The governing coalition of the conservatives (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democrats (SPD) has slashed the budget of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) by 8% to just under €10 billion ($11.47 billion).

Development Minister Reem Alabali Radovan (SPD) is clear about the impact of the cut: "My budget is down by around €910 million compared to the previous year. In view of increasing crises, Germany is investing far less in international cooperation than is actually urgently needed."

Nevertheless, she told the German parliament that the measures wouldn't hamstring German development policy.

"We are a long way off American conditions — and that's how it should be," stressed the minister, who was appointed in May.

She was keen to ward off any comparisons with the massive aid cuts made by the second administration of Donald Trump.

Dramatic increase of hunger, malnutrition

Alabali Radovan gave one example of the impact of Trump's policies: "In Kenya, over 700,000 refugees, many from Somalia, have been directly affected by the US cuts to the World Food Program."

The 35-year-old minister said the refugees had only received a third of the necessary food rations, leading to a dramatic increase of hunger and malnutrition.

"Tensions are growing, many people have to flee, the region is becoming increasingly destabilized," she warned. "This is unacceptable in human terms and is also not in Germany's security interests."

However, aid organizations have said that Germany's cuts will also have drastic consequences.

Compared to 2024, less than half of the acute emergency aid provided by the Foreign Ministry is available: €1.05 billion instead of €2.23 billion. And that aid has dropped by two-thirds since 2022.

Thorsten Klose-Zuber, secretary general of the NGO Help, has sounded the alarm. He said the 50% cut in German emergency aid will mean that over 4 million people worldwide will no longer receive any food aid.

"The discontinuation of humanitarian aid from the United States and the halving of the German budget do not represent the start of our financial problems. For many years now, it has barely been possible to reach half of the people affected," Klose-Zuber added.

He put the total number of people in need at more than 320 million.

Consequences for health care, drinking water

The drastic reduction in aid money also has a concrete impact in other areas.

"Over one and a half million people will lose their basic health care due to the German cuts, " said Klose-Zuber. The situation is similar when it comes to access to clean drinking water, he added.

In his view, almost everything is lacking in the major crisis regions. And he's not only referring to countries affected by conflict, but also by recent natural disasters such as earthquakes, as in Myanmar or Afghanistan.

In both countries, there were thousands of deaths and massive destruction, especially to buildings.

His conclusion sounds almost desperate: "It increasingly makes me think of an emergency doctor who arrives at a traffic accident with five seriously injured casualties, and the doctor has to prioritize who dies and who he cares for."

His aid organization is in a similar position, according to Klose-Zuber. It can only concentrate on the countries with the greatest need.

The NGO head does not think other countries will step in to fill the gaps created by Germany's budget cuts. "We are seeing a fundamental movement worldwide, especially from the traditional Western donor countries, to pull out of the agreed multilateral system financially."

Greens consider cuts irresponsible

In the view of the environmentalist Greens, the massive cuts in development and emergency aid are irresponsible.

"No one has claimed that we alone can fill the gaps left by the US with its withdrawal," said Bundestag lawmaker Jamila Schäfer.

"But the fact that we are not even trying to somehow close this gap really hurts — especially the people directly affected."

The governing Christian Democrats and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, have a completely different view of the effectiveness of German and international development aid.

"I think global scaremongering is wrong," said CDU lawmaker Inge Grässle in the Bundestag debate. The conservatives want to show that good results can just as well be achieved in development cooperation with €10 billion.

AfD wanted to cut aid even more severely

If the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) had had its way, the Development Ministry's budget would have been gutted to €2.5 billion.

In reality, it's around four times as high despite the cuts. AfD lawmaker Mirco Hanker considers that to be a "waste of taxpayers' money," citing as an example an electromobility concept supported by Germany in India.

"One can at least ask the question whether India, as a large nation and emerging power that has successfully landed probes on the moon, cannot finance its concepts and infrastructure itself?" he asked.

Development Minister Alabali Radovan is largely unimpressed by the views of the AfD and other critical voices.

"Every euro that is invested wisely worldwide promotes security and peace, including for us in Europe and Germany," she said.

This article was originally written in German.

Correction, September 22, 2025: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Reem Alabali Radovan. DW apologizes for the error.

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