Opinion: Safety needs soft power.

The fact that Germany could soon become the world’s largest donor of official development aid seems like a side note at first. But behind this lies a geopolitical turning point: The dismantling of the US development agency USAID will lead to the loss of up to 25% of global funding, while China, Russia and Turkey will fill this vacuum regardless of democratic standards. In the face of such a systemic shock, „business as usual“ is not enough. We now need an overhaul of the ailing standards-based development cooperation, whose hardware and software should be put to the test.