Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik / Analysen

Triangular cooperation (TriCo) has existed as a cooperation mechanism for about 40 years. The first implicit reference was made to it in 1978 in the United Nations Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (BAPA). Reacting to the increased complexity of international development cooperation, and going beyond the North–South divide, TriCo aims to (i) foster relations between DAC donors and emerging economies, (ii) strengthen southern providers’ capacity in international cooperation for development and (iii) promote international development.
Since 1978, TriCo has become broader, more dynamic and flexible, has increased the number of projects and stakeholders involved, and incorporated different processes and approaches (e.g. South–South–South cooperation), including larger partnership strategies. It is now perceived of as key to the sharing of costs, responsibilities and solutions in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
TriCo was mentioned 73 times in the outcome document of the Second High-level UN Conference on South–South Cooperation (BAPA+40), held in Buenos Aires in March 2019. No longer was it a niche topic. It was afforded significance and broadly discussed in an internationally agreed document, thereby becoming a tool for development dialogue at policy level.
Official, verified and comparable data on TriCo are often lacking. Yet, many studies and reports shed light on this mechanism. This Briefing Paper is based on more than 30 in-depth interviews with stakeholders, and on analysis of documents and data. It makes three recommendations on ways to advance TriCo as a cooperation mechanism for all donors, and as a support mechanism for the 2030 Agenda: (1) avoid a “one-size-fits-all” approach; (2) integrate triangular cooperation into existing practices of development cooperation, e.g. as a component of financial and technical projects; and (3) better connect with the debate around multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs), in which stakeholders from at least three different sectors work together through an organised, and long-term engagement.

This study evaluates the impact of an agroecological school gardening program on eating behavior, agroecological knowledge and educational capabilities of 9–12 year-old schoolchildren in Montevideo, Uruguay. The study uses a mixed method approach and a sample of 16 schools and 665 schoolchildren. The results show that Programa Huertas en Centros Educativos has a high positive impact on children’s perception of the school and on their educational capabilities, while a relatively small impact is visible when focusing on diet quality and repetition of practices learned at school. One possible explanation for the lack of major benefits of the program on children’s diet is a scarce community involvement, a feature deemed as crucial in similar interventions, and an insufficient integration of the program in the school curriculum.

Die Regierungen im Nahen Osten und in Nordafrika (MENA) begegnen der Pandemie auf unterschiedliche Weise, dabei sehen sich viele durch schwache Sozialsysteme und wachsende gesellschaftliche Frustrationen herausgefordert. In relativ wohlhabenden Ländern – wie Libanon, Ägypten und Irak – haben führende Politiker die Pandemie als Vorwand benutzt, um berechtigte Proteste gegen ihr fehlendes Verantwortungsbewusstsein und ihr Versagen bei der Bereitstellung der Grundversorgung zu unterdrücken. Für die internationale Entwicklungszusammenarbeit, die das Funktionieren legitimer, rechenschaftspflichtiger Regierungen und widerstandsfähiger Gesellschaften unterstützt, stellt dies eine große Herausforderung dar – wie der Fall des Libanon derzeit zeigt.

In scheinbar endlosen Krisen haben die zyklischen Gewaltkonflikte im Jemen, in Syrien und Libyen zu höchst fragilen, rudimentären Gesundheits- und Sozialsystemen geführt, die von der Pandemie überfordert sind. Sie werden durch große, zunehmende Ungleichheiten und politische Instabilität geschwächt. Wie immer sind die Schwächsten am härtesten betroffen – die Zivilbevölkerung und insbesondere Frauen, Kinder, Vertriebene und Flüchtlinge.

Tunesien dagegen, wirtschaftlich schwach und politisch keineswegs stabil, fällt in der Region auf, weil es das Virus entschlossen bekämpft. Tunesien hat frühzeitige und drastische Maßnahmen ergriffen, um zunächst seine Bevölkerung und damit längerfristig auch seine Wirtschaft zu schützen.

Trotz der großen Herausforderungen in der Region erinnerte UN-Generalsekretär António Guterres kürzlich die arabischen Führer daran, dass die Pandemie auch Chancen für Konfliktlösungen und ein building back better bietet, namentlich durch die Überwindung struktureller Schwächen und die Stärkung der Gesellschaftsverträge.

Guterres schlägt einen Paradigmenwechsel vor, wenn er feststellt, dass „niemand sicher ist, bis alle sicher sind“. Dies bringt unsere wechselseitige Verwundbarkeit zum Ausdruck und verlangt eine ganzheitlichere und umfassendere Sichtweise der Bedrohungen der kollektiven ‚menschlichen Sicherheit‘. Letztere ist integral mit Umweltsicherheit verknüpft, die den Mittelpunkt unseres globalen Denkens und Handelns bilden muss.

Es liegt im vitalen Interesse verantwortungsbewusster Regierungen, internationale Organisationen weiter zu stärken anstatt sie zu zerschlagen oder finanziell auszutrocknen. Denn sie versuchen, die wechselseitigen Gefährdungen menschlicher Sicherheit – darunter tiefe strukturelle und horizontale Ungleichheiten innerhalb von und zwischen Ländern sowie scheiternde Gesellschaftsverträge – zu bekämpfen. Es müssen größere Anstrengungen unternommen werden, um die Beziehungen zwischen Staat und Gesellschaft zu verstehen, Hindernisse zu überwinden und Mittel und Wege zu finden, nationale Gesellschaftsverträge zu schließen.

Die Volksaufstände des Arabischen Frühlings und die verschiedenen Reaktionen darauf haben im vergangenen Jahrzehnt die Gesellschaftsverträge und die Beziehungen zwischen Staat und Gesellschaft bestimmt. Tunesien, Katalysator der Veränderungen, hat echte politische Reformen eingeleitet. Nach einem äußerst integrativen Übergangsprozess hat das Land u.a. einen ständigen trilateralen Dialog zwischen Gewerkschaften, Arbeitgeberverbänden und Regierung eingeführt. Das gewonnene Vertrauen der Öffentlichkeit hat dazu beigetragen, dass die Gesellschaft die COVID-19-Regeln der Regierung befolgt.

Für Syrien, den Jemen, Libyen und den Irak, die auf eine lange Geschichte gescheiterter Gesellschaftsverträge und anhaltender gewaltsamer Konflikte und Krisen zurückblicken, verlangen die Pandemie und ihre sich abzeichnenden Folgen radikale Maßnahmen. Es ist entscheidend, die Pfadabhängigkeiten und Zyklen von Gewalt und staatlicher Fragilität zu durchbrechen. Dies ist leichter gesagt als getan, wenn regionale und internationale Akteure Teil des Konflikts sind. Eine länderübergreifende Analyse tief gespaltener Gesellschaften macht deutlich, wie wichtig es ist, nationale politische Regelungen an tragfähige und integrative institutionelle Arrangements zu binden, die strukturelle Konfliktursachen transformieren und die Einhaltung von Zusagen gewährleisten können. Wesentlich ist, dass wachsender sozialer Zusammenhalt – eine Voraussetzung für einen inklusiven Gesellschaftsvertrag – eng mit Fortschritten in diesen Bereichen verbunden ist.

Im Zentrum sozialen Zusammenhalts stehen der Aufbau von Vertrauen und die Erfüllung der materiellen Bedürfnisse und politischen Erwartungen von Gesellschaften. Größeres Vertrauen ist der Kern von tragfähigeren Gesellschaftsverträgen. Internationale Unterstützung durch politisch-normative, finanzielle und technische Zusammenarbeit ist in solchen Kontexten unerlässlich, um nationalen Akteuren bei der Einrichtung von Multi-Stakeholder-Dialogen und der Umsetzung tragfähiger Vereinbarungen zu helfen.

Die internationalen Akteure müssen sicherstellen, dass eine koordinierte Unterstützung keinen Schaden anrichtet – damit der Frieden unter den nationalen Gegebenheiten letztlich organisch wachsen kann. Die Bemühungen um die Bekämpfung der Pandemie in und zwischen fragilen und von Gewaltkonflikten betroffenen Ländern müssen sich auf diese Prioritäten und Verfahren einstellen, wenn die Idee des building back better verwirklicht werden soll. Dies ist keine Hexerei mehr, denn diverse Institutionen haben wegweisende Erkenntnisse über Best Practices in der internationalen Zusammenarbeit gewonnen – auch in Zeiten einer Pandemie.

Erin McCandless ist außerordentliche Professorin an der School of Governance der Witwatersrand University in Südafrika und leitet ein Forschungs- und politisches Dialogprojekt zur Schaffung widerstandsfähiger Gesellschaftsverträge in Ländern, die sich von Konflikten und Autoritarismus abwenden.

Bernhard Trautner ist Politikwissenschaftler und Forscher im Forschungsprogramm Transformation politischer (Un-) Ordnung am Deutschen Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE).

Does aid contribute to development? If so, under what conditions and to what extent? These questions are as old as the field of development policy itself and they have been controversially discussed among researchers and policymakers ever since. Yet, two main trends put questions related to aid effectiveness high on the political agenda again. First, development actors want to understand and improve their contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Second, populist parties on the radical right fundamentally question the relevance of aid and thereby bring development policy to the fore of public debates in donor countries. In response, donors feel more pressure to demonstrate and communicate the success of aid. Since the early 2000s, donors’ efforts to meet their commitments under the international aid and development effectiveness agenda have contributed to a plethora of knowledge on what works, what doesn’t work, and why. In parallel, academics have contributed new insights through the study of, for instance, macro effects, impact measurements and research on donor organisations. Increasingly, though, the debate on aid effectiveness has become compartmentalised and fragmented.
This briefing maps these fragmented discussions and proposes an integrated approach to aid effectiveness in research and policymaking. We argue that only an integrated perspective can match the new demands for why, when and how aid can make a difference. Typically, policymakers and researchers operate in one or more of four (often disconnected) communities, working on: 1) macro effects of aid; 2) global principles for development cooperation; 3) the structure and instruments of organisations; 4) the impact of individual interventions.
The first community focuses on research comparing the effects of aid across countries, especially regarding the effect of aid on economic growth or other development indicators. Recently, this analysis has extended to subnational levels and development actors who do not report development finance as per Official Development Assistance (ODA) guidelines, such as China.
The second community engages in the promotion of global principles of effectiveness agreed on by “traditional” providers of aid and partner countries. Five principles of aid effectiveness were enshrined in the 2005 Paris Agenda. As a follow-up, the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) was created in 2011.
The third community is concerned with managing development organisations. Development organisations have increasingly applied results-based management tools to steering operations, accountability, learning and communicating.
The fourth community focuses on development interventions and the effectiveness of specific development projects. There has been a shift towards more rigorous methods for evaluating project impacts and efforts to aggregate evidence through systematic reviews.
The key insight from our analysis is that an integrated approach to assessing aid effectiveness across the four communities can help to leverage synergies and avoid unintended consequences. For instance, it can improve coordination within development organisations and foster joint knowledge creation among researchers. Finally, an integrated perspective can help to clarify the contribution made by aid to the SDGs vis-à-vis that of other policy fields, and can assist in better communicating the effects of aid to the public.

Public procurement expenditures of European Union (EU) member states are enormous, accounting for approximately 14 per cent of value creation in the EU. In many European countries, municipalities are responsible for a large share of these expenditures, as is the case in Germany. By integrating sustainability criteria in tenders for goods, works and services, municipalities can significantly contribute to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which is to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. Sustainable public procurement (SPP) practices are, however, the exception rather than the rule. While environmental criteria are increasingly considered, social standards have thus far been considered far less in public tenders. Thus, we analysed what could be done to support the implementation of Socially Responsible Public Procurement (SRPP) practices in German municipalities.
Our empirical evidence shows that there is no gold standard for implementing SRPP in municipal contexts. Figure 1 presents a map with different entry points from which practitioners and policy-makers may embark on fitting pathways. We recommend measures in the following three dimensions.
Regulatory dimension
Regulations and their “translation” for administrative bodies should be ambitious and clear. The regulatory framework on the municipal level should clearly specify how SPP is introduced and implemented, especially by defining concrete SPP goals and translating goals and policies for civil servants.
Institutional dimension
The basis for effective SPP measures is a strategic procurement organisation. Municipal stakeholders may take action in three areas to make procurement organisation more strategic. First, decision-makers can attach a higher value to procurement as an instrument to realise the strategic goals of the municipality. Second, a huge variety of procurement instruments is applicable to support this value shift. Third, due to the decentralised procurement structures in municipalities, coordination and communication between departments and persons should be streamlined, or municipal procurement should become more centralised.
Individual dimension
Information and capacity building should be offered to all stakeholders. In order to adjust regulatory and institutional conditions for effective SRPP implementation, support from administration and political decision-makers on all levels is a prerequisite. Providing customised information and offering capacity building can raise the level of support. In this regard, SRPP is most likely to be achieved when specific staff is assigned responsibility for its implementation.
Based on insights from German municipalities, this paper outlines further success factors and underlying triggers to utilise public procurement in the transformation towards sustainability.

Von den fast 500 Milliarden Euro, die in Deutschland jährlich für die öffentliche Beschaffung ausgegeben werden, entfallen mehr als 50 Prozent auf Kommunen. Neben dem Preis können bei der Auftragsvergabe auch soziale Kriterien zum Tragen kommen (Socially Responsible Public Procurement, SRPP). Somit birgt die öffentliche Beschaffung ein großes Potenzial, zu nachhaltigeren Konsum- und Produktionsmustern im Sinne von Ziel 12 der Agenda 2030 beizutragen. Bislang nutzen deutsche Kommunen diesen Hebel aber nur zurückhaltend. Was ist zu tun, um dies zu ändern? Es gibt nicht den einen Goldstandard für die Umsetzung von SRPP in deutschen Kommunen. Abbildung 1 zeigt einen Baukasten unterschiedlicher Maßnahmen, die je nach kommunalem Kontext und differenziert nach Einführungs- und Konsolidierungsphase genutzt werden können und sich über drei Dimensionen erstrecken – eine regulatorische, eine institutionelle und eine individuelle. Obwohl lokale Maßnahmen somit unterschiedlich aussehen können, ergeben sich folgende allgemeine Empfehlungen für Politik und Praxis:
1.    In Bezug auf die regulatorische Dimension sollten Gesetze und Vorschriften zu SRPP auf allen politischen Ebenen klar und ambitioniert gefasst sein und somit Orientierung für die praktische Umsetzung bieten. Dazu müssen Vorschriften – auch Ratsbeschlüsse – detailliert und klar für die Beschaffungspraxis „übersetzt“ werden (z.B. in Formblättern, Dienstanweisungen oder elektronischen Einkaufskatalogen).
2.    In Bezug auf die institutionelle Dimension können drei Maßnahmen dazu beitragen, kommunale Beschaffungsorganisation sozialverträglicher zu gestalten. Erstens müssen Entscheidungsträger*innen die Beschaffung als strategische Stellschraube anerkennen, mit deren Hilfe kommunale Interessen und Ziele verfolgt werden können. Zweitens sollten strategische Beschaffungsinstrumente intensiver genutzt werden (z.B. durch Bieterdialoge oder elektronische Einkaufskataloge). Drittens sollten Defizite in den Arbeits- und Kommunikationsstrukturen identifiziert und angegangen werden. Die meist dezentrale Beschaffung in deutschen Kommunen erschwert eine strategisch abgestimmte Beschaffungsplanung und -erfassung deutlich. Hilfreich ist daher die Einrichtung von Stellen, die speziell für SRPP bzw. nachhaltige Beschaffung zuständig sind.
3.    In Bezug auf die individuelle Dimension ist persönliches Engagement aktuell der wichtigste Erfolgsfaktor für kommunale SRPP-Maßnahmen. Wichtigster Auslöser hierfür ist die persönliche Überzeugung engagierter Personen. Dieser Erfolgsfaktor ist somit von außen nur schwer zu beeinflussen. Der Fokus sollte daher auf den anderen Auslösern für persönliches Engagement liegen: Austausch, Information und Weiterbildung.
Damit sozialverantwortliche öffentliche Beschaffung mittelfristig der Standard wird, müssen insbesondere Maßnahmen in den regulatorischen und institutionellen Dimensionen ergriffen werden. Engagierte Personen sind wichtig, ihr Auftreten aber kaum steuerbar.

This report, which focuses on innovation, is the third by The World in 2050 (TWI2050) initiative that was established by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and other partners to provide scientific foundations for the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This report is based on the voluntary and collaborative effort of more than 60 authors and contributors from about 20 institutions globally, who met virtually to develop science-based strategies and pathways toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Presentations of the TWI2050 approach and work have been made at many international conferences such as the United Nations Science, Technology and Innovation Forums and the United Nations High-level Political Forums.

Innovations for Sustainability: Pathways to an efficient and sufficient post-pandemic future assesses all the positive potential benefits innovation brings to sustainable development for all, while also highlighting the potential negative impacts and challenges going forward. The report outlines strategies to harness innovation for sustainability by focusing on efficiency and sufficiency in providing services to people, with a particular focus on consumption and production. It concludes with the related governance challenges and policy implications.

We run recentered influence function (RIF) regressions, using Firpo et al. (2007) distributional approach to identify each control variable’s contribution on the decomposition of wage changes. Using the Egyptian Labour Market Surveys 1998–2012 for waged men we find that wage changes between 1998 and 2012 mainly resulted in increased inequality. The richer percentiles have persistently enjoyed disproportionately larger positive changes in real hourly wages. Whilst increasing in all three wage gaps, inequality increased the most between the top and bottom deciles (90–10 gap), i.e. between the lowest and highest wage earners. This increase in inequality is primarily driven by the unexplained wage structure effect. The distinct labour market segments are foremost responsible for the increased inequality trend. Private sector informality is the largest contributor to increased inequality. The sector does not adhere to a minimum wage, and being unregulated it has responded dramatically to the severe competitive pressures caused by the departing middle classes of the public sector. It suppressed mid and low-end wages resulting in sharp wage gaps at the tails. Public sector wage setting dynamics and the direction of labour movements since liberalization cause the sector to contribute more to wage inequality than does its formal private counterpart.

The structural transformation of countries moves them towards more sophisticated, higher-value products. Network analysis, using the Product Space Methodology (PSM), guides countries towards leading export sectors. The identification process rests on two pillars: (1) available opportunities, that is, products in the product space that the country does not yet export which are more sophisticated than its current exports; and (2) the stock of a country’s accumulated productive knowledge and the technical capabilities that, through spillovers, enable it to produce slightly more sophisticated products. The PSM points to a tradeoff between capabilities and complexity. It identifies very basic future products that match the two countries’ equally basic capabilities. Top products are simple animal products, cream and yogurt, modestly sophisticated plastics, metals and minerals such as salt and sulphur for Egypt; and slightly more sophisticated products such as containers and bobbins (plastics) and broom handles and wooden products for Tunisia, which is the more advanced of the two countries. A more interventionist approach steers the economy towards maximum sophistication, thus identifying highly complex manufactured metals, machinery, equipment, electronics and chemicals. Despite pushing for economic growth and diversification, these sectors push urban job creation and require high-skill workers, with the implication that low-skilled labour may be pushed into unemployment or into low-value informal jobs. A middle ground is a forward-looking strategy that takes sectors’ shares in world trade into account.

Der Libanon darf nach der verheerenden Explosion im Hafen von Beirut nicht scheitern. Soweit sind sich die Menschen im Libanon und auch die Internationale Gemeinschaft einig. Diese Eintracht hat viele Gründe: Die Libanes*innen wollen endlich einen funktionierenden Staat anstatt ein Land, in dem Müllabfuhr und Sicherheit fehlen. Das Land hat über eine Million Flüchtlinge aus Syrien aufgenommen. Libanon ist zudem Drehscheibe und regionaler Stützpunkt für viele Unterstützungsmaßnahmen und internationale Hilfsorganisationen.

Der Abtritt der Regierung signalisiert allerdings keinen Neustart und eine politische Erneuerung wird nicht automatisch erfolgen. Seit der Unabhängigkeit des Landes 1943 haben die bisherigen Regierungen den Staat vor allem als Beute betrachtet. Bereits in der Verfassung des Landes wurde das konfessionelle Proporzsystem zementiert, das trotz seiner Bezeichnung als „Nationalpakt“ verhindert hat, dass eine am nationalen Ganzen orientierte politische Klasse entsteht. Das konfessionelle System, das mit der Machtteilung nach dem Bürgerkrieg zwischen Sunnit*innen, Schiit*innen und Christ*innen den Frieden sicherte, hat sich immer weiter ausdifferenziert – zugunsten einer Klientelpolitik und erheblicher wirtschaftlicher und politischer Korruption.

Es ist ein Dilemma: Einerseits benötigt internationale Wiederaufbauhilfe legitime, staatliche Partner. Das gilt gerade, wenn es darum geht, nachhaltige Strukturen aufzubauen, wie die libanesischen Demonstrant*innen ja nicht erst seit der Katastrophe in Beirut fordern. Schon, um einen Kreditvertrag mit den internationalen Finanzinstitutionen für Wiederaufbauhilfe zu unterzeichnen, bedarf es einer nationalen Regierung, die pro forma hierfür die Verantwortung übernimmt.

Andererseits: Je größer die Unterstützungszusagen der Internationalen Gemeinschaft für den Libanon werden, desto größer wird, zusammen mit der nicht zu vernachlässigenden Wirtschaftsleistung des Landes, der zu verteilende Kuchen für die politische Führung. Wie schon in den Jahren zuvor ist zu befürchten, dass die konfessionellen Führungen sich nur zusammenraufen, um Neuwahlen zu erreichen und eine weitere Technokraten-Regierung einzusetzen. Außenminister Maaß hat richtigerweise bei seinem Besuch zum Kriterium für die staatliche Wiederaufbauhilfe erhoben, dass die politische Führung die Anliegen der Bevölkerung endlich ernstnimmt.

Die Katastrophe bietet gleichwohl auch eine Reformgelegenheit für das Land. Dabei ist vorsichtiges Handeln geboten. Zum Beispiel könnte die Verantwortung für die soziale Grundsicherung im Land von den Konfessionsgruppen – und voraussichtlich gegen ihren Widerstand – weg in eine gesamtstaatliche Aufgabe überführt werden. Das von internationalen Gebern finanzierte und gemeinsam von Welternährungsprogramm (WEP) mit der lokalen Verwaltung umgesetzte System der direkten finanziellen Grundsicherung von Flüchtlingen und Aufnahmegemeinden könnte auf die libanesische Gesellschaft ausgedehnt und sukzessive stärker vom libanesischen Staat selbst finanziert werden. Das wäre gerechter und auch effizienter als die weitgehend ungezielten Subventionen von Nahrungsmitteln oder Kraftstoffen, wie sie aktuell die meisten Regierungen in der nahöstlichen Region verteilen.

Für Libanons internationale Partner ist Umsicht angesagt. Für die jetzt zu leistende Not- und Übergangshilfe sind staatliche Strukturen zunächst nur bedingt notwendig. Aufgrund der Syrienkrise sind neben dem WEP viele andere Internationale Organisationen, wie etwa das Kinderhilfswerk UNICEF, im Land. Ihre Aktivitäten im Bildungsbereich sind zwar bislang eng mit der libanesischen Regierung abgestimmt. Doch bestehen auf Verwaltungsebene hinreichend Kontakte, die zum Beispiel die Bedarfsermittlung, Projektplanung und Finanzierung für die Rehabilitierung von Schulen in Beirut stemmen könnten.

Bewährt hat sich auch die Unterstützung über private Träger: Organisationen wie etwa die Deutsche Welthungerhilfe reichen Spenden und Zuwendungen an vertraute, lokale Partner im Land weiter und stehen ihnen bei der Projektentwicklung und -umsetzung zur Seite. Hilfreich ist hierbei, dass der Libanon über eine relativ freie Zivilgesellschaft und einen im regionalen Vergleich hohen Grad an Meinungsfreiheit verfügt, die auch eine gewisse Kontrolle über die Mittelverwendung sichert.

Die katastrophale Explosion in Beiruts Hafen hat deutlich gezeigt, wie lebensgefährlich der marode, konfessionell segmentierte ‘Nationalpakt‘ geworden ist. Ein neuer Gesellschaftsvertrag muss von der libanesischen Gesellschaft selbst kommen, und Deutschland und andere internationale Partner müssen bereit sein, die lokalen, zivilgesellschaftlichen Akteure zu unterstützen: Sie sind die Träger der politischen Erneuerung und Wächter darüber, dass der Wiederaufbau zu einem echten Neubeginn führt.

In this chapter, we analyze the potential role of science, technology and innovation (STI) in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs), and what governments in developing countries can do to phase-in STI-based solutions, especially green energy technologies, for achieving SDGs. For this purpose, we examined three successful phase-in experiences in solar energy and energy efficiency in two emerging economies (China, India). 

This article introduces the special issue on the evolution of European Union development policy, against the background of fundamental challenges that have emerged since the 2009 Lisbon Treaty. The special issue’s objective is to highlight the complex dynamics of a policy area that is called on to address the massive challenges of poverty, inequality, healthcare capacity, climate change, insecurity and weak governance in countries of the global south, and at the same time support European foreign policy objectives including political stability, migration management, access to resources and markets. In this introductory article, we attempt to sketch the broad outlines of the conceptual and practical dilemmas faced by a policy area that is supposed to be able to fix almost any problem. We observe that European development policy’s evolution is driven by the tension between its raison d’être as a concrete expression of global solidarity and international cooperation, and its increasing instrumentalisation in the service of European economic and security interests. We highlight some of the key challenges that have emerged in the last decade, including rising populist nationalism and Brexit within Europe, the changing nature of relationships between Europe and countries who receive EU aid, and the changing nature of development cooperation itself, exemplified by the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. We outline the specific contributions the articles in this special issue make to research and policy debates on the themes we raise in this introduction. We conclude that the battle between the forces of solidarity and instrumentality has evolved EU development policy into an impossibly complex arena of competing norms, practices and institutions, which raises many open questions for future research.

Das globale Klima erwärmt sich, immer mehr Arten sterben aus, in manchen Regionen wird Wasser zu einem knappen Gut, Plastikmüll verschmutzt unsere Meere, die Belastungen durch Feinstaub nehmen immer mehr zu – die Liste unserer globalen Herausforderungen ist lang und wird gefühlt immer länger. Und nun erleben wir auch noch zum ersten Mal in unserer Zeit eine globale Pandemie. Unser Alltag ist auf den Kopf gestellt, nichts scheint mehr sicher; was in den nächsten Wochen passiert, scheint nicht mehr planbar. Wie können wir lernen, in solch ungewissen Zeiten unsere Ängste zu überwinden, Risiken besser einzuschätzen und nachhaltige Verhaltensmuster langfristig zu etablieren? Erkenntnisse aus der Verhaltenswissenschaft können uns dabei helfen, dies erfolgreich zu meistern.

This article discusses the prospects for forging new social contracts in highly fragile and conflict affected countries. Building on analytical insights from the political settlements and state fragility literature, conceptualising peacebuilding processes as efforts to forge social contracts enables us to address the roles of governments, social groups, citizens and external stakeholders. We discuss the potential for peacebuilding processes to realise social contracts by assessing societal perceptions of the core public good that citizens expect the state to provide, namely protection. We address two cases where ‘stateness’ was destroyed by foreign intervention and civil war: Iraq (since 2003) and Libya (since 2011). We discuss the troubled recent trajectories of efforts to build peace in Iraq and Libya along the substantive, spatial and temporal dimensions of the social contract. Drawing on interviews, survey results and estimates of civilian casualties, we take a ‘bottom-up’ perspective of their societies’ experiences and expectations regarding protection. We conclude that in both countries the provision of protection by the state and others runs counter to the expectations of significant parts of the population. At the national level, major social groups have been unable to overcome mutual distrust, while continued threats to physical security reduce the prospects that any social contract able to deliver other public goods can ever emerge. Existing political settlements in both countries have rewarded the politicization of ethno-sectarian identity (especially in Iraq) and have benefited economic war lordism (especially in Libya). We conclude that as social contracts at the national level are unlikely to emerge, the consequences of de-facto break ups of both countries must be acknowledged if social contracts at sub-national levels are to have any chance of delivering peace.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the multiple crises it unleashed around the world coincided with the beginning of the period that the world leaders dubbed the “Decade of Action” to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Launched at the beginning of 2020, it aims to instill a sense of urgency, thereby spurring action, unlocking development finance, and harnessing innovative approaches for the attainment of the SDGs and the promise of “leaving no one behind”. A strong call for action was based on the realization that the world was seriously off-track in its progress towards sustainable development. Delivering on the promises of financing and the commitments of partnership is key for progress across the goals.

By providing insights into the interaction between private-driven and public-driven governance initiatives in the context of the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO), this article sheds new light the interaction between private and public governance. It investigates how the relationship between the RSPO and the ISPO evolves over time and who and what drives this evolution. While the interaction between these standard schemes has initially largely been characterized by competition, it has become more collaborative and also coordinated in nature. This article argues that the experimentalist architecture of palm oil governance has fostered mechanisms for coordination across public and private certification schemes and has helped to join up the separate components of the regime complex through productive interactions. At the same time, several gaps and challenges remain, especially in light of the different interests of the multiple public and private actors involved in palm oil.

The goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and working towards a more equal distribution of incomes are part of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. Using data from 166 countries comprising 97.5 percent of the world's population, we simulate scenarios for global poverty from 2019 to 2030 under various assumptions about growth and inequality. We use different assumptions about growth incidence curves to model changes in inequality, and rely on a machine-learning algorithm called model-based recursive partitioning to model how growth in GDP is passed through to growth as observed in household surveys. When holding within-country inequality unchanged and letting GDP per capita grow according to World Bank forecasts and historically observed growth rates, our simulations suggest that the number of extreme poor (living on less than 1.90 US Dollars/day) will remain above 600 million in 2030, resulting in a global extreme poverty rate of 7.4 percent. If the Gini index in each country decreases by 1 percent per year, the global poverty rate could reduce to around 6.3 percent in 2030, equivalent to 89 million fewer people living in extreme poverty. Reducing each country's Gini index by 1 percent per year has a larger impact on global poverty than increasing each country's annual growth 1 percentage points above forecasts. We also study the impact of COVID-19 on poverty and find that the pandemic may have driven around 60 million people into extreme poverty in 2020. If the virus increased the Gini by 2 pecent in all countries, then more than 90 million may have been driven into extreme poverty in 2020.

Monitoring and evaluation have gained importance in recent decades in development cooperation to increase evidence, and thereby aid effectiveness. However, the focus on measuring results needs to be coordinated with other strategically important aspects of the aid and development effectiveness agenda, such as adapting to local needs and harmonisation among development actors. Combining these different goals remains a challenge in the development community. Studies show that most donors have similar problems when measuring results. The quality of the collected data can oftentimes be questioned because data collection methods lack methodological rigor. The data collected and used is often of limited relevance for the project. Reporting by implementing agencies to BMZ focusses more on accountability than on using the results for learning. This discussion paper offers an in-depth analysis of the efforts undertaken by German bilateral development cooperation actors to measure results and in how far the reported data can contribute to increase the effectiveness of development cooperation. Thirteen projects by German implementing agencies GIZ and KfW were selected and analysed by means of project documents and interviews with staff. In addition, general monitoring and evaluation guidelines of German development cooperation were consulted. The results show that BMZ does not have a comprehensive results-based management system in place for planning, monitoring and evaluation in German development cooperation, which leads to quality challenges with regard to the collected data. Many projects do not have a comprehensive theory of change, use methodologically contestable indicators and are not able to demonstrate causality between their activities and the results measured. Indicators are often selected with only the limited involvement of partner countries, and there are challenges with using partner countries’ secondary data. BMZ has recently started a reform process with the aim of establishing a more comprehensive RBM system and providing additional guidance to projects on how to define indicators and measure results. The findings of this paper offer important lessons learnt and recommendations for the reform process.

With the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its guiding principle “Leave no one behind”, the international community has set itself the goal of improving the living conditions of poor and marginalised groups. In many cases, these groups include migrants and refugees. A sophisticated review process has been set up to monitor the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Here, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) play a decisive role. Migrants and refugees were explicitly included from the outset. However, this creates additional data requirements: Data disaggregated by migratory status is necessary to capture changes in the living conditions of migrant population groups within the structured review and follow up process of the SDGs. This disaggregation allows to draw conclusions about the well-being of migrants and refugees. SDG 17.18 explicitly calls for the differentiated consideration of this population group in the SDGs, where relevant, and the necessary building up of capacities for data collection and analysis.
Census data, data from national administrative registers and sample surveys are possible data sources to achieve this objective. These data sets, however, differ in their scope and extent to which they capture different types of information. Hence, each represents only a partial reality.
Five years after the adoption of the SDGs, the balance sheet is sobering: Data disaggregated by migratory status are still lacking in most countries. As a result, there is a growing danger that existing disadvantages will become more permanent or more pronounced. In line with its overarching commitment to the implementation of the SDGs, the German government should work to ensure that migrants and refugees are systematically taken into account in the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda. For the remaining period until 2030 – touted as the Decade of Action and Delivery - the following recommendations are derived:
•    Harmonise migration definitions: Data collections should apply definitions and methods recommended by the UN Statistical Commission.
•    Support data collection: The personnel and financial capacities of the national statistical authorities in partner countries should be systematically strengthened.
•    Strengthen synergies: Bridges should be built between migration-specific data initiatives and thematically broader data initiatives that are closely linked to the SDG process.
•    Expand migration expertise in the SDG review process: Migration expertise should be more systematically integrated into the SDG review process than has been the case to date in order to take greater account of changes in the living conditions of migrants and refugees.

Changing defaults—the preselection that becomes effective without active choice—is becoming a prominent policy tool, after having been proven to be effective in areas as varied as retirement savings, organ donation and product customization. Yet, little is known about how default effects spill over to subsequent similar behaviors. In an online shopping scenario, we found standard default effects on the share of organically produced products in the overall selection of products. These effects did not spill over to subsequent active shopping choices. This was true for defaults that were hard and easy to change (Exp. 1, N = 90), for immediate and delayed subsequent choices (Exp. 2, N = 106) and for self-selected defaults (Exp. 3, N = 181). These findings suggest that the reach and scalability of default manipulations in policy making may be limited, but also speak against the possibility for negative spillover.