der globalen Nachhaltigkeitsziele überprüft wird. Wir befinden uns in der Mitte des Umsetzungszeitraums der Agenda 2030 mit ihren 17 Nachhaltigkeitszielen. Aus Deutschland müssen Impulse für eine beschleunigte Umsetzung national aber auch international kommen, insbesondere, da die Bundesregierung zusammen mit Namibia die Verhandlungsführerschaft für den „Summit of the Future“ übernommen hat. Dieser soll 2024 stattfinden und Reformoptionen für die Vereinten Nationen und das internationale System entwickeln, um globale nachhaltige Entwicklung zu erreichen.

Auch in anderen internationalen Foren muss Deutschland eine konstruktive und transformative Rolle spielen. Die G20 wird in den nächsten drei Jahren von Indien, Brasilien und Südafrika geleitet, nachdem Indonesien die Präsidentschaft im vergangenen Jahr innehatte. Diese „Southernisation“ der G20 ist angesichts der politischen Bedeutung dieser Ländern nur folgerichtig. Sie kann die Herausforderungen der Länder mittleren und niedrigen Einkommensstärker in den Fokus rücken. Deutschland hat im Rahmen seiner G7-Präsidentschaft im Jahr 2022 wichtige Impulse gesetzt, etwa durch eine globale Allianz für Nahrungsmittelsicherheit oder eine weltweite Infrastrukturinitiative. Angesichts stark wachsender Schuldenstände in vielen Ländern niedrigen und mittleren Einkommens ist jedoch die G20 das richtige Forum, um eine Um- und Entschuldung voranzutreiben, die öffentliche Mittel zur Förderung von Nachhaltigkeit freisetzt. Insgesamt ist Deutschland in 2023 und darüber hinaus regional aber auch global als Impulsgeber und Umsetzungsmacht gefordert, um Frieden, internationales Recht und nachhaltige Entwicklung zu fördern. Hierfür sind nicht nur gute Vorsätze wichtig, sondern auch konkretes und mutiges Handeln.

The President of the United Nations General Assembly has appointed the German and Namibian permanent representatives as co-facilitators for the Summit of the Future. The summit is scheduled for September 2024. Its aim is to reinforce the UN and global governance structures to better address old and new challenges. That includes making progress on implementing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030. Given the current geopolitical tensions, this will be no easy task. At this juncture it is important to get the process off to a good start in order to gather support, generate atten-tion and engender confidence.

For several decades, China tried to catch up in the automotive industry, yet until recently with little success. Now, the paradigm shift from internal combustion to electric driving has opened a window of opportunity to catch up with global competitors. The Chinese government provided a strong policy push to become a lead market, allowing firms to accumulate technological capabilities and increasingly turn into lead manufacturers. This paper combines patent data and qualitative analyses of subsector trends to assess the technological capabilities and the international competitiveness of the Chinese industry in electromobility. We find that the country is indeed leapfrogging ahead in some domains (electric buses, lithium batteries) and rapidly catching up in others, including passenger vehicles. Ambitious green transformation policies can thus spur catch-up and competitiveness.

Am 14. Juni 2021 begann für die Entwicklungszusammenarbeit der EU eine neue Ära, denn an diesem Tag trat die Verordnung über das EU-Instrument für Nachbarschaft, Entwicklung und internationale Zusammenarbeit in Kraft (NDICI – Global Europe). Damit hat die EU ein mehrjähriges Versprechen für mehr Einheitlichkeit und Kohärenz in Bezug auf die Finanzierung ihres auswärtigen Handelns eingelöst (mit Ausnahme der Humanitären Hilfe, die weiterhin separat finanziert wird). Das vergangene Jahr war daher vor allem davon geprägt, neue Verfahren und Prozesse für NDICI – Global Europe auf den Weg zu bringen und die Mittelverteilung für die geographischen und thematischen Prioritäten von NDICI – Global Europe auszuhandeln. Daneben stand die globale Bewältigung der Covid-19-Pandemie und insbesondere die Debatte zur globalen Impfstoffversorgung und Patentrechten im Fokus des Politikfelds. Der Gipfel der Afrikanischen Union (AU) und der Europäischen Union im Februar 2022 drehte sich auch um die von der EU frisch lancierte Global Gateway-Initiative, mit der vor allem Infrastrukturprojekte gefördert werden sollen. Die nur wenige Tage später begonnene russische Invasion in der Ukraine bedeutet auch für die Entwicklungszusammenarbeit und humanitäre Hilfe der EU eine Zäsur und stellt die Frage nach der Notwendigkeit neuer Prioritätensetzungen und Mittelallokationen.

The discussion paper finds that urbanisation does not automatically lead to democratisation, but structures the way citizens relate to the state through settlement patterns, growing pressure on public goods and services, and improved access to education and communication technology. Urban heterogeneity is not a valid predictor for reducing the salience of ethnicity and clientelism. Ethnic identities matter for distributive politics as well as settlement patterns. While urban density facilitates collective accountability demands that often transcend ethnic and clientelist ties, the link between urbanisation and individual accountability relationships with the state is less straightforward. Political subjectivities are shaped by the experience of the limitations of the clientelist system paired with state neglect and unresponsiveness. The reviewed evidence suggests that the force to reckon with is not the middle class, but rather the poor masses. It is not enough for African governments to cater to the elites anymore, as the share of the urban poor becomes too large to ignore.

Original language: turkish. English abstract: The Syrian event formed a social laboratory that can test various theories of social sciences. Given the intensity of the conflict and the depth of the fluctuations and changes created, there are clear horizontal and vertical divisions and overlapping of the Syrian society's political attitudes towards what is happening. The importance of demographic factors in this regard was remarkable, which is an opportunity to study the factors that determine the political attitude and highlight the demographic factors. Due to the special circumstances of Syria and the difficulty of reaching all segments of society, we chose to study the political attitude of the Syrian students at Mardin Artuklu University. We distributed a questionnaire on a random sample and 212 could be accepted. After carrying out the statistical analysis of the data it was found that the most important demographic factors contributing to determining the age of political attitude, Where the older segments of the youth tended to opposition mood, and the ethnic factor, where it was found that Arabs have an attitude closer to the opposition mood compared to Kurds. While there was no significant effect on the factors such as religion, financial situation and gender

Innovative financing for development can contribute to closing the financial gap by mobilising new funds for sustainable development and leveraging existing scarce public concessional resources (ODA). In addition to domestic resources and traditional external financial resources, innovative financing mechanisms can mobilise further financial resources for LDCs. In view of the LDCs’ enormous sustainable investment needs, mobilising private financial resources is both crucial and inescapable. Blended finance represents an important instrument to combine ODA with private finance, thereby leveraging scarce concessional public financial resources. The G20 should consider promoting the adoption and implementation of the OECD Blended Finance Principles in LICs to enhance blended finance in these countries. As many LDCs do not have sufficient institutional capacity. To adopt blended finance instruments the G20 should support LDC in developing institutional capacity to effectively implement blended finance tools and to lower risks associated with blended finance. An additional instrument to enhance external financial resources to LDCs is to allocate the recently approved new SDR allocation to LDCs exceeding LDCs quota. The G20 should take on a leading by example/frontrunner role and donate as well as lend a percentage of their allocations, discuss establishing a special purpose fund (i.e. a green or health fund), support allocating a large amount of SDRs to LDCs exceeding their quota and discuss proposals how to allocate them among LICs and discuss how these financial instruments can be used to ensure a sustainable and inclusive recovery from the covid-19 crisis. As the fragmented architecture of sustainable bond standards represent one main challenge in mobilising financial resources for attaining the SDGs by issuing sustainable bonds the G20 should discuss and promote harmonisation of sustainable bond standards. Moreover, the G20 countries should provide capacity building for LDCs for developing the sustainable bond market in these countries.

Megatrends such as climate change, digitalisation, and urbanisation are transforming all aspects of politics, economics and society in Africa. Consequently, they are also affecting conflict dynamics. This Working Paper focuses specifically on how megatrends are altering patterns of foreign intervention in African conflicts. Two aspects stand out: the range of intervening powers is widening, and they are intervening increasingly at arm’s length by delegating to human or technical surrogates.

In a dialogue with Martin Kochan (GIZ), Anna Pegels outlines a step by step process to develop a recycling system which enables and motivates households to contribute, for example by separating their waste.

Recent protests following the death of people in a blaze in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital raise questions about Beijing’s claimed efficacy of China’s zero-Covid strategy three years into the pandemic. According to many, recent lockdowns in Urumqi led to rescue delays to save the lives of people trapped in a building on fire. This sad event under strict lockdown measures combined with stress, anxiety, fear, insecurity, and unsafety among the majority of the population in China has led to protests across the country. Beijing’s continuous repressive and drastic zero-Covid strategy anytime new cases are declared in Chinese cities has contributed to the ire of the population vis-à-vis the Chinese government as families are disrupted, jobs are lost, and social contacts are broken, without forgetting the psychological impacts of lockdown measures to confine people in barricaded districts. This piece explores China’s zero-Covid strategy, its causes for recent public protests in major Chinese cities and its consequences for the world economy.

The worldwide wave of autocratization is doing away with many of the democratic achievements made since 1989. Scholarship on international democracy promotion is yet to theorise how democracy can be protected from autocratization. Such a theory must account for different democratic and autocratic trajectories as well as integrate theoretical approaches from international relations and comparative politics in the study of democracy promotion. However, such a combined perspective is still missing. One reason for this is that the field lacks a clear concept of “protection” and does not yet systematically integrate evidence from democratization research. This paper addresses this research gap. It is the first attempt to develop a concept theory of democracy promotion, which includes support and protection of democracy. Coupling this with a depiction of six phases of regime change, this paper makes a second contribution: based on the proposed conceptual and theoretical integration, it generates a series of testable anchor points for further empirical analysis on what strategies are most likely to be effective during the various phases of regime change.

This empirical analysis investigates whether and to what extent social cohesion and the coverage of social protection schemes influence governments’ decisions about the stringency of COVID-19 containment policies during the first and second waves in 2020 in Africa. Our results indicate that societal and social factors influenced the stringency of containment policies. Social cohesion has a negative effect on the stringency of containment policies in response to COVID-19 over time. Social protection coverage has a positive effect on the stringency of containment policies in response to COVID-19 over time. States implemented more stringent containment policies in less cohesive societies if they already had social protection schemes in place before the pandemic. Contextual factors mediated these effects. While stringency of containment policies softened over time where levels of democracy, poverty, and inequality were higher, social protection made a mediating difference only in autocratic states and societies with higher poverty. Three contributions of the empirical analysis stand out. First, the conceptual integration of societal and social factors (“societal triangle”) provides a novel basis from which to analyse policy responses during external shocks like a global pandemic. Second, to overcome the limitations of current measurements of social cohesion, we use a novel measurement to determine pre-pandemic levels of social cohesion. Third, this is the first cross-national study that addresses a world region, Africa, which has gained little attention in the study of policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nucleus-outgrower schemes (NOSs) are supposed to be a particularly effective private-sector mechanism to support smallholder farmers and contribute towards mitigating the problematic aspects of pure large-scale agricultural investments. This discussion paper uses panel household survey data collected in two rounds in Zambia to analyse some agro-ecological and socio-economic impacts of the outgrower programme of one of the largest agricultural investments in Zambia: Amatheon Agri Zambia (AAZ) Limited. The descriptive results show that the type of participation in the programme varies across participants and components, with most participating in trainings. Econometric results suggest the following key findings. First, although the overall impact of the AAZ outgrower programme on the uptake of conservation agriculture practices is robust and promising, impacts on the adoption of other agricultural technologies is less obvious and the effect depends on the type of support provided. Second, the programme has had a significant impact on maize productivity promoted in the initial phase but not on the other crops – mainly oilseeds – promoted later. Third, the initially less productive farmers seem to benefit slightly more than already better performing ones. Fourth, although the impact on overall household security was insignificant, there is some suggestive evidence (although the effect is weak) that the programme has a positive effect on improving women’s uptake of micronutrients. Finally, our findings show that the three components of the programme (trainings, seed loans and output purchases) have different effects on the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices and productivity, and to some extent on food security. Overall, the results suggest that NOSs, with all their risks, can play a role in the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, improving farm-level agricultural technologies, providing input credit, and thereby improving productivity and smallholder livelihoods. However, this is not automatically the case, as it crucially depends on the design and management of the project; the availability of good policies and institutions governing the rules of operation; the types of crops promoted; the duration of the project; and the political commitment of host countries, among others.

Recently, awareness about climate change has increased. Behavioural changes and micro-level and macro-level actions towards low-carbon economies are becoming more widespread, propelled by increasing scientific evidence and climate activism. As individuals continue to become more climate-conscious, climate-mitigation legislation has also gained traction. In 2019, the European Commission agreed on the European Green Deal, which included a recommendation to phase out new financing for fossil fuel projects in third countries. This recommendation was reiterated at the COP26 in Glasgow, by the European Investment Bank, and more recently by the European Commission in preparation for the COP27 in Cairo. Against this background, the European Parliament recently adopted resolution 2022/2826(RSP), broadly condemning alleged human rights violations linked with the planned construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). Alongside the human rights questions, the European Parliamentarians also argue that the project will both increase emissions and cause ecological damage—and so, in line with European climate policies, they argue that the project should close.
In this essay, I use the example of EU resolution 2022/2826(RSP) and the debates surrounding it to argue that whilst debates following this and similar resolutions supporting blanket bans on fossil fuel investments in low-income countries might be well-intentioned, a more differentiated view of the implications of these resolutions is necessary, especially considering developing countries’ needs and preferences. Blanket application of climate strategies developed in the Global North (such as stopping funding fossil fuel extractions in low-income countries) can be deeply unfair and unjust, and entrench more poverty than they hope to reduce. Moreover, these debates tend to focus on the policy needs of the Global North, with limited regard to Global South contexts and needs. This is especially significant in the context of aiming for just energy transitions, in which low-income countries are not left worse off without fossil fuel extraction.

In several African regions, economic integration has successfully reduced tariff protection by freezing the opportunity to raise applied tariffs against fellow integration partners above those promised. We examine whether these regional tariff commitments have come at the expense of adverse side-effects on the prevalence of non-tariff trade barriers. Comparing the effects of applied tariff overhangs – the difference between MFN bound tariffs and effectively applied tariffs – towards all vis-à-vis African trading partners on SPS and TBT notifications of 35 African WTO members from 2001-2017, we find no general relationship between tariff overhangs and import regulation in our preferred model setting. Larger tariff overhangs specific to intra-African trade relations, however, increase the probability of SPS measures and TBT and thereby contrast with the common assumption of the former functioning as a flexible policy valve. We see the nature of Africa’s formal trade relations as an explanation for these findings. While regional tariff commitments have not only significantly moved African countries away from multilateral commitments, they have also sharply reduced their tariff policy space within Africa, thus seemingly leaving regulatory policy as one of the few legitimate options to level the playing field with the by far closest market competitors.

Noting that few studies to date have investigated the determinants of social cohesion in a comprehensive and systematic manner, this paper examines the macro-level determinants of social cohesion using a panel of up to 92 developing and developed countries for the period 1990–2020. Employing the system GMM dynamic panel data estimator, which addresses endogeneity concerns by means of internal instruments, I find that the levels of education, government size, globalisation, and economic development have significantly positive effects on most dimensions of a country’s social cohesion. In contrast, inflation, corruption and income inequality are detrimental to social cohesion.

To bridge the telecom gap between people in rural and urban areas, and between landlocked and coastal countries, African governments and the African Union have supported the continent’s infrastructure development in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. At the same time, China has increasingly shown an interest in investing in ICT in Africa in order to export its manufacturing products, develop its technology and acquire foreign technology, as well as contributing to its global influence in ICT as stipulated in China’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011–2015) and 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025). China’s increasing interest in ICT and the growing presence of Chinese telecom companies in Africa have contributed to a resurgence of the European Union’s motivation to re-engage in Africa’s ICT sector. This Policy Brief discusses whether, in the development of the African ICT sector, there is an alignment between Chinese telecom companies’ engagement in Africa and the interests of African countries. It argues that while Chinese investment interests meet Africa’s need for the development of its ICT sector, help bridge the telecom gap and contribute to connectivity across the continent, there are risks, challenges and concerns surrounding China’s engagement in African countries’ ICT sector.

To bridge the telecom gap between people in rural and urban areas, and between landlocked and coastal countries, African governments and the African Union have supported the continent’s infrastructure development in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. At the same time, China has increasingly shown an interest in investing in ICT in Africa in order to export its manufacturing products, develop its technology and acquire foreign technology, as well as contributing to its global influence in ICT as stipulated in China’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011–2015) and 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025). China’s increasing interest in ICT and the growing presence of Chinese telecom companies in Africa have contributed to a resurgence of the European Union’s motivation to re-engage in Africa’s ICT sector. This Policy Brief discusses whether, in the development of the African ICT sector, there is an alignment between Chinese telecom companies’ engagement in Africa and the interests of African countries. It argues that while Chinese investment interests meet Africa’s need for the development of its ICT sector, help bridge the telecom gap and contribute to connectivity across the continent, there are risks, challenges and concerns surrounding China’s engagement in African countries’ ICT sector.

The literature suggests that a first barrier towards accessing benefits of health insurance in low- and middle-income countries is lack of awareness of one’s benefits. Yet, across settings and emerging schemes, limited scientific evidence is available on levels of awareness and their determinants. To fill this gap, we assessed socio-demographic and economic determinants of beneficiaries’ awareness of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), the national health insurance scheme launched in India in 2018, and their awareness of own eligibility. We relied on cross-sectional household survey data collected in six Indian states between 2019 and 2020. Representative data of households eligible for PM-JAY from 11 618 respondents (an adult representative from each surveyed household) were used. We used descriptive statistics and multivariable logistic regression models to explore the association between awareness of PM-JAY and of one’s own eligibility, and socio-economic and demographic characteristics. About 62% of respondents were aware of PM-JAY, and among the aware, 78% knew that they were eligible for the scheme. Regression analysis confirmed that older respondents with higher educational level and salaried jobs were more likely to know about PM-JAY. Awareness was lower among respondents from Meghalaya and Tamil Nadu. Respondents from other backward classes, of wealthier socio-economic status, or from Meghalaya or Gujarat were more likely to be aware of their eligibility status. Respondents from Chhattisgarh were less likely to know about their eligibility. Our study confirms that while more than half the eligible population was aware of PM-JAY, considerable efforts are needed to achieve universal awareness. Socio-economic gradients confirm that the more marginalized are still less aware. We recommend implementing tailored, state-specific information dissemination approaches focusing on knowledge of specific scheme features to empower beneficiaries to demand their entitled services.