1977 - 1981: Jan de Koning

Fighting poverty and increasing economic independence

Jan de Koning (ARP, later CDA) agreed with many aspects of his predecessor Pronk's policy. Like Pronk, he tried to combine poverty reduction with the economic self-reliance of developing countries. De Koning called this a "two-track policy," but it did not differ substantially from Pronk's or the previous ministers’ policies. The aid was also partially unbundled: recipient countries were given a say in how they could spend Dutch aid money. De Koning did not play a major role in international forums. For the (only) international summit of government leaders on North-South issues in Cancún (Mexico) in 1981, the Netherlands was not invited.

Under Jan de Koning, the two-track policy that Pronk had started was continued. This policy aims to improve the position of the target group as quickly as possible, but also to achieve political and economic self-reliance in the longer term. Paul Hoebink described this policy as both realistic and idealistic.

At the organizational level, De Koning succeeded in implementing the bureaucratic reforms that had stalled under Pronk, introducing changes in personnel policy, regional offices with country desks, and a department with sector specializations. With these changes, interventions could be made more quickly when a project was producing too little results. However, De Koning failed to create development departments at embassies, and he did not stimulate the business community enough to undertake larger activities. He had intensive discussions with the business community, but no initiatives emerged. According to De Koning, the business community had thus lost its right to criticize policy.

Furthermore, the Council of Churches presented the results of a study in Colombia on the role of the business community in relation to development cooperation, which were negative.

Civil society organizations

The four major private development organizations were given more policy freedom and their budgets also increased. De Koning also introduced a similar form of "program financing" for the NCO, which was given more responsibility for its own policies, with only retrospective oversight by the minister.

Finance

During De Koning's time as minister, the budget was under pressure due to economic contraction. In 1980, the cabinet decided to keep the Development Cooperation budget at one and a half percent of net national income. In practice, this meant that spending room was reduced. De Koning's protest against this budget achieved little.

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