Finances Promoting good governance in partner countries

To strengthen democracy and the rule of law, Germany supported the establishment and expansion of effective institutions in the public sector and promoted multilateral initiatives (such as the Justice Action Coalition (External link)) and non-governmental organisations (such as International IDEA (External link)).

To ensure functioning public finance systems, Germany provides financial and technical assistance for its partner countries to engage in the reform of fields such as tax policy, financial monitoring and the decentralisation of fiscal systems, as well as for the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. For instance, activities to rehabilitate fee-paying municipal infrastructure for basic services have contributed to the mobilisation of municipalities’ own financial resources.

At multilateral level, one of Germany’s contributions is to host the secretariat of the Addis Tax Initiative (External link). As regards combating corruption, German development policy has tackled three levels:

1. assisting reforms in partner countries,
2. compliance and risk management in development cooperation and
3. active cooperation in organisations such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the G7 and G20 and the OECD in order to ensure that activities are development-sensitive and international standards against corruption are complied with.

In particular, the German Government works towards more transparency in sectors particularly susceptible to corruption. For example, Germany has contributed substantially to the international Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) (External link).