10/11/2011
Hans-Jürgen Beerfeltz
State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany
In the past few years, we have seen new private donors – be it private foundations or dedicated individuals – becoming more and more present in the development arena. They provide substantial funding for development cooperation, and many of them have a great influence on important development debates. For our important purpose, it is not decisive whether they are motivated by personal conviction or only by a bad conscience.
This implies both opportunities and challenges for official donors and for international devel¬opment cooperation. The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is accepting these challenges and wants to actively seize the opportunities that we consider important.
The challenges posed by new private donors relate mainly to coherence and coordination. So, as we cooperate with new private donors, we must not water down the Paris and Accra principles. By engaging with these donors, we need to achieve greater coherence and impact.
The opportunities offered by cooperation are obvious: The new private donors' political and economic independence facilitates innovation and investment in risky environments. Further assets are their strong media presence and their ability to sensitise the general public to development issues. Most new private donors also bring business thinking to development cooperation, thus giving prominence to the effectiveness aspect.
Of course we at the BMZ also have a lot to offer: An extensive development network and our many years of experience and knowledge of technical cooperation and capacity-building. If use is made of players' respective comparative advantages, cooperation with new private donors looks set to become very exciting and fruitful. And particularly cooperation with famous personalities like Sean Penn or Shakira is helping us to bring development into the focus of public interest and to generate broader public acceptance.
Sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction in developing and emerging economies cannot be achieved through official development cooperation alone. So we are also working together with the local and international private sector to help enhance prosperity in our partner countries. Locally, we help improve the economic environment, foster business development and develop local and regional markets. Through economic policy advice, private sector development and financial system development projects, we help create a level playing field for private-sector activity in our partner countries. The BMZ also seeks to improve the international environment for more trade, investment and closer economic relations, and it encourages corporate social responsibility. Through numerous trade facilitation projects, it fosters the quality and reliability of customs and border procedures and port and road management. In order to enhance the availability of knowledge and qualified labour, we strengthen local innovation systems and the training of skilled personnel for the private sector.
There must be better interaction between, and optimum dovetailing of foreign trade and development cooperation. So we are enhancing our instruments for the inclusion of German and international enterprises and are creating new ones. We are also deepening our dialogue with private-sector partners in order to offer business players opportunities to join us in shouldering more responsibility for sustainable development. The focus here is on realising mutual benefits for partner countries and businesses. The private sector's expertise, innovative capacity, creativity, and capital are important ingredients to achieving sustainable, pro-poor growth and prosperity in our partner countries.