From left to right: Ingrid Hoven (GIZ Management Board); Dr. Christoph Hoffmann (Chairman of the Development Committee of the German Parliament,  Gerd Müller (DG UNIDO), Jochen Flasbarth (State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development), Achim Steiner (Administrator UNDP), Tobias Lindner (Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office)

BERLIN - UNIDO Director General Gerd Müller addressed meetings of both the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development and the Committee on Foreign Affairs at the German Bundestag (Parliament).

Müller, who served as Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development between 2013 and 2021, appealed to the Bundestag to invest more in the economic development of poor countries. He said that, in view of geostrategic changes in the world and climate change, the transfer of knowledge and technology to developing countries is of great importance to Germany. He stressed that the energy issue in Africa also determines the climate in Europe. Six hundred million people on the African continent have no access to electricity. Referring to the plans of African states to build new coal-fired power plants, Müller said that CO2 emissions could be massively reduced in Africa by investing in renewable energies.

Müller maintained that during the corona crisis the industrialized countries had supported their economies with vast amounts of money but that hardly any aid had reached developing countries, where, during the course of the pandemic, 300 million jobs were lost.

The Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development examines topics related to global economic cooperation and social justice as the foundation of peaceful coexistence, while the Committee on Foreign Affairs oversees the government’s foreign policy.

The previous evening, together with UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner, Müller participated in the opening of the joint UNDP-ITPO Germany Berlin office. The Investment and Technology Promotion Office (ITPO) Germany, which now has two bases, one in Berlin and one in Bonn, supports investors and companies by facilitating technology transfer from Germany to developing countries and economies in transition. 

In his opening remarks to over 250 guests, including the King of Lesotho as well as ambassadors, members of the German Parliament and representatives of the private sector, UNIDO's Müller said that halfway to the 2030 target date for the Sustainable Development Goals more needs to be done.

Müller stressed that only a fraction of the investments in renewable energy are currently going to developing countries, even though they need this technology transfer most urgently. He said this shows the need to develop "new partnerships worldwide for real win-win situations between North and South". 

Opening remarks by Müller  and Steiner were followed by a discussion on Germany's multilateral engagement in the context of Germany's 50 years of membership in the United Nations, with Tobias Lindner, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office , Christoph Hoffmann, chair of the Bundestag Committee on Development of the German Parliament, and Marina Ponti, Global Director of the UN SDG Action Campaign.