Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik / Latest News

The 2026 US–Israel–Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have triggered one of the largest oil supply disruptions in modern history. Brent crude prices rose sharply, producing a major external shock for oil-importing developing economies at a moment when the international development system was already under severe strain. Petrochemical products shipped through the strait are also vital for agriculture, medicine and industry. The largest contraction on record of official development assistance (ODA) had already been recorded in 2025, while geopolitical tensions and rising defence expenditures are reshaping ODA spending priorities and development policy directions.
This brief examines how the oil shock will impact development cooperation. The significance of the oil shock lies not only in the price increase itself but also in its timing, and it arrives amid an ongoing reconfiguration of development cooperation. The analysis is organised around two postulates that underpin the post–Cold War development architecture. The first is the existence of states in the Global South with sufficient authority and developmental aspirations and capacity to pursue broad-based development goals. The second is the existence of donor countries willing and able to support those states’ aspirations.
The oil shock weakens both postulates through different mechanisms. For many oil-importing developing countries, rising fuel, food and transport costs intensify fiscal stress, debt vulnerabilities and pressures on state capacity. Fragile states without strategic importance are especially exposed. At the same time, donor countries face mounting pressures
from fiscal tightening, defence spending, domestic cost-of-living politics and growing scepticism towards multilateralism. These dynamics risk reinforcing one another in the sense that weakening state capacity can intensify instability, while rising instability may further reduce political support for development co-operation in donor countries.
The brief argues that alternative financing sources such as Gulf finance, South–South cooperation and climate finance are unlikely to compensate for the scale of OECD donors’ retrenchment. The likely result is a more fragmented, transactional and geographically selective development cooperation system, in which the countries most in need are increasingly among the least likely to receive sustained support unless they hold geopolitical importance.
Three policy implications follow from the war. First, the multilateral development financing architecture requires urgent bolstering. Instruments such as the World Bank’s International Development Association and the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust face growing pressure precisely as low-income countries (LICs) confront simultaneous food, fuel, debt and financing shocks. Second, the increasing concentration of concessional finance to strategically prioritised states should not be treated as inevitable. Fragile states risk declining concessional finance and multilateral reach despite acute humanitarian need. Third, European donors must decide whether development cooperation remains anchored in poverty reduction or becomes subordinated to defence, migration and geopolitical priorities.

Professor Andy Sumner is a professor of International Development at King’s College London and President of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes.

Financial constraints are one of the most severe obstacles for the operation and development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Yet women and women-led enterprises are disproportionally affected, which leads to a gender gap in access to finance. This paper uses panel estimation techniques, namely a correlated random effects model, for 1,655 financial institutions from 109 mostly LMICs for the years 2000 to 2019 to examine empirically whether there are purely economic incentives for financial institutions to scale up their lending activities towards women and women-led enterprises. Going beyond the microfinance sector, this study provides – to the best of my knowledge – the first empirical evidence on this question for banks and bank-like financial institutions that serve higher credit market segments. I find positive and significant effects on the quality of the loan portfolio (lower portfolio at risk), income streams (higher portfolio yield) and the overall financial performance (captured by return on assets or profit margin). Since economic incentives and profitability considerations are crucial in steering the decisions of financial institutions with regard to credit allocations, the banks’ self-interest could lead to management decisions and internal directives to favor female loan applicants, which could contribute to closing the gender gap in access to finance. Furthermore, the findings on the positive effects on banks’ financial performance give policymakers and regulators leeway to push financial institutions through more restrictive policy measures and regulatory requirements to direct more loans to women and women-led firms.

Financial constraints are one of the most severe obstacles for the operation and development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Yet women and women-led enterprises are disproportionally affected, which leads to a gender gap in access to finance. This paper uses panel estimation techniques, namely a correlated random effects model, for 1,655 financial institutions from 109 mostly LMICs for the years 2000 to 2019 to examine empirically whether there are purely economic incentives for financial institutions to scale up their lending activities towards women and women-led enterprises. Going beyond the microfinance sector, this study provides – to the best of my knowledge – the first empirical evidence on this question for banks and bank-like financial institutions that serve higher credit market segments. I find positive and significant effects on the quality of the loan portfolio (lower portfolio at risk), income streams (higher portfolio yield) and the overall financial performance (captured by return on assets or profit margin). Since economic incentives and profitability considerations are crucial in steering the decisions of financial institutions with regard to credit allocations, the banks’ self-interest could lead to management decisions and internal directives to favor female loan applicants, which could contribute to closing the gender gap in access to finance. Furthermore, the findings on the positive effects on banks’ financial performance give policymakers and regulators leeway to push financial institutions through more restrictive policy measures and regulatory requirements to direct more loans to women and women-led firms.

Demonstration plots (demo plots) are crucial for knowledge dissemination and knowledge production to and with smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, making them important in rural development. Beyond their agricultural extension function considerations, their political and ecological dynamics remain undertheorized. Drawing on qualitative empirical data across Mbeya Region, Tanzania, we analyze the political ecology of different demonstration plots as assemblages deployed by private-sector actors, NGOs/grassroots organizations, and research institutions, to shape agricultural transformation. Our study reveals stark power asymmetries: private sector and research-led demo plots, strategically located and strongly resourced, dominate both physical and discursive landscapes. Their alliance building and branding practices territorialize monocultures, input-dependent farming as aspired futures. Conversely, the more conservation-oriented grassroots demo plots, despite retaining agroforestry socioecological systems, fostering local knowledge and diverse practices, are marginalized by resource constraints and limited institutional support, exposing their territories to constant erasure. Using assemblage theory, we scrutinize demo plots as active sites of socio-technical selection, configuring actors, spaces, and knowledge systems in ways that privilege market integration through intensification, while sidelining alternatives. The analysis challenges prevailing narratives of demo plots as neutral (even apolitical) pedagogical tools, instead arguing to understand them as instruments of power that determine which agricultural futures materialize.

Demonstration plots (demo plots) are crucial for knowledge dissemination and knowledge production to and with smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, making them important in rural development. Beyond their agricultural extension function considerations, their political and ecological dynamics remain undertheorized. Drawing on qualitative empirical data across Mbeya Region, Tanzania, we analyze the political ecology of different demonstration plots as assemblages deployed by private-sector actors, NGOs/grassroots organizations, and research institutions, to shape agricultural transformation. Our study reveals stark power asymmetries: private sector and research-led demo plots, strategically located and strongly resourced, dominate both physical and discursive landscapes. Their alliance building and branding practices territorialize monocultures, input-dependent farming as aspired futures. Conversely, the more conservation-oriented grassroots demo plots, despite retaining agroforestry socioecological systems, fostering local knowledge and diverse practices, are marginalized by resource constraints and limited institutional support, exposing their territories to constant erasure. Using assemblage theory, we scrutinize demo plots as active sites of socio-technical selection, configuring actors, spaces, and knowledge systems in ways that privilege market integration through intensification, while sidelining alternatives. The analysis challenges prevailing narratives of demo plots as neutral (even apolitical) pedagogical tools, instead arguing to understand them as instruments of power that determine which agricultural futures materialize.

The European Investment Bank (EIB), the world’s largest multilateral financial institution, has supported projects in over 160 countries, including fragile and conflict-affected states (FCSs). Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the EIB adopted its first Strategic Approach to Fragility and Conflict in 2022. While the bank has a history of operating in FCSs, this strategy signals its ambition to strengthen the bank’s focus on state fragility. What is driving this shift and how does it align with the EIB’s traditional emphasis on financial sustainability and risk aversion? This paper examines the drivers of the EIB’s engagement with fragile states through an institutional logics lens, identifying three core logics embedded in the bank’s identity: development, investment and bureaucratic logics. The analysis shows that although development and bureaucratic logics strongly shape the new strategy, the investment logic – anchored in financial prudence – continues to influence lending practices. This finding suggests that the progressive rhetoric on fragility is constrained by institutional caution.

The European Investment Bank (EIB), the world’s largest multilateral financial institution, has supported projects in over 160 countries, including fragile and conflict-affected states (FCSs). Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the EIB adopted its first Strategic Approach to Fragility and Conflict in 2022. While the bank has a history of operating in FCSs, this strategy signals its ambition to strengthen the bank’s focus on state fragility. What is driving this shift and how does it align with the EIB’s traditional emphasis on financial sustainability and risk aversion? This paper examines the drivers of the EIB’s engagement with fragile states through an institutional logics lens, identifying three core logics embedded in the bank’s identity: development, investment and bureaucratic logics. The analysis shows that although development and bureaucratic logics strongly shape the new strategy, the investment logic – anchored in financial prudence – continues to influence lending practices. This finding suggests that the progressive rhetoric on fragility is constrained by institutional caution.

In Paris delegates convened at the ‘future of development cooperation’ conference organised by the OECD's DCD which supports the work of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), the leading traditional donors' aid club.

In Paris delegates convened at the ‘future of development cooperation’ conference organised by the OECD's DCD which supports the work of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), the leading traditional donors' aid club.

This policy brief analyses how the EU may strengthen its role and advance its legitimacy in the Arctic when redesigning its priorities and partnerships, and how, in the process, it may contribute to the redesigning of established institutions and policies to fill the vacuum left by the Arctic Council. We will first provide a brief overview of the tensions inherent in different
types of cooperation approaches, the role that the EU wishes to play in the Arctic and external expectations that concern the EU’s priorities in the Arctic. Second, we discuss how these tensions affect the EU’s legitimacy as a cooperation partner and assess factors that strengthen and weaken the EU’s perception as an actor that needs to engage in the Arctic to avoid being excluded from policy negotiations of great relevance for the EU’s short-term, mid-term and long-term priorities. Third, we conclude with how EU ambitions have
changed and how it can strengthen its legitimacy as a cooperation partner by emphasizing the human dimension of security in the Arctic.

This policy brief analyses how the EU may strengthen its role and advance its legitimacy in the Arctic when redesigning its priorities and partnerships, and how, in the process, it may contribute to the redesigning of established institutions and policies to fill the vacuum left by the Arctic Council. We will first provide a brief overview of the tensions inherent in different
types of cooperation approaches, the role that the EU wishes to play in the Arctic and external expectations that concern the EU’s priorities in the Arctic. Second, we discuss how these tensions affect the EU’s legitimacy as a cooperation partner and assess factors that strengthen and weaken the EU’s perception as an actor that needs to engage in the Arctic to avoid being excluded from policy negotiations of great relevance for the EU’s short-term, mid-term and long-term priorities. Third, we conclude with how EU ambitions have
changed and how it can strengthen its legitimacy as a cooperation partner by emphasizing the human dimension of security in the Arctic.

International donors commit substantial resources to GovTech projects (the application of information and communication technologies to government functions). World Bank GovTech investments alone have exceeded $118 billion over the last three decades. Donor strategy documents consistently frame digital transformation not only as a vehicle for improved effectiveness but also for strengthening democracy.
Autocrats are equally invested in these tools. Globally, at least 88 authoritarian regimes currently operate GovTech projects, and electoral autocracies receive the largest share of GovTech aid (48.6 per cent of commitments). Beyond well-known surveillance applications, autocracies deploy GovTech for service delivery, grievance redress and even citizen engagement. These platforms are deployed to project an image of responsiveness and legitimacy. Our experimental evidence from Turkey shows how efficiency-enhancing GovTech tools, when paired with sophisticated regime communication, can durably entrench autocratic rule. We designed a survey experiment focused on CIMER, Turkey’s widely used citizen petition platform, to examine how citizens respond to the government propaganda surrounding it. The results show that the government’s framing of CIMER as an effective tool that “gets things done” significantly increased trust in authoritarian institutions, even among regime opponents. The effect extended beyond attitudes to behaviour: Asked to allocate a hypothetical donation of money among state institutions, independent non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or themselves, anti-government respondents exposed to messages on the platform were significantly more likely to give the money to state institutions. Our recommendations are as follows:
• Donors must take the second-order effects of GovTech initiatives seriously and develop mechanisms to carefully evaluate the risks of unintended consequences. In many cases, support for GovTech projects is overly optimistic regarding their effects on political openness. Adopting a more context-sensitive and realistic approach demands detailed political economy assessments before supporting GovTech projects and developing monitoring metrics that capture potential regime-legitimation effects.
• Donors need to build stronger safety guardrails into these projects. Depending on the political economy assessments, such measures could include the institutional involvement of international organisations or, if feasible, local NGOs (as conditionality) in platform oversight, mandatory independent audits and open data standards by design, among others.
• Finally, donors need to consider actively participating in public communication on these platforms, with visible donor branding, to counter government-controlled propaganda, claim credit for service delivery and strengthen trust in donor countries and organisations.

International donors commit substantial resources to GovTech projects (the application of information and communication technologies to government functions). World Bank GovTech investments alone have exceeded $118 billion over the last three decades. Donor strategy documents consistently frame digital transformation not only as a vehicle for improved effectiveness but also for strengthening democracy.
Autocrats are equally invested in these tools. Globally, at least 88 authoritarian regimes currently operate GovTech projects, and electoral autocracies receive the largest share of GovTech aid (48.6 per cent of commitments). Beyond well-known surveillance applications, autocracies deploy GovTech for service delivery, grievance redress and even citizen engagement. These platforms are deployed to project an image of responsiveness and legitimacy. Our experimental evidence from Turkey shows how efficiency-enhancing GovTech tools, when paired with sophisticated regime communication, can durably entrench autocratic rule. We designed a survey experiment focused on CIMER, Turkey’s widely used citizen petition platform, to examine how citizens respond to the government propaganda surrounding it. The results show that the government’s framing of CIMER as an effective tool that “gets things done” significantly increased trust in authoritarian institutions, even among regime opponents. The effect extended beyond attitudes to behaviour: Asked to allocate a hypothetical donation of money among state institutions, independent non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or themselves, anti-government respondents exposed to messages on the platform were significantly more likely to give the money to state institutions. Our recommendations are as follows:
• Donors must take the second-order effects of GovTech initiatives seriously and develop mechanisms to carefully evaluate the risks of unintended consequences. In many cases, support for GovTech projects is overly optimistic regarding their effects on political openness. Adopting a more context-sensitive and realistic approach demands detailed political economy assessments before supporting GovTech projects and developing monitoring metrics that capture potential regime-legitimation effects.
• Donors need to build stronger safety guardrails into these projects. Depending on the political economy assessments, such measures could include the institutional involvement of international organisations or, if feasible, local NGOs (as conditionality) in platform oversight, mandatory independent audits and open data standards by design, among others.
• Finally, donors need to consider actively participating in public communication on these platforms, with visible donor branding, to counter government-controlled propaganda, claim credit for service delivery and strengthen trust in donor countries and organisations.

Policy coherence is widely regarded as essential for achieving sustainable development, climate targets, and reducing inequality, as reflected in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Recent scholarship has moved beyond technocratic approaches, drawing on comparative politics, particularly the “3 I's” of ideas, interests, and institutions, to highlight the inherently political nature of coherence. Yet even these studies often treat coherence as binary, easily observable, and intrinsically beneficial. Building on a coherence literature focused on discourses and frames, this paper challenges these assumptions by examining how policy (in)coherence is constructed and contested. Focusing on policy implementation in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's coal heartland, we analyse two cases before and during the 2022 energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine: the commissioning of the Datteln IV hard coal plant in 2020, and the clearance of the village of Lützerath for mining in 2023. Drawing on 28 semi-structured interviews with German energy, climate, and environmental experts, alongside policy and media analysis, we find that (in)coherence is greatly constructed and contested under shifting political and economic pressures, instrumentalised and legitimisatised by different actors to advance their interests, and profoundly shaped by temporal dynamics. Given recent findings that challenge the 2030 Agenda's assumption that policy coherence reduces inequalities, we also explore how (in)coherence is perceived to shape multidimensional inequality in the Energiewende more broadly. Here, we find that (in)coherence is most prominently perceived to cause delays in climate mitigation, disproportionately affecting youth, low-income households, migrants, and activists. In this context, (in)coherence is not merely technical, political nor constructed, but fundamentally a matter of justice, shifting the analytical focus from whether policies and their implementation are coherent to how, and for whom, coherence matters.

Tax expenditures (TEs) in Zimbabwe represent a significant portion of government spending, amounting to 2.8 percent of GDP, 24.7 percent of total revenue, and 21.2 percent of public spending in 2023. Companies benefitting from TEs enjoy tax savings that trigger a reduction in government revenue, which may in turn result in higher budget deficits and sovereign debt. TEs are often regressive, e.g., when TEs related to personal income tax (PIT) benefit those in higher income tax brackets more, and TEs related to value-added tax (VAT) provide a larger benefit to higher income households, given their larger consumption in absolute terms. Although TEs are meant to boost investment, exports, innovation and employment, their real impact is often unknown, as Zimbabwe lacks a culture of ex-ante and ex-post evaluation of TEs.

Transparency: Section 3 of the Public Finance Management Act [Chapter 22:19] aims to secure transparency, accountability and sound management of revenues and expenditure, but does not provide specific provisions on TEs assessments nor reporting to the Parliament of Zimbabwe. Section 30 of the Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency (ZIDA) Act also highlights that ZIDA, in consultation with the Minister responsible for Finance, should publish guidelines for investment, which include general and special incentives applicable to specific categories of licensed investors. Against this backdrop, it is fair to say that there is no explicit policy on TE transparency in Zimbabwe.

Complex landscape: The rationale for the introduction of business-related TEs is to stimulate investment and production, which should then create employment opportunities and other benefits, potentially leading to higher government revenues in the medium or long term. If well-designed, tax incentives for investment can be a cost-effective policy tool. However, TEs may be vulnerable to lobbying and abuse, providing preferential tax treatment to specific groups with vested interests to keep the incentives in place even without much benefit to the economy at large. Empirical evidence on TEs is still limited in Zimbabwe, which undermines evidence-based tax policymaking.

Evaluation challenges: The government of Zimbabwe committed to develop a tax incentive monitoring and evaluation framework, managed by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA), to facilitate the management of TEs and inform cost-benefit analyses by Treasury on an annual basis with effect from 1 January 2019. No ex-ante evaluation has been conducted so far, but some ex-post evaluations of TEs were undertaken in 2021 and 2023. In addition, ZIMRA has started to publish TE figures from 2019 onwards in its annual reports, although the statistics published are highly aggregated and do not cover all taxes upon which TEs are granted. The published TEs from the annual reports are revenue forgone from domestic and trade taxes. Although the Parliament of Zimbabwe has the competence to oversee the national budget cycle, it is currently not involved in the monitoring and control of TEs.

Fiscal sustainability: Fiscal sustainability enables governments to meet future public expenditure and financial obligations without resorting to excessive borrowing. Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 20) Act, 2013 (Act No. 1 of 2013, Section 299) provides for Parliamentary oversight of state revenues and expenditure to ensure accountability, monitoring and fiscal sustainability (Government of Zimbabwe, 2023a). Section 298 (1) b i of the Constitution states that the burden of taxation must be shared equally which implies that TEs should not be allocated without evaluating if they are beneficial to Zimbabwe. TEs can be described as hidden government spending, which can negatively affect fiscal sustainability. Zimbabwe’s TEs amounted to US$1.34 billion in 2023, which is about 2.8 percent of GDP, compared to the global average of about 4 percent of GDP. However, VAT rate reductions and exemptions on domestic sales, which constituted 51 percent and 27.1 percent of total TEs reported by ZIMRA in 2020, were not reported through the new Tax and Revenue Management System (TaRMS) in 2023. Moreover, TEs for CIT, PIT and excise duty were not reported since they are not captured by ZIMRA. The bulk of the reported figures for 2023 were TEs related to custom duties. Thus, the extent of TE use in Zimbabwe is underreported and may in fact be considerably higher than the global average. Moreover, this is happening at a time when Zimbabwe is facing limited fiscal space, with public debt constituting 59.7 percent of GDP in 2024.

Policy recommendations: The Government of Zimbabwe should conduct or commission ex-ante and ex-post evaluations of TEs to enhance their effectiveness. Statistics on TE use and revenue forgone should be publicly available and easily accessible to enhance transparency and access of information to the users. All TEs should be time-bound (with sunset clauses) and, ideally, only be renewed after an assessment has been undertaken to justify their existence. All new TEs should be subject to an ex-ante evaluation to clarify expectations and ensure that only effective TEs are implemented in the country. The Parliament of Zimbabwe should be involved in the monitoring and control of TEs. The legislation should ensure that TE proposals are in line with national development plans and policies. The Parliament of Zimbabwe should also ensure that TE reports are published at pre-defined dates. TE reporting should be comprehensive, reported annually. This means there should be a designated authority responsible for preparing the TE report, preferably in the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion. The legal framework should also establish the structure and frequency of TE evaluations, including both ex-ante assessments and ex-post evaluations.

The OECD Conference on the Future of International Development Co-operation convened in Paris on 11-12 May 2026. Andy Sumner and Stephan Klingebiel consider one core idea arising.

This study examines the synergistic effects of digital and green economies on sustainable development in 35 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries over the period 2010–2021. Using a two-step System GMM estimator, we analyze the interaction among digital technology index (DT), green total factor productivity (GP), and adjusted net savings (ANS) as a percentage of GNI. The baseline results reveal a negative association between DT and ANS at low levels of green productivity. However, this penalty is mitigated as green productivity rises indicating a synergistic effect. Robustness checks across income levels, regions, and infrastructure types uncover heterogeneities. Specifically, the marginal penalty associated with fixed broadband subscription improves by 0.41% point as economies move from the 25th to the 50th percentile of green productivity, and by a larger 0.828% points when moving from the 25th to the 75th percentile. While basic mobile connectivity remains sustainability-neutral, high-capacity fixed broadband requires environmental efficiency to avoid eroding national savings. Furthermore, digitalization attenuates the negative relationship between natural resource rents and ANS. These findings underscore that achieving sustainable development in SSA requires synchronized policy strategies rather than isolated investments in technology or green initiatives.

• Financial markets still provide financing on a large scale for investments in environmentally harmful activities, while projects conducive to the green transformation are often not funded. 
• Sustainable finance policies, such as new reporting requirements and standards for sus¬tain¬able financial instruments, have so far mostly focused on creating transparency. However, transparency alone is insufficient to turn the financial sector from a driver of en¬viron¬mental crises into a lever for the green transformation.
• Many countries of the Global South face special challenges, including high interest rates, currency depreciation and limited oppor¬¬tu¬nities to shape global policies (e.g. banking regulations and standards for sus-tainable finan¬cial instruments) in their interests.
• Aligning financial markets with sustainability objectives requires a comprehensive policy mix comprising policies that change incen-tives. These policies can include credit guidance instruments such as credit targets, green refinancing schemes and differentiated capital requirements, and tax policies such as differentiated capital gains taxes for green and non-green assets.
• International forums, such as the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) and 
the Sustainable Banking and Finance Network (SBFN), remain valuable for mutual learning and for addressing cross-border effects of finan¬cial regulations.
• Policies to mobilise private resources should not be considered as a substitute for public investments or public steering, which are both crucial for the green transformation.

Heiner Janus and Michael Roll argue that the largest aid contraction on record coincides with a reopened decades-old fault line: what “development” means, who it serves — and how the field can reinvent itself for what comes next.

Bonn, 18. Mai 2026. Die neuen Märkte gewinnen an Bedeutung. Doch Märkte können nicht schützen, was sie nicht vollständig erfassen.

Biodiversitätszertifikate sind Finanzinstrumente, die privates Kapital in messbare Erfolge bei Naturschutz und Renaturierung lenken sollen. Unternehmen können damit Nachhaltigkeitsversprechen untermauern und naturbezogene Risiken steuern. Die Zertifikate werden auf Grundlage messbarer Verbesserungen der Biodiversität ausgegeben und auf Märkten gehandelt; die Einnahmen fließen an die Projektträger. Die Bedeutung der Zertifikate für die Umsetzung des Globalen Biodiversitätsrahmens wird auf der 17. UN-Biodiversitätskonferenz ein wichtiges Thema sein. Die Idee ist verlockend: eine Maßeinheit für Biodiversität und ihren Wert definieren, und einen Markt schaffen, der Mittel für den Naturschutz mobilisiert. Doch Märkte können nicht schützen, was sie nicht vollständig messen, bewerten oder erfassen können.

Damit Biodiversität handelbar ist, muss sie auf einen zusammengesetzten Wert – eine „Biodiversitätseinheit“ – reduziert werden – doch diese Berechnung ist umstritten. Über 570 verschiedene Kennzahlen spiegeln konkurrierende Vorstellungen darüber wider, welche Aspekte der Natur besonders wichtig sind. Eine Biodiversitätseinheit kombiniert Indikatoren wie Artenreichtum, Einzigartigkeit des Lebensraums, Standortfläche, Ökosystemstruktur, Zustand und Lage. Diese Vereinfachung ist nicht wertneutral: Gewinne bei einem Indikator können Verluste bei einem anderen ausgleichen. So kann die Zunahme weniger, relativ verbreiteter Arten den Rückgang seltenerer und empfindlicherer Arten verdecken und dadurch ökologische Zielkonflikte verschleiern.

Befürworter*innen argumentieren, diese Vielzahl an Bewertungsmethoden sei eine mit den frühen Kohlenstoffmärkten vergleichbare Entwicklungsphase. Doch Kohlenstoff basiert auf einer universellen Kennzahl – einer Tonne CO2-Äquivalent. Bei der Biodiversität spiegelt eine solche Kennzahl nicht den sozioökologischen Wert der Natur wider, denn dieser kann sich je nach Kontext und Ort stark unterscheiden.

Die Vielzahl der Methoden zeigt, dass es keine neutrale Einheit gibt, sondern nur konkurrierende Entscheidungen, was gezählt und was ausgeblendet wird. Das in England angewandte Prinzip „Biodiversity Net Gain“ veranschaulicht dieses Dilemma: Für eine Baugenehmigung müssen Bauträger einen Nettozuwachs der Biodiversität von 10 % über 30 Jahre nachweisen; dafür können Lebensräume an einem Ort geschaffen werden, während irreversible Verluste von Ökosystemen anderswo in Kauf genommen und verschleiert werden.

Märkte erfordern handelbare, ortsungebundene Einheiten, doch biologische Vielfalt hängt vom Standort ab. Ökologische Funktionen wirken in größeren, miteinander verbundenen Systemen, die sich nicht auf abgegrenzte Landflächen reduzieren lassen. Der Amazonas erzeugt fliegende Flüsse aus Wasserdampf, die Niederschläge in entlegene Regionen Südamerikas bringen – Zusammenhänge, die Bewertungsmethoden nicht erfassen.

Indigene Völker und lokale Gemeinschaften verfügen über ortsspezifisches Wissen, das standardisierte Messgrößen nicht vollständig abbilden können: Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Arten, saisonale Dynamiken und die kulturelle Bedeutung bestimmter Lebensräume. Selbst dort, wo die Beteiligung von Interessengruppen an der Messung vorgesehen ist, dominiert die Logik der Zertifikate. In Kolumbien besteht selbst bei gemeinschaftsorientierten Programmen die Gefahr, problematische Dynamiken der Kohlenstoffmärkte zu reproduzieren – etwa durch ungerechte Verträge oder wenn Mittel die betroffenen Gemeinschaften gar nicht erreichen. Und: Indigene Gemeinschaften sind zwar in Governance-Strukturen vertreten, haben aber kaum Einfluss darauf, wie der ‚Wert‘ der Biodiversität definiert wird. Wie ein indigener Vertreter bemerkte, stand das Ziel einer Skalierung dieser Märkte von Anfang an fest, wodurch Beteiligung weitgehend symbolisch bleibt. Gemeinschaften werden zwar befragt, haben aber kein Mitspracherecht darüber, was gemessen oder wertgeschätzt wird – dies macht diese Märkte sozial ungerecht.

Obwohl Biodiversitätszertifikate als naturpositiv gelten, verschwimmt in der Praxis die Grenze zwischen Zertifikaten und Ausgleichsmechanismen. Drei der 15 bestehenden Zertifikatssysteme, darunter die des Vereinigten Königreichs und Indiens, erlauben ausdrücklich, dass Zertifikate auch als Ausgleichsleistung genutzt werden. In Kolumbien zeigen sich die Folgen: sogenannte ‚Habitat Banks‘ werden dort an ökologisch umstrittene extraktive Industrien vermarktet und sind damit faktisch zu einer Erweiterung der seit 2012 bestehenden Pflichtkompensationen geworden, anstatt Biodiversität nachhaltig zu schützen.

Globale Marktdaten zeigen weiterhin eine geringe Nachfrage nach biodiversitätsfördernden Zertifikaten: Von rund 11,6 Millionen ausgegebenen oder geplanten Zertifikaten wurden 124.183 verkauft und 1.285 aus dem Handel genommen. Wie der Kohlenstoffmarkt gezeigt hat, können der fehlende Zusatznutzen, Leakage-Effekte und MenschenrechtsverletzungenHandelssysteme fundamental untergraben; die größere Komplexität der Biodiversität macht diese Probleme noch schwerer zu beherrschen.

Der Verlust biologischer Vielfalt ist kein durch Bepreisung lösbares Marktversagen, sondern Folge des Wachstumszwangs unseres Wirtschaftssystems, welches die ökologischen Grenzen der Erde überschreitet. Antworten darauf liegen in Ansätzen der Postwachstumsökonomie, Maßnahmen wie Schuldenerlassen und Subventionsabbau, sowie rechtsbasierten Ansätzen wie der Anerkennung der Natur als Rechtssubjekt sowie indigener und traditioneller Territorien.