The Current Column

The 2025 German Federal Election

Who cares about aid? Voters do!

Leininger, Julia / Martin-Shields, Charles
The Current Column (2025)

Bonn: German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), The Current Column of 18 February 2025

Bonn, 18 February 2025. As the Trump administration has moved to fully dismantle USAID and wider American commitments to development cooperation, we are left with the question: Is this truly what the voters want, and is it worth the cost? It is a question with growing salience beyond US politics. Ahead of federal elections in Germany on 23 February the role of development cooperation is up for debate among likely coalition partners. While many German observers comment on the shakeup in the US, they miss out on one important factor: the voters, who legitimise policies, generally support providing development aid.

In the United States polling since 2019 underscores this. A Pew poll on overall development aid in 2019 showed that 68% of voters would choose to maintain aid at current levels or increase aid spending. In 2022, a poll by Better World Campaign also showed that 62% of Americans have a favorable view of U.S. support for the United Nations. While the level of support varies across partisan lines, voters by and large view ongoing investments in development cooperation and international organisations positively. In Germany, a survey conducted by the German Institute for Evaluation Research in 2024 shows a similar yet more nuanced picture: 19% continuously support development cooperation, while 18% are declared opponents. Between these two poles, 63% of those surveyed have a “moderately positive” attitude towards development cooperation. However, this moderately positive picture should not obscure the fact that the number of those who favor a stable or increased development aid budget has fallen since 2022, from 68% to 47%. This is one of the lowest rates in comparison to other countries. In addition, this decrease exists across all political camps. In Germany, this was reinforced by the fact that development policy received a lot of critical attention in 2024, especially from right-wing groups and parties.

This lack of solid, cross-partisan support makes it easy to build a negative political narrative about aid. Indeed, the impact of USAID shutting down is hard for most Americans to see in their daily lives. In this context Elon Musk’s illegal destruction of USAID took advantage of the fact that many voters’ positive public opinion about development is often only based on abstract feelings about it being ‘the right thing to do’. How do you push back against this? By making aid tangible to voters. For example, USAID funded and operated the pandemic reporting systems that detected the first cases of Ebola in 2014. Without these systems, future pandemics will spread more quickly – including to the U.S. The U.S. is also losing its reputation as an international player that contributes to global common goods. Losing one of its main pillars of “soft power” will certainly not be in the national interest of the US, as China in particular moves to fill the economic development and investment gaps left in the wake of USAID’s closing. The intangibility of how aid fits into voters’ daily lives, and misinformation efforts aimed at pushing support down, made galvanising the public again Musk’s move to destroy USAID much harder.

Effective political communication about the meaning, purpose and strategic goals of development policy is therefore important for shaping the decision-making of voters. It is important for individuals to know: What does development policy have to do with me? How much solidarity can and must Germany afford? What does development cooperation look like, also as part of a national security strategy? Engaging the electorate about the importance of development aid should be a strategic consideration for political parties given the unstable but still high support in Germany.

The question of how development cooperation is communicated is at least as relevant as the content of this communication. Debates on development policy are often polarised and divisive. This makes framing all the more important. Misinformation and the repetition of the same negative narratives perpetuate misunderstandings about development cooperation. Consider, for example, the recent debate in Germany and the bad-faith misrepresentation of how funds were used to build transport infrastructure in an Andean country. Countering these false, bad faith narratives requires new, future-oriented narratives about development cooperation. Reflective and informed criticism should also be part of this.

Finally, staying true to facts while telling compelling stories makes a difference. Tom Carother's commentary "The Heartless Upheaval of American Foreign Aid" is a good example of such an approach. In polarised debates, people support the “truth” that is closest to their values and beliefs. Successful political framing speaks to people's hearts, as well as to their minds. While facts are the foundation for countering misinformation, their framing must be value-based. Right now voters’ positive feelings about aid are abstract, easily swayed by divisive misinformation. However, when voters understand that an investment in development cooperation is an investment in their community as well, they will continue to support it.