Bonn Humanitarian & Development Talks

Prof. Anna-Katharina Hornidge joined experts to discuss reshaping development cooperation and its global legitimacy.

On 25 February, Prof. Dr. Anna-Katharina Hornidge contributed to the Bonn Humanitarian & Development Talks 2026. The event took place in the Old Town Hall in Bonn to discuss the future and perception of development cooperation.

The Mayor of Bonn, Guido Déus, opened the evening by emphasising the importance of cities and municipalities in development cooperation, followed by a panel discussion focused on the question “How development cooperation is perceived today and what common paths can be established to strengthen its legitimacy“. Panellists included Nathanael Liminski, Minister for Federal and European Affairs, International Affairs and Media of the State of NRW and Head of the State Chancellery, Prof. Anna-Katharina Hornidge, Director of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), Birgit Pickel, Head of the Africa Department, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Vera Dwors of the One World Network NRW, and Dr Thorsten Klose-Zuber from Help as the panel’s moderator. The discussion focused on the ongoing reform processes in the multilateral and national institutional landscapes of international cooperation and development.

Prof. Hornidge contributed insights from international evaluations of German development cooperation, and brought this together with assessments of ongoing changes in the US, GB, Canada and Australia. Drawing on her recent travels to the Raisina Dialogue and the Munich Security Conference, she embedded the reflections on the institutional landscape for cooperation in an analysis of ongoing discussions in the defence field – both, cooperation and defence, forming two sides of the same coin: future-making for secure, safe and certain lives.