Reshaping Decentralised Development Co-operation in Germany
German federal states and municipalities have engaged in decentralised development co-operation (DDC) since the 1950s. Germany provides over half of total official development assistance (ODA) in the world that is channelled as DDC. However, most of this support remains within German borders. To incentivise further international partnerships, the federal government has established dedicated programmes and financial support schemes for states and municipalities. This report presents key data on the DDC landscape in Germany and offers guidance on how to strengthen its role in enabling peer-to-peer learning and improve collaboration between German states and municipalities. It also showcases how to further raise awareness about the mutual benefits of DDC partnerships, including through better ODA data reporting and a harmonised approach to monitoring and evaluating its results across levels of government.
Introduction
Since 2017, the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE) and Development Co-operation Directorate (DCD) have carried out joint work on decentralised development co-operation (DDC) to assess key trends and innovative mechanisms on how cities and regions design, finance, implement and monitor and evaluate their DDC activities with partner countries and have provided specific recommendations on policies, data and reporting, capacity building, multi-level co‑ordination and partnerships (see OECD (2018[1]) and (2019[2])). These reports created an active dialogue between the OECD Regional Development Policy Committee (RDPC), which works extensively on urban and regional development policies with national governments, cities and regions, and the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), which provides a forum for donors to promote development co-operation and other relevant policies to contribute to the implementation of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
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