Development Cooperation

©Uwe Schmidt

Achieving the Millennium Development Goals only possible through economic growth backed by private engagement. Creating the required framework key concern of the BDI.

To achieve progress in the fields of healthcare, education, environmental protection and eradication of poverty as agreed internationally with the Millenium Development Goals (MDG) under the aegis of the United Nations a worldwide development partnership is required. Here industry plays a key role.

With more than EUR 100 billion investment in developing countries and emerging markets German companies have already created more than 1.4 million jobs for the people of these regions, providing incomes and livlihoods for millions more people employed by local supplier and service-provider businesses. Within the framework of economic cooperation German companies bring their technical and business expertise to bear. Social engagement and a properly understood "help to self-help" enhance the lives of the local people. The taxes paid by German businesses also boost investment in infrastructure, education, healthcare and social security systems, thus promoting development.

In development policy, cooperation with business should be put on an equal footing with cooperation among state actors. To integrate foreign trade and development policy effectively, institutions should cooperate efficiently, as well as more intensively at political and implementation level. In addition to systematically developing and enhancing the funding of PPP instruments, this requires more innovative forms of co-financing, for example for the infrastructure sector or to access healthcare services. As regards invitations to tender, public procurement regulations should be made as transparent as possible and applied as uniformly as possible at international level. The federal government's foreign trade guarantee instruments should be extended to better absorb operator risks.