Welcome
Development Policy
Development Policy Unit, © Colourbox
The Development Policy Unit contributes at the European level to achieving the goals and tasks of German development policy.
At the heart of this is a commitment to fighting poverty and hunger and to healthy people in a healthy environment.
Germany is committed to the transformation towards a sustainable, climate- and nature-compatible economy and to strengthening peace, freedom and human rights.
To this end, Germany coordinates its bilateral cooperation with its partner countries worldwide and promotes strong multilateralism aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Key tasks of German development policy include protecting the climate and biodiversity, promoting health and education as well as gender equality, creating fair supply chains, and using digitalization, technology transfers and private investment to promote sustainable development worldwide.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement provide the framework for the German government's development policy actions.
One of the unit's core tasks is to represent German positions in Council working groups relevant to development policy (in particular CODEV-PI and ACP) and other formal and informal coordination formats in the EU context.
Another important task of the unit is to maintain Germany's relations with EU actors relevant to development policy (especially the EU Commission, the European External Action Service, the European Parliament, other EU member states as well as other actors such as the EIB and EBRD), partner countries (especially in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific as well as in the European neighborhood and Asia), multinational organizations (such as the UN, FAO, WFP) and civil society actors (in particular non-governmental organizations as well as political foundations and other associations).
In terms of content, the unit participates for Germany in, among other things, the negotiation, development and steering of key EU development and foreign policy instruments such as the Neighborhood, Development, International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI-Global Europe), the Global Gateway Strategy and the Team Europe approach.
EU agreements with strong sustainability and development policy links, such as regional and bilateral Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and the EU's new partnership agreement with ACP countries, also fall within the unit's remit.
The team of the Development Policy Unit consists of Lars Nieder (Head of Unit), Andreas Jacobs, Philippe Roussel and Kirsten Peters.