MA – Placement Report – Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung

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Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

MA – Placement

Report –

Bundesministerium

für wirtschaftliche

Zusammenarbeit

und Entwicklung

Student: Louis Mersch (s2927276); Placement Supervisor (RUG): Sonia Mascarell

Louis Mersch

10.6.2020

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INTRODUCTION

Before starting my placement at the education section of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ1) I formulated a number of desired learning outcomes. Those mainly encompass learning about international development cooperation and how it is managed by the German government, also I wanted to engage with the German language in a professional setting after having studied in an English language context for several years.

Ranking second in gross development aid provision Germany belongs to the most significant donors in this sector of international cooperation.2 With its budget exceeding ten billion Euros in recent years, the BMZ is the most important political actor relevant to the provision of these resources.3 Thus, my placement in the section for education4 allowed me to gain

experience in the day to day workings of a government organisation playing a significant role in German foreign relations. This, as well as the tasks I engaged in, concurs with the desired learning outcomes stated before the start of the placement.

The tasks I conducted during the placement can be divided into three categories. First, I helped the education section in creating and editing documents. Second, I aided in administrative processes like the filing of payment orders or the consultation with other sections on factual issues. Third, I attended meetings and events in order to report back to the section with potentially relevant information. During the more elaborate description of my tasks and learning outcomes I will go more in depth about these tasks. There we will see that the tasks largely overlap with what I had expected when formulating my desired learning outcomes.

It is important to mention that my placement was affected by the global outbreak of the corona virus. On the 17th of March, the Ministry required all interns to complete their placements from home. Due to the confidentiality required for the work of the Ministry this had a significant impact on the tasks I was able to carry out. Especially the third category was affected because most events were cancelled during this time. The specific consequences of the pandemic will also be elaborated upon further in a later part of this report.

1_{The acronym stands for Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung} 2_{“Top Five ODA Donors in 2018” (developmentaid.org, September 10, 2019),}

https://www.developmentaid.org/#!/news-stream/post/49385/top-five-oda-donors-in-2018

3_{“Facts and Figures BMZ Budget,” bmz.de (Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und}

Entwicklung), accessed June 8, 2020, https://www.bmz.de/en/ministry/InDetail/budget/index.html

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Overall, the placement related to my studies through its link to a governmental organisation which deals with international development cooperation. Hence, I had the chance to

participate in the day to day business of working with international organisations and partners such as UNESCO-UNEVOC5. I achieved the goals of the placement by engaging in a wide set of activities and learning much about governmental work and international development cooperation.

Before starting with a description of the BMZ itself it is important to mention that due to confidentiality rules I cannot share specifics of the content of my tasks. Unfortunately, this requires a more general wording in some instances.

DESCRIPTION OF ORGANISATION THAT PROVIDED THE PLACEMENT

The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is one of 14 German federal ministries, it was founded in 19616. It is currently being led by Dr. Gerd Müller who is a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), which is a partner of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on the federal level. The ministry works to create and implement policies for the cooperation with partner countries and international institutions. For the latter it uses a number of implementation agencies, of which the main contractor is the GIZ7 about which I will elaborate more shortly. The organisational structure of the BMZ8 can be divided into three basic categories of sections. First, there are those sections responsible for particular partner countries and regions. They manage the projects in those countries and engage in negotiations with the governments of those countries. Second, are topical sections which are not limited geographically and dal with a topic on a global level. Third, the organisational sections that manage the ministry, its finances, staff etc. The section of education, in which my placement was, is part of the second category.

The ministry has offices both in Berlin and Bonn, with the main one being in Bonn. This is due to Bonn’s history of being the capital during the cold war. In Bonn, the BMZ is in the fortunate position to occupy the former Chancellors office. This gives the building a historical significance and exclusive access to a beautiful park right by the river Rhine. However, the office is not the only reason why I chose to do the placement in Bonn. The other main reasons

5_{UNESCO-UNEVOC is the International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training of the}

United Nations with its office located in Bonn.

6_{“Die Geschichte des Ministeriums,” bmz.de (Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und}

Entwicklung), accessed June 8, 2020, http://www.bmz.de/de/ministerium/geschichte/index.html

7_{Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (Society for international cooperation)} 8_{The organisation plan can be found under the following link:}

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for me were proximity to my home city and a resulting lower cost of travelling and moving, and the fact that Bonn is the headquarter of the BMZ. The lower cost of living also allowed me to live very close to the ministry, something that would not have been possible in Berlin. Since 2015 the work of the BMZ is shaped by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), which it was involved in formulating as well. With these 17 goals the international

community has put itself on a path to improving the standard of living for all of humanity by tackling problems such as sanitation or a lack of education in poor and struggling countries. Since SDG four directly relates to education, the respective section plays a significant role in the ministry with its budget exceeding one billion Euros in 2019 and a long term goal of increasing this to 25% of the whole BMZ budget. In the area of vocational education and training Germany, with its dual system, has expertise that is requested worldwide. In that space Germany is the leading donor worldwide.9 Therefore, the education section provided the chance to have a look into a field in which the German engagement has a leading role internationally.

Lastly, it makes sense to explain the BMZ’s cooperation with its implementing agencies to get a clearer picture of the ministry’s role. While the BMZ has a corps of policy officers abroad, working at German embassies. It does not implement projects itself. For this it funds various implementing agencies, the most important of which are the GIZ and the KfW10. The former is used to implement projects related to technical cooperation in partner countries and it acts as a consultant to the ministry on factual topics. At the section for education we worked together with two groups of consultants from the GIZ, one focusing on education generally and the other focusing on vocational training and education. Through this I got to experience how the ministry cooperates with its adjacent partners, which I consider to be useful. The KfW is used to implement financial cooperation, it takes care of giving out loans and other forms of financial contributions necessary for partner countries to achieve their development goals.

9_{“Entwicklungsminister Dr. Gerd Müller Zum Bericht ‘Kompass 2020’ Von Welthungerhilfe Und Terre Des}

Hommes Deutschland,” bmz.de (Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung, May 15, 2020), http://www.bmz.de/de/presse/aktuelleMeldungen/2020/mai/200515_Mueller-zum-Bericht-Kompass-2020/index.html

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THE STUDENT POSITION/DESCRIPTION OF TASKS AND LEARNING

OUTCOMES

In this section I will describe how the assignments during my placement relate to the stated learning outcomes and how I went about achieving those. Additionally, it will be explained what the impact of the corona virus on my placement was and how the changes affected the contribution of the placement to my professional development. Hence, I will first clarify the learning outcomes which were stated before the start of the placement and then associate them with the relevant tasks. Then I turn to the changes that the coronavirus brought for me and explain what struggles and opportunities resulted from this unfortunate situation.

In the placement plan I formulated the goals of gaining insights into the day to day business of a government department dealing with international development politics. Knowledge I wanted to acquire in that context includes how administrative processes of international development cooperation are managed and how international state and non-state partners interact with each other. Also, I sought to educate myself about international development cooperation and the day to day business behind it more generally. In terms of hard skills, the aim was to improve my writing and public speaking skills, as well as my proficiency in the use of office software.

As mentioned before the tasks that I conducted during the placement can be categorised threefold. First is the creation and editing of documents. This I did especially in relation to vocational training. At the beginning of my time at the BMZ the policy officer responsible for vocational training in development cooperation was working on a number of documents that clarify the relationship of vocational training with other issues and sectors such as women’s rights and nourishment. She did so in cooperation with the consultants at the GIZ. Hence, in this instance my task was to thoroughly read and comment on the work in progress

documents. This taught me to read in a more in-depth way and to notice even small political nuances. Over time I improved on this and was able to take on more significant tasks in the creation of documents, such as writing paragraphs and making suggestions in documents and in the setting of meetings. In addition to working on documents intended for political

communication I assisted in the creation of documents meant for administrative purposes, such as evaluations of programmes supported by the BMZ and communication with citizen inquiries. While in the beginning my writing lacked precision and conciseness, I used the feedback provided by my colleagues and adapted my process to make it more fitting to the

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different purposes. Especially the daily creation of a news brief, in which I summarised relevant media articles for the section, was useful in this process.

The second group of tasks encompasses administrative processes, in which I played a role. In accordance to my anticipated learning outcome of acquiring knowledge about how an

institution like the BMZ works I was able to engage in the consultations that take place

between different sections. Through this I learned about the etiquette and rules that govern the process of releasing official statements and documents. Often it would be my responsibility to make sure that all relevant sections to a document are informed about the content of such a piece of writing and have the chance to integrate their wording into the document.

Considering that the BMZ is a large, having an overview about this is quite difficult. In order to not miss anything, I created a table that would instantly reflect the status of feedback I had received. During some busy periods it was not always easy to keep this up but I managed to keep all deadlines and received positive feedback about my thoroughness and reliability. Third, I had the opportunity to attend various meetings and events. After having done so I would report all relevant information back to my colleagues by writing a protocol or an E-Mail containing what was relevant to the section of education. I did this even without specific instruction to do so and received positive comments for my proactiveness. Taking parts in various types of events was very useful to me to more about the BMZ, the important issues in the field of international development cooperation at the moment and what the most important partners and their roles are. The timing of my placement was lucky because I got to witness the preparation for the German Presidency of the EU Council taking place later this year. It was interesting to see how the prospect of this impacted the day to day work and how the process of preparing takes place. This furthered my understanding of international

development cooperation and thus directly contributed to that learning outcome. Additionally, I had the chance to visit a number of institutions with colleagues or other interns. The most prominent examples for that would be UNESCO-UNEVOC and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Due to the corona pandemic I completed the second half of my placement from home. This was required by the ministry and applied to all interns. Obviously, this influenced the kind of tasks that I could do. Due to the confidentiality rules of the BMZ it was not possible for interns to use the computer systems that we had access to while being physically present. Nevertheless, it was possible to set up a filesharing platform so that some types of documents could be shared with me.

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From the three previously mentioned categories the third was affected most severely. During that time, most events and meetings were postponed or cancelled. Therefore, the preparation processes in which I was involved were no longer relevant as well and I could not attend anything. Those meetings that moved online were not accessible for me and I could only participate in those that only involved the section of education.

The first and second categories were affected less by the crisis. For the work on documents we set up a Microsoft Teams Group in which I could cooperate with the consultants from the GIZ to create an analysis of how the pandemic impacts vocational education and training. Thus, my previous collaboration on document could be continued to some extent. Long term projects related to the publication of documents were put on ice due to the crisis. This was unfortunate but opened up space for an engagement with the consequences of the crisis. My daily breakdown of relevant news items also grew in number and depth. As tasks waned on one end, I tried to make up for this on other sides. I did so mainly by conducting

independent research about the effects that the crisis would have on education. As we see now those are quite significant and show how interconnected the field of education is. An

unexpected learning outcome from this is that I had to learn to work more independently. Overall, I could continue some tasks from the first category and create new ones that relate to the creation of documents and gathering of information to make up for losses in other areas. The second category was affected mostly because I lost access to my BMZ E-Mail Account. While I could correspond with my section using my private account, it was not appropriate to do so with other sections. This meant that I could assist my colleagues in tracking

administrative processes and feedback from others, but they had to make the extra step and provide the required information to me themselves. Thus, I was less involved in such processes while working from home. However, the filesharing platform allowed me to continue this to a significant extent.

For my desired learning outcome of increasing my proficiency in the use of office software the move to the home office was useful. Microsoft Teams, for example, is something we would not have used if it were not for the crisis. We also experimented with different messaging and video-chat services, a process in which I tried to involve myself as much as possible. Already, during the time that I was present at the ministry the continuous work with office software improved my skills. Another relevant example here is Excel, a software with which I had not had much experience prior to the placement. During my work it was

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necessary to use quite frequently and while I required some explanations, I was able to complete the tasks that I had been given to the satisfaction of my colleagues.

In conclusion, I can say that I was able to do a wide variety of tasks that correlated with my planned learning outcomes and allowed me do develop a deeper understanding of

international development cooperation in general and with a focus on education. I also now have a better understanding of the routine work at a government institution. With

improvements of my writing and computer competences I also used the placement to expand on my hard skills.

EVALUATION OF THE PLACEMENT

Overall, I consider the placement to have been a valuable experience because I was able to integrate knowledge and skills from the studies and because it will be useful for my future career. Now I will elaborate upon why this is the case and how I experienced the interaction with those working at the BMZ.

For this placement especially my knowledge regarding international institutions and their different bodies, acquired during the International Relations programme, was useful. Since cooperation with organisations and funds like the United Nations, Education Cannot Wait and the Global Partnership for Education is an essential part of the BMZ’s work and that of the education section. Having a theoretical background about the functioning of such institutions was useful since it allowed me to quickly learn the specificities about the organisations that are relevant for the education section. Engaging in the preparation and reprocessing of meetings that take place with such entities was helpful to deepen my understanding about them. In particular, I learned more about the interactions on the bureaucratic level, in the university courses this is not a major focus. However, the agenda setting and coordination happening on this level surely impacts the political decision made on higher levels of

government. Furthermore, I got a clearer picture about the concrete tasks of bureaucratic staff at working level and their relationship with political leaders. Thus, me academic background enabled me to learn quicker, something that my colleagues noted positively. On the other hand, the placement spoke to the content of my previous studies because it allowed for a view beyond the theoretical and into the working levels that underly political institutions.

Being in the fortunate position to witness preparations for the German EU Council Presidency exacerbated the learning effect when it comes to the interactions between governmental

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institutions. In that process a lot of coordination between the various ministries is necessary and it was insightful to see how this takes place.

To gain such experience was an important aspect of my expected learning outcomes. Since the placement provided ample opportunity for that and I used the opportunities to participate in visits and excursions to other organisations I consider this learning outcome to be

completed. As for the others it depends on the extent to which the corresponding tasks were affected by the pandemic. The learning outcomes of improving my writing skills, becoming more proficient in the use of office software and the use of German in a professional setting were not affected a lot. The placement provided numerous opportunities to improve myself in these regards and I regard these learning outcomes as successfully completed. The goal of gaining experience in public speaking was hindered significantly though. By the time I was immersed in the topics of the section to a high degree the pandemic stopped all opportunities for engaging in activities that would have been useful for improving my public speaking skills. Due to those special circumstances this learning outcome was not achieved in the context of the placement.

I applied for an internship at the BMZ because of my aim to find out about how it is to work for a government institution with an international focus. With its wide coverage of topics and plethora of international partners the BMZ is a premier address for this. Additionally,

practical considerations influenced my decision making. The German government requires interns to do their internship as a requirement of their university. Therefore, this internship was the only opportunity for a placement there. During the application procedure the sections pick applicants out of a pool. Thus, I did not actively choose the section for education.

However, once I received the offer, I saw this topic, of which I had not much knowledge beforehand, as a challenge to learn something new. The topic of education in development cooperation revealed itself to be a very interesting one. This is because it is connected to many other areas that the BMZ deals with. As mentioned above, I especially dealt with vocational training which plays a central role in the areas of combatting climate change, advancing women’s rights and improving security in unstable contexts. After having engaged with this topic I am glad to have taken up the challenge and feel like it has advanced my ability to quickly adjust to new topics. Hence, the placement has increased my

multidisciplinary, a major part of the International Relations studies as well.

When it comes to the working climate and the supervision my experiences at the BMZ were positive. My colleagues were very nice, engaged, and willing to explain things to me. They

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worked closely together with me and provided feedback frequently. This helped me to adapt my approach to tasks and improve my contribution to the work of the section. During the application procedure it sufficed to hand in written application documents, no interview was required. For students considering applying, it might help to name a time period exceeding three months. This will increase chances of getting an offer because most interns stick to the mandatory minimum by their universities (often three months). The BMZ accepts applications all year long11 and provides resources for finding a place to stay in Bonn or Berlin.

Lastly, I can say that the placement has been helpful for getting a clearer picture about what it means to work for a ministry. This experience will prove valuable when applying at

comparable institutions. The important role that the BMZ plays in the field of development cooperation makes it a good destination to gain first experiences in that area. With the hard and soft skills, I strengthened during the internship I am more prepared moving on into the working life after completing my studies.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, one can say that I successfully achieved most of the learning outcomes that I had set before the placement, despite the disruption of the corona virus. Interning at the education section of the BMZ has enabled me to learn about development cooperation, the daily business of a government institution which is highly involved with international partners and issues as well as develop hard skills in relation to writing and software. While the corona pandemic has diminished the opportunities to expand on my public speaking abilities it has also required me to work more independently and proactively. Thus, the challenge of the pandemic also provided a chance for further personal growth.

The BMZ was an appropriate placement provider due to the international nature of its work, the wide variety of topics covered and a fruitful working climate which allows for

development and network building. With the education section I could explore a new complex topic which has a profound relationship with many others that are relevant to development cooperation.

As a result of this, I can recommend the BMZ as a placement provider for other students who are interested in the field of development cooperation.

11_{With the ongoing crisis the hiring of new interns has halted for the time being. For more information it is}

probably best to check the website and use the means of contact listed there to obtain more concrete information.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Die Geschichte des Ministeriums.” bmz.de. Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung. Accessed June 8, 2020.

http://www.bmz.de/de/ministerium/geschichte/index.html.

“Entwicklungsminister Dr. Gerd Müller Zum Bericht ‘Kompass 2020’ Von Welthungerhilfe Und Terre Des Hommes Deutschland.” bmz.de. Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung, May 15, 2020.

http://www.bmz.de/de/presse/aktuelleMeldungen/2020/mai/200515_Mueller-zum-Bericht-Kompass-2020/index.html.

“Facts and Figures BMZ Budget.” bmz.de. Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung. Accessed June 8, 2020.

https://www.bmz.de/en/ministry/InDetail/budget/index.html.

“Top Five ODA Donors in 2018.” developmentaid.org, September 10, 2019.