ABSTRACT
Germany is one of the major bilateral donors, and its policy of development co-operation has found itself in an increasingly paradoxical situation since the early 1990s. While its conceptual approach has clearly become much more comprehensive and ambitious, its net disbursements of official development assistance (ODA) have experienced an unprecedented decline in both real terms and as a share of gross national income (GNI).1 In spite or because of the resource constraints, the past decade and especially the last few years have witnessed a number of reforms. Yet German development co-operation still faces considerable challenges if its new objectives are to be achieved.2
