Cooperation Enterprise GTZ Focuses on Islam

A shift is taking place in the field of development policy. Instead of concentrating on the promotion of technocratic reforms, the aim now is to take socio-cultural factors into account.

Over the past few years, both German and international development policy has been hit by a wave of disillusionment. Having pumped massive amounts of money and technical aid into the developing world for four decades, the overall results are disappointing.

This is particularly true of Africa. For many years, development aid has concentrated on introducing technocratic reforms and stabilising state structures. For quite some time now, however, another approach has prevailed. This approach seeks to involve the broad and varied socio-cultural sphere into the thorny work of providing development aid.

Islam has now become a focus of this new approach, and the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, GTZ, is making huge efforts to integrate Islam into its project work to ensure better results.

The purpose of its recent conference in Berlin was to highlight these efforts. One of the conclusions arrived at in Berlin was that there can be no ready-made solution for the dialogue with Islam.

In many African states, Islam is an integral part of culture and ideals. More than any other, ideals that are shaped by religion have a major influence on Muslims’ daily life and attitudes. Local traditions and customs are also just as important as the dictates of Islamic law.

Cultural variety as an enrichment

Recognising this state of affairs and taking national particularity into account at socio-cultural level in particular has since become a fixed part of the German development policy, even though the implementation of this policy has only just begun.

According to Gudrun Grosse-Wiese, the woman responsible for Islamic Affairs at the Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development (BMZ), a development policy is always an intercultural policy. She says:

"Cultural variety and differences are in no way a threat; on the contrary, they are an enrichment. We want to use development processes to ensure that human rights are respected, protected, and implemented, and to combat poverty. Experience shows that a co-operation that targets concrete problems is more likely to succeed in this regard than a general, essentialist dialogue that merely accentuates differences."

To this day, very little is known about the links between development policy and Islam in Africa. It was only very recently that reports on the Islamic system of donations in Africa have been published. This system is almost exclusively supported by the governments of the core Islamic nations in the Arab world.

Islam-related projects

In Mali, the GTZ supports "Islamic Banking" projects, which aim to give farmers and entrepreneurs easier access to loans that are in line with their Islamic ideals.

The GTZ is also advising the Mauritanian government on the implementation of international environmental and climate agreements in the context of an Islamic social system.

German development aid is also being used to support projects that are promoting the decentralisation of administration in Senegal.

Senegal is an Islamic country with relatively solid and secure democratic structures. Unlike many other African states, it is considered to be politically stable.

Senegal as a model

What may be surprising for many observers is, according to Mamadou Diouf of Senegal, a logical consequence of the intelligent political co-operation between the state, religious leaders, the most important family clans, and traditional Islamic brotherhoods.

Diouf also emphasises that Leopold Senghor, Senegal’s first president, was a Catholic. He was head of state for twenty years and laid the foundation for a stable system.

But however positive the relations between state and religion may be in Senegal, society in many African nations is being polarised both politically and religiously: in short, religion is becoming increasingly political and politics increasingly religious.

Not an African problem

According to Islamic scholar Ulrich Rebstock from the University of Freiburg, this is the case in both Nigeria and Kenya. Rebstock does not, however, consider this to be an exclusively African problem. It is instead a reaction to the political vacuum left by weak regimes in Africa. He says:

"I believe it is an expression of an increasingly complex political and religious plurality that is no longer controlled by corrupt, secular regimes. These political and religious groups are now expressing a type of political intent. The steadily weakening regimes are being replaced by religious, cultural, ethnic, and tribal communities that are demanding - and, for that matter, creating - ever more opportunities to express themselves."

Heinrich Bergstresser

Translation from German: Aingeal Flanagan

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