Foreword
Building on the findings from the OECD 2018 study Reshaping Decentralised Development Co-operation: The Key Role of Cities and Regions for the 2030 Agenda, this report offers country-specific guidance to the German federal government, states and municipalities on how to strengthen the impact, effectiveness and monitoring of their decentralised development co-operation (DDC) policies and programmes. It is the result of an 18-month policy dialogue with more than 100 stakeholders from all levels of government in Germany and peer learning with subnational DDC players in Belgium, France, Italy and Spain.
The report analyses the DDC legal and institutional framework, policies, strategies and implementation approaches of German federal, state and municipal levels, multi-governance challenges and opportunities, and the effectiveness of co-ordination mechanisms in place. The report also looks into co-financing schemes and official development assistance (ODA) volumes reported by German subnational agencies in the OECD Creditor Reporting System, as well as the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of DDC programmes. Finally, the report provides tailored policy recommendations to strengthen DDC activities, harmonise definitions and guidelines as well as M&E modalities, improve multi-level governance and collaboration, including financing, and improved data and tools, such as for ODA reporting by states and municipalities.
The report incorporates findings from more than 50 bilateral interviews and 2 surveys conducted with the federal government, states and municipalities about their DDC activities between November 2021 and May 2022. Three workshops were organised to discuss the DDC activities of German federal states (24-25 March 2022) and those of municipalities (14 June 2022), as well as preliminary findings and recommendations (17 November 2022). An earlier version of the report was discussed at the 32nd Session of the Working Party on Urban Policy on 29 November 2022. The final report was presented at an OECD DDC Technical Seminar with DAC members on 31 March 2023 and approved via written procedure by the Regional Development Policy Committee (RDPC) on 6 April 2023 under cote COM/CFE/RDPC/DCD/DAC(2023)1.