Roger Peltzer
The Supply Chain Act is a major step forward, but in some cases it brings with it unnecessary bureaucracy. Roger Peltzer explains how all the objectives of the Supply Chain Act can be achieved with less bureaucracy by benchmarking against proven and recognized sustainability standards.
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German development cooperation is under fire. When drawing up the new budget for 2024, funding for development cooperation was cut by around 700 million euros compared to 2023. At the same time, the public debate about the efficiency and impact of German development aid is growing. In his essay, Roger Peltzer makes concrete proposals on how the efficiency of German development aid can be increased and how more market funds can be mobilized outside the budget for development financing.
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Cotton sustainability standards like the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), Cotton Made in Africa (CmiA), Fairtrade and Organic Cotton should take initiative to gradually achieve a living income for “their” certified smallholder cotton farmers. The following English article designs a pragmatic way, how this objective can be achieved.
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A development bank like the Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft naturally has to face up to public criticism. However, one should expect fair and balanced reporting from serious investigative journalists. However, the article by Gesa Steeger entitled “Deforestation – DEG promotes environmental destruction” fails to do just that. In the following article, Roger Peltzer shows how, on the basis of a single possible misconduct by a company financed by DEG, the steep thesis is put forward, practically without evidence, that DEG predominantly finances projects that are questionable in terms of development policy.
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Microfinance from small beginnings 25 years ago to a network of 120 cooperative banks with 120 million euros in total assets today. Justin Bomda, CEO of the MUFID cooperative banks, comments in an interview with “Weltsichten”. In particular, it also shows that the cooperative banks in Cameroon are financed from savings deposits and not through international foreign currency loans, which have to be repaid with interest. They can therefore offer their members moderate interest rates so that they do not run the risk of falling into a debt trap.
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The powerful political castes who were voted out of office are using all their remaining influence to make the handover to the newly elected President Bernardo Arévalo as rocky as possible. B. Arévalo describes this as a quietly approaching coup
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A large part of Africa’s cotton production is carried out by small farmers in the Sahel. This region is characterized by great political instability and in part by the advance of Islamist forces. In the following interview with a senior employee of the Cameroonian cotton company Sodecoton, who wishes to remain unnamed, it becomes clear what an enormous contribution cotton production makes to the stabilization of societies in the Sahel, but also to supplying the population with food.
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Following the recent outbreaks of violence in Haiti, the UN is considering sending a police force to Haiti under Kenyan leadership. But doesn’t the history of Haiti so far show the failure of all UN efforts? Heiner Rosendahl, who worked
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While Europe is moving to the right, left-wing governments are coming to power in Latin America, most recently Bernardo Arévalo in Guatemala. What does this mean for Germany’s foreign and development policy? Pedro Morazán analyzes the latest developments in Latin
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The CIR was founded 40 years ago, at that time also to support the Sandinista revolution. The disappointment at the development of Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega and his unspeakable wife into a veritable dictatorship was and is all the greater.
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