Austrian Development Co-operation in the Context of Internationalisation Efforts

In concert with the other EU member countries, Austria has committed itself to spending a share of 0.33 percent or more of its annual GDP on official development aid (ODA) by 2006. New organisational structures have been set up, most noteworthy among them the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) which was established in January 2004. One of its major challenges is to ensure Austrian participation in multilateral ODA projects through international finance institutions and aid implementation agencies. In this context special attention and support is given to increasing the Austrian private sector's involvement in the aid business. This survey is concerned with the options and limits of an ODA approach that builds upon a new partnership between the relevant government departments and the Austrian business community. Trade and investment are keys to sustainable development. A stocktaking of the relevant measures within conventional export and FDI promotion schemes concludes that Austria has in principle enough instruments and suitable institutional structures to achieve these goals. The bottleneck rather seems to lie in the sphere of development policy. It is vital to improve the co-ordination of the relevant instruments used by different units in the context of a coherent and strategically aligned development policy.