Our recommendations in April:
Towards the United Nations Pact for the Future
Marianne Bensheim from SWP analyses the first draft of the concluding document for the UN's Summit of the Future in September 2024 and highlights its minimal consensus, the lack of civil society participation and a missed opportunity for the German parliament to outline its vision for the future of the United Nations [in German].
Exit missed? The Bundestag and the UN mission in Mali
Thorsten Gromes analyses the attitude of the German Bundestag towards the UN mission in Mali and Germany's participation. He discusses false expectations of exit strategies for international peace missions and the rhetoric used by parliamentarians in the Bundestag to argue for or against the mission [in German].
Rethinking aid system narratives: The case for collaborative leadership
Nigel Timmins and Joschua Hallwright dissect the lack of change in the humanitarian system towards more equitable and effective partnerships at the individual level and identify incentives for decision-makers in humanitarian action to change their path-dependent, entrenched ways of working to create a more effective and equitable humanitarian system.
Which national interests?
The article by Jakob Hensing (GPPi) deals with the current debate about budget cuts in German development cooperation as well as demands to align these more closely to national interests. In addition to normative questions, he illustrates in an illuminating way how vague the debate remains, which of the multiple interests are being referred to in each case and how inherent conflicting goals between broad cross-cutting issues such as combating the causes of forced displacement, economic interests, and security policy aspects, among others, should be resolved. At the same time, he highlights the fact that the BMZ's principle objectives, such as prioritising the fight against hunger and poverty, do not sufficiently address the lack of ownership in target countries. Hensing therefore concludes with a rather nebulous call for government negotiations on cooperation to be geared towards concerns "that at least also contribute to other, more directly achievable goals based on a consideration of their own interests" [in German].
The Berlin Blob
In this provocative article, which was originally published by "The Ideas Letter", Hans Kundnani laments the homogeneous view of elites in the US and Germany on foreign and security policy issues, which, as a uniform "blob", only allows for controversy to a limited extent. The Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House in London adopts the term "blob" (a gelatinous, slimy mass to describe "groupthink") introduced in the US and adds that the Berlin blob is perhaps "the blobbiest of them all". The former research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) also criticises the German think tank landscape, which, like the SWP, is financed by the government at large and particularly homogeneous or even opportunistic. For example, the same research institutes that once unanimously welcomed Angela Merkel's Russia policy are now criticising this policy all the more harshly; at the same time, they are unanimously silent on "Israel’s expulsion and extermination of the population of Gaza". Overall, the relevant research institutions had made serious misjudgements "that had disastrous consequences".
Aid Unchained: Examining Development Project Management Practices at Aid Chain Interfaces
Lena Gutheil and Dirk-Jan Koch analyse how donor directives are filtered through the power relations that shape the everyday practice of humanitarian action at its various interfaces. They find that "organizational relations between southern organizations are just as power-laden as north-south relations".
Rethinking humanitarian principles? Consider community, context, and common sense
Tim Buder and Meg Sattler from Ground Truth Solution analyse how people perceive humanitarian action and how it could be improved. The result: humanitarian action rarely reaches the people who need it most. A participatory approach to programme design is needed at all levels, where the population has the opportunity to participate meaningfully in necessary decisions about trade-offs.
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