News from Bonn

Energy Supply
Environmental protection
Support for export-oriented agriculture

Energy supply must be improved

In improving the energy supply of most developing countries the aim should be an adequate and independent supply of energy corresponding to the political, economic, social, cultural and ecological circumstances of the country in question. This was the opinion voiced by the German Federal Parliament's Committee for Economic Cooperation after evaluating an expert's hearing on "Energy problems of the Third World and development policies". An energy strategy should be an essential component of development aid oriented towards basic needs. It was the Committee's opinion that, if this were so, both rush programms for the exploitation of all short-term measures and also long-term programmed aimed at substituting imported energy sources could make their contributions. In addition, energy aspects should be given more attention in each individual development project.

Environmental protection

Environmental protection in the Third World is one of the most important features of German development cooperation. This was emphasized once again recently by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation (Bundesministerium fur wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit BMZ). A substantial degree of agreement had already been reached on the significance of the threatened environment for the future of industrial countries, even though there was less agreement on the solutions to be adopted. In developing countries, however, environmental problems were usually not taken so seriously.

The Federal Government, according to the report, was already practicing a more conceptually oriented approach in the environmental protection sector, which meant that the principle of applications pure and simple was being replaced by concrete suggestions to the partner countries concerning development-policy cooperation in this field. The report went on to say that development projects directly concerned with preserving or re-establishing threatened resources had become one of three main sectors of activity in German development policies.

Support for export-oriented agriculture within the framework of the Technology Programme

The Technology Programme of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation (Bundesministerium fur wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit BMZ) also includes support for export-oriented agricultural projects.

This concerns the production of technical articles from natural rubber in Sri Lanka and the growing of ornamental plants in Nepal. Competition with food production is precluded by the natural conditions of the areas concerned. This was the reply giver by the Parliamentary State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation (BMZ) Dr. Volkmar Kohler to a question put by the "Green" party in the Federal German Parliament.

Export-oriented agricultural projects, he continued, were also being supported within the framework of the Federal German Government's Subsidiary Companies' Programme. The individual projects concerned were the setting-up of a rose farm in Brazil, a flower plantation in the Ivory Coast and soya-bean growing both for the home market and for export in Paraguay. Kohler also emphasized that production within the framework of this programme was not concentrated solely on export.

The recently opened Energy Technology Department of the German Museum in Munich is divided into two sections. A nuclear one and a section dealing with regenerative sources of energy such: as solar energy, wind power and biomass. Topics such as energy, balances, energy consumation, improvement of efficiency and the rational utilization of energy are used as introductions to the exhibits.