Municipalities are Shaping the Future
Dick, Eva / Paul Marschall / Christopher Wingens
The Current Column (2021)
German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), The Current Column of 14 June 2021
Cities, municipalities and districts in Germany are becoming increasingly involved in promoting the 2030 Agenda. This is a welcome trend, given that most of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can only be achieved together with local stakeholders. Global challenges are generally overcome at local level, and this is the starting point for the 15th German Federal Conference on Municipal Development Policy (Buko), which is being held online from 14 to 16 June 2021 under the heading “Together. Fair. Global. Sustainable. Agenda 2030 – Municipalities are Shaping the Future”. The programme covers a comprehensive range of topics, from municipal climate change mitigation and environmental conservation to sustainable procurement and migration and integration work.
But how exactly and to what extent do German local authorities promote development policy? Is there a discernible trend here? What motivates local authorities and how can existing work be stepped up further? The German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) set out to answer these questions in its study on ‘Municipal development policy in Germany’. Financed by the Service Agency Communities in One World (SKEW) of Engagement Global, the study serves as an update to a previous study on municipal development policy conducted by DIE in 2009.
As part of the current study, the results of which will also be presented at the Buko, the DIE team conducted a survey of over 5,000 local authorities throughout Germany and some 30 qualitative, in-depth interviews with local authorities and representatives of institutions at national and federal-state level. For data collection purposes, DIE worked closely with the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval), which also evaluates local development policy in Germany.
