[ Interview with Reinhard Hermle, VENRO ]

“US NGOs are having a hard time with the present government”

Dr Hermle, do you get the impression that development policy has become more important to Americans since September 11, 2001?
Because of new government initiatives such as the AIDS initiative and the Millennium Challenge Account, the issue certainly figures more prominently in public reporting. But it would be going too far to say that public opinion in the United States attaches more importance to development policy today than it did before the terrorist attacks.


What do the people you talked to think of the Millennium Challenge Account and the US’s new commitment to the fight against AIDS?
On the one hand, they welcome the fact that the government is paying more attention to the fight against hunger, poverty and exclusion and that it plans to provide five billion dollars more development assistance by 2006 and another 15 billion dollars for combating AIDS by 2008. On the other hand, there are doubts that what the President announced will actually be implemented. The money that has been promised has not yet been approved and we were told there is resistance in Congress. Even the government does not seem to be exactly pushing to get the money. NGO representatives told us that only 1.7 billion dollars is earmarked for the two initiatives in the coming budget year and it is not even clear whether that is additional funding or whether spending will have to be cut elsewhere. There is also concern about where and how the money will be spent. The US government is clearly mindful of its geo-strategic interests, planning to help mainly those countries that support US policy.


Germany’s development minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul argues that development policy is the most cost-effective form of security policy. Does the US development community see it in that light, too?
The problem is that the present Administration defines security policy in the very narrow terms of defending exclusively US interests. Unlike in Germany, for example, there is no perception whatsoever of any need to integrate in multilateral structures. Against that backdrop, the notion of legitimising development policy on grounds of security tends to get a critical hearing. On the other hand, the idea that development policy is part of foreign policy is much more readily accepted even by US NGOs than it is here in Germany.


What do US NGOs see as the most pressing issues of the day?
Basically, they focus on the same issues as us: volume of development aid, indebtedness and trade policy, for example. Where there is not quite so much emphasis is on US farm policy issues, such as export subsidies.


How extensive are the links between German and US NGOs?
So far, contact has been merely sporadic, hardly institutionalised. But – financial resources permitting – we plan to deepen that contact now. There’s is certainly interest on both sides. All those we talked to said they were having a hard time with the present US government and that they were therefore looking more than usual beyond US borders and seeking to cooperate with European organisations, e.g. with an eye on next year’s G8 summit in the United States. A first joint meeting to prepare for it has been scheduled for February.
Questions by Tillmann Elliesen.