Millet is considered ideal for combating food shortages in times of climate change: The ancient grains grow in less fertile soils, cope well with drought and are rich in nutrients. In India, millet has been cultivated for thousands of years, where they also thrive on the edge of deserts and in the mountains.

At India's suggestion, the United Nations (UN) declared 2023 the "International Year of Millets." Rightly so, says German Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) Minister Svenja Schulze of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). The grain is a "superfood," she said during a visit to India on the occasion of the G20 development ministers’ meeting in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, on June 11.

Germany participates in some 150 global projects

"Millet is grown all over India and helps to further diversify agriculture," Schulze said. "And because India is so successful at this, we now want to work with India to help other developing countries on the African continent grow more millet as well."

Schulze's proposal is an example of what is known as triangular cooperation, in which funds and expertise, in this case from Germany and India, benefit poorer countries. In funding more than 150 such projects, Germany is now one of the world's largest three-way partnership donors.

"Without strategic cooperation with developing countries like India, we will not succeed in tackling global challenges such as climate change," Schulze tells DW. "We are successfully working with India to find solutions to the world's challenges."

Tripartite cooperation is a good idea, says Mathias Mogge, secretary general of Welthungerhilfe, a German humanitarian aid NGO working to end world hunger. He believes it could also be a recipe for success with civil society organizations.

"Our 'Nutrition Smart Villages' program, for example, which focuses on nutrition counseling, is an export hit. We now run it in some African countries with the help of Indian experts," Mogge says. 

India is often a pioneer when it comes to expertise in agriculture, he says. "And if the German government takes advantage of India's pioneering role, that can definitely be an advantage."

Less money for German development aid?

But Development Minister Schulze has done more than allocate German cash for triangular cooperation in recent years — in 2022, she set a new record for foreign development investments with €33.3 billion ($36 billion) spent. In absolute terms, that put Germany in second place behind the US as a global donor country.

Will things stay that way? The coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis all forced Germany to take on an enormous amount of debt. From 2024 onward, savings are on the slate.

Schulze says she is currently in negotiations over development budget structuring for the coming years with Germany's Federal Ministry of Finance.

"In this context, it is clear that I am committed to adequate funding for development policy work in view of the growing global challenges such as climate change and the effects of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine," Schulze tells DW.

But what exactly does "adequate" mean? In their governing coalition agreement, the ruling SPD, Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) declared development spending would increase one-to-one with military spending.

Over the next five years, the German armed forces are set to receive an additional €100 billion in "special asset" funding — separate from the budget — allowing the federal government to sidestep the budgetary matching rule.

That concerns Welthungerhilfe's Mathias Mogge. If the German budget for development aid shrinks, then important and necessary measures in both humanitarian aid and longer-term development cooperation can no longer be implemented.

"Germany has earned a very good reputation in recent years — as the world's second-largest donor and a very reliable partner. Germany cannot forfeit that trust now, it should maintain that reliability and generosity." 

'Unacceptable trend'

Joshua Hofert, spokesman for the board of the children's aid charity Terre des Hommes, has a similar view. Nevertheless, he believes the BMZ's budget, like that of the Foreign Office, will likely be reduced.

"And that's an absolutely unacceptable trend in view of the multiple crises we're facing — the climate crisis, the war against Ukraine, the global hunger crisis," Hofert tells DW.

Welthungerhilfe and Terre des Hommes have published a joint paper on German development policy entitled, "Compass 2023 — The Reality of German Development Policy" [Kompass 2023 — zur Wirklichkeit der deutschen Entwicklungspolitik]. In it, not only do the organizations call for Germany to refrain from making spending cuts on development aid, they call on the government to align development cooperation more closely with human rights principles.

Unequal distribution of global development aid? 

"And we criticize the fact that the poorest countries don't get enough support from a country like Germany," says Hofert.

Too often, he says, Germany focuses its development cooperation on countries that are relatively strong economically, for instance, India, with which it can conclude favorable trade agreements.

"What ultimately benefits Germany itself is not necessarily beneficial in terms of development cooperation," he says.

Most poor people do not live in least-developed countries (LDCs), but rather in middle-income countries (MICs), Development Minister Svenja Schulze wrote in reply to a DW query.

Industrialized nations previously set themselves the goal of dedicating 0.2% of their gross national income (GNI) to aid for the world's poorest countries but in 2022, Germany only provided 0.13%.

Feminist development policy

After the meeting of G20 development ministers in India, Schulze welcomed the fact that gender equality is earmarked to play a greater role in international development policy in the future.

Only by empowering women and girls can sustainable development be achieved, she says. Schulze intends to continue working for such a feminist development policy.

During her visit, Schulze's Indian hosts also used other means in their attempt to persuade the minister that millet should play a more prominent role in feeding the world — namely culinary — greeting her with a menu including millet pancakes, sweet and sour millet cakes and millet pudding.

This article was originally written in German.