Bundestag talks pandemic aid to poor countries

Germany will provide more aid to impoverished countries attempting to recover economically from the coronavirus pandemic. Three billion euros ($3.35 billion) have already been allocated for each of the coming two years. This was decided by the government on Wednesday. "We are helping to fight the drastic economic situation in developing countries and hunger," Development Minister Gerd Müller, of the Christian Social Union (CSU), told Bavaria's Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper. "Germany is living up to its responsibilities in the world."

Generally, Bundestag members are in favor of this program, but most parties seek more aid. They will be able to propose changes to the government's plans at a debate in parliament on Friday.

Five proposals have already been made: one by the CSU and their partners, the ruling Christian Democrats (CDU), along with the junior governing party, the Social Democrats (SPD); and four more by each of the opposition parties — the Greens, the Left, the laissez-faire Free Democrats (FDP) and the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD).

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"While, in Europe, we've been able to provide significant financial aid to boost local economies, this has not necessarily been possible in developing countries," CDU lawmaker Georg Kippels told DW.

"People's lives are at great risk there," he said, "and this is a huge challenge." He said millions of people faced unemployment because of lockdown measures and added that many farmers had been prevented from working the land.

The UN estimates that 30 million people could wind up impoverished in Africa as a consequence of the pandemic. In April, the Development Ministry reallocated funds from elsewhere for its first special aid program.

The CDU/CSU and SPD have proposed that the government provide immediate aid to fight the challenge of hunger in developing countries. They have proposed an injection of emergency aid on top of long-term funding to help finance and improve national health systems for example.

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'Political wake-up call'

A similar proposal came from the Left party. "The pandemic has to be a political wake-up call to raise Germany's expenditure for global health to 0.1% of GDP at last," lawmaker Helin Evrim Sommer told DW.

The Left party is proposing that €4 billion be put aside to fight the economic fallout from the pandemic and insists that the money should not come out of existing budgets. "Nobody will be helped if there are more deaths from malaria instead of from the coronavirus," Sommer said. "The pandemic is an exceptional event, which has to be overcome with additional means."

The FDP has called for an additional €3 billion per year to support developing countries through this crisis. FDP development expert Olaf in der Beek said that it was regrettable that the government had only granted €1.5 billion per year: "We don't want the funds for the protection of girls and women, for basic education such as reading, writing and counting, for expanding the economy and creating more jobs or for fighting climate change and developing energy technology to be cut."

The Greens are proposing €2 billion more per year. "The coronavirus crisis is a global challenge that poses a threat to human rights and sustainable and fair development and a global solution is needed," the party says in its statement. "No state can overcome the health, social and economic crises caused by the coronavirus and its consequences alone. International cooperation and dialogue are needed more than ever."

The party has also suggested that Germany and the European Union boost humanitarian aid. The German development minister has also called on the EU to do this.

The AfD is the only party to disagree. It would like all proposals for German and EU development cooperation with Africa that are not yet legally binding to be frozen. It also wants the Development Ministry to put an end to its "Marshall Plan for Africa." Instead, the AfD suggests, Germany should concentrate on economic cooperation so that the continent can better combat crises such as the pandemic on its own. A few weeks ago, the AfD called for a reallocation of funds from the development budget to the fight against COVID-19 in Germany.