Turkey’s Integrated Approach to Development Cooperation

Over the past two decades, Turkey has risen to become one of the world’s largest donors of development and humanitarian assistance. As an upper-middle-income country, it temporarily ranked first globally in humanitarian aid in 2018, providing more than eight billion US dollars in aid – ahead of the US, the EU, and Germany.¹ Measured against GDP, Turkey claims to hold second place worldwide as a humanitarian donor.² Its Official Development Assistance (ODA) ratio is also one of the highest among OECD members, due largely to the inclusion of substantial assistance to Syrian refugees in Turkey.³

The role of humanitarian donor has become part of Turkey’s foreign policy identity. From 2013 onwards, then–Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu promoted the concept of “humanitarian diplomacy”⁴ as a key pillar of Turkish foreign policy. The “Century of Turkey” – proclaimed by President Erdoğan in May 2023 – also rests on Turkey’s enhanced role in international cooperation. The country seeks to position itself as a credible partner in the so-called Global South and as an alternative both to Western donor countries and to China. It claims to follow a third path between the traditional Western Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors and more recent “southern” non-DAC donors, such as China, Brazil, and India. A founding member of the OECD, Turkey has held observer status in the OECD-DAC since 1991 but does not seek full DAC membership.⁵ This special status allows the country to operate within the DAC framework of traditional donors and to share data or to distance itself politically from Western donors, depending on its interests. Its self-declared “Turkish-type development assistance model” aims to strike a balance between values and interests openly acknowledging the interplay of humanitarian, geopolitical, and security interests.⁶ Turkey promises “win-win” relations on equal footing without a “hidden agenda” or a neo-colonial stance⁷ while combining humanitarian values with foreign policy aims and economic diplomacy in partner countries.

Over the past two decades, Turkey has significantly expanded and diversified its political, economic, and military engagement in many world regions. This diversification began under Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan (1996–1997) and has continued under AKP governments. While the former secular Kemalist elites⁸ pursued a purely Western alignment in foreign policy and avoided closer ties with southern or Muslim-majority countries, the AKP leadership has pursued a multi-vector foreign policy, drawing on the Muslim Ottoman and Afro-Eurasian heritage as an identity-forming reference point.⁹ Turkey also distances itself from former Western colonial powers by means of anti-colonial rhetoric in international forums. The country is thus asserting its new place in the world with President Erdoğan’s high-profile call for UN Security Council reform under the motto “The world is bigger than five”.¹⁰ In Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East, Turkey has become one of the most significant actors, combining humanitarian and development aid with private direct investment, education and scholarship programmes, arms exports, security and defence agreements, and a diplomatic presence. In so doing, the Turkish model has successfully turned soft power into hard power.

Turkish‑style development aid – an AKP success story?

Under the AKP‑led governments since 2002, development cooperation has gained markedly in importance in Turkey’s foreign policy. One reason for this was that the new AKP leaders initially sought to gain influence over and control of smaller state bodies such as the Turkish development cooperation agency TİKA, because the old Kemalist elites still held firm sway in the major ministerial bureaucracies.¹¹ It is therefore no surprise that today’s foreign minister – Hakan Fidan – headed TİKA from 2003 to 2007 and was appointed head of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization in 2010. Under Fidan’s leadership, TİKA’s activities quadrupled, expanding particularly in the Balkans and in sub‑Saharan Africa. Overall, TİKA’s budget from 2003 to 2013 was five times higher than from 1992 to 2002.¹²

According to its own figures, TİKA operates in 170 countries and maintains 63 overseas offices.¹³ Its original mandate was to coordinate and promote economic, commercial, social, and cultural cooperation with developing countries. The agency also works to promote the teaching of the Turkish language abroad. Founded in 1992 as a department within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, TİKA now reports to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

In its first decade (1992–2002), TİKA focused on cooperation with the Turkic states of Central Asia and with countries in the Balkans that have Turkic-speaking minorities. Turkey saw itself as a natural protecting power that supported the process of state identity-building after the collapse of the Soviet Union by means of policies on Turkish language, culture, and religion. Beginning in 2002, under AKP-led governments, TİKA’s activities expanded globally, most notably through a significant increase in Turkey’s presence in Africa.

TİKA’s programmes align with the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015,¹⁴ which cover areas such as infrastructure, administrative capacity-building, police training, health and education, climate adaptation, and the promotion of the economic and social inclusion of marginalized groups, including women, rural populations, and young people.¹⁵ Like Western agencies, TİKA is active in crisis and conflict management and in state-building. However, democracy promotion and political participation are not part of its remit, nor are they a feature of state-run Turkish development cooperation more broadly.

Alongside TİKA, a range of other state institutions shape Turkey’s international cooperation. Key actors include the Yunus Emre Institute for language and culture,¹⁶ the state-run Maarif Foundation, the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB),¹⁷ the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD),¹⁸ and the semi-state Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay). The Turkish state also works closely with numerous civil society organizations in a highly networked operation. Until 2016, schools and organizations linked to the Gülen movement were seen as useful front organizations for building local contacts and relationships. After the failed coup of 2016, the Turkish state increased its control over Turkish institutions abroad. The many Gülen-affiliated schools and educational establishments overseas were taken over by the newly created state-run Maarif Foundation, which now operates schools, higher-education institutions, and scholarship programmes in more than 60 countries, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia.

Parallel to this network of state and non-state organizations, export-oriented Turkish companies – whose owners are often close to the AKP or to individual members of the government – are important players in this integrated approach. One prominent example is Selçuk Bayraktar – President Erdoğan’s son-in-law, who is Chief Technology Officer of the drone manufacturer and exporter Baykar and a key figure in the research and development of Turkey’s drone programmes. The rise of numerous medium-sized, export-oriented companies in Anatolia in the early 2000s – often referred to as the “Anatolian Tigers” – formed the economic foundation of the AKP’s success model. Conservative small-business owners and entrepreneurs are an important voter base for the AKP leadership and constantly seek new markets.¹⁹ Operating under the umbrella of MÜSİAD – the conservative, AKP-aligned business association – they played a pioneering role in forging close international trade relations.²⁰ When political ties with many Arab states soured after the Arab Spring of 2011, Africa in particular came into focus as a potential market. Following the attempted coup in 2016, Turkey’s defence industry also received a fresh boost and began looking for new customers abroad.²¹

Regional priorities for cooperation

Encouraged by then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, AKP-era foreign policy saw a deliberate return to the legacy of the Ottoman Empire. Described by some observers as “Neo-Ottomanism”, this approach assigned Turkey a role beyond its current geographical borders: For the first time since the staunchly Western orientation of Atatürk and the Kemalist elites, the country diversified its foreign relations towards Africa, the Middle East, and the Muslim regions of Asia.

The historical connections of the Ottoman Empire serve as an ideological touchstone. In countries once within the empire’s sphere of influence, Turkey claims a special duty of solidarity and assistance, emphasizing shared historical, cultural, linguistic, and religious ties.²² Such countries receive five times as much humanitarian aid and development funding as others, while Turkic-speaking Muslim states receive twice as much as other Muslim-majority countries. Under AKP governments, the share of humanitarian aid going to Muslim states has grown, while economic assistance has increasingly been directed to key trading partners.²³

Turkey maintains close bilateral ties with the states of the Balkans and pursues active cultural and religious diplomacy there. Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania are the main recipients of Turkish development funding. Projects range from education and healthcare to support for small businesses and the preservation of Ottoman heritage. The Diyanet²⁴ has offices in every Western Balkan capital except Belgrade.

In the Caucasus, Turkey’s regional policy is shaped by its special relationship with Azerbaijan, which is encapsulated in the principle of “one nation – two states”. Turkey quickly recognized the independence of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia in 1991, and after the Soviet collapse, it regarded the South Caucasus as both part of the Turkic world and a bridge to Central Asia. TİKA has become a visible player in Azerbaijan and Georgia, funding projects in public administration, judicial reform, infrastructure, security, healthcare, education, and cultural heritage preservation. After Russia’s 2008 war in Georgia, TİKA supported reconstruction efforts there.

The states of the Middle East and North Africa receive the largest share of Turkish humanitarian and development funding, with Syria, the Palestinian territories, Iraq, and Libya being the primary recipients. In Syria, Turkey became one of the most active political and humanitarian actors after the civil war began in 2011. Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in 2024 and the subsequent withdrawal of Russian and pro-Iranian or Shi’a militias, Turkey is now considered one of the most influential powers in the country. Even before the regime’s collapse, Turkey had a strong military, humanitarian, and media presence, including a military base in Dabiq, aid agencies such as the Turkish Red Crescent and the İHH Foundation, and an Anadolu News Agency office in Azaz.

In the Palestinian territories, Turkey pursues a policy of solidarity with Palestinian Muslim interests and has long maintained ties with the political wing of the terrorist organization Hamas. Since the Gaza war, the country has expanded its humanitarian aid to the enclave. In Gaza, the Turkish Red Crescent, TİKA, the Ministry of Health, and various Turkish NGOs organize cash relief, field hospitals, medicines, food parcels, drinking water, clothing, hygiene supplies, fuel, and generators. The İHH – a conservative-Islamist NGO supported by the Turkish government – is a key player in Gaza, running an office there that coordinates aid flotillas. It has repeatedly been criticized for alleged cooperation with Islamist groups.²⁵

Over the past two decades, Turkey has significantly expanded and diversified its presence in Africa, emerging as a visible actor and investor in diplomacy, development cooperation, humanitarian aid, security, and defence. Turkey’s development agency TİKA now operates 18 overseas offices in sub-Saharan Africa. The state-run Maarif Foundation runs 160 schools in 25 sub-Saharan countries, most of them in West Africa – especially in Mali – while the Yunus Emre Institute maintains cultural centres in nine African states.

Linking humanitarian aid, trade promotion, and regional interests

Over the last twenty years, development cooperation and humanitarian aid have helped establish Turkey as a recognized donor state worldwide, serving both its “nation-branding” ambitions and its drive to build soft power across multiple regions.²⁶ Civilian and humanitarian engagement combined with active peace diplomacy²⁷ often paves the way for deeper ties in trade, energy, and defence agreements. Recipient countries have in many cases also supported Turkey’s positions in UN votes.²⁸

Development partnerships and foreign trade promotion go hand in hand, often reinforcing each other. Turkish aid flows correlate positively with trade volumes in recipient countries. What is more, state-owned or politically connected companies are frequently involved in reconstruction efforts – for example, after the second Nagorno-Karabakh war or currently in Syria following the fall of the Assad regime.

The synergy between development cooperation, diplomacy, and export promotion is particularly striking in Africa. The Foreign Economic Relations Board – which coordinates Turkey’s private-sector relations abroad – runs 48 business councils across Africa²⁹ compared with France’s 13 regional offices via Business France. Ankara views Africa as a vast market for Turkish contractors and service providers in fields such as infrastructure, hospitality, textiles, furniture, and defence.³⁰ The state provides political backing for Turkish business in Africa, easing visa rules for African nationals and granting full visa exemption to many countries. In 2002, Turkey maintained only 12 embassies in Africa; today, it has 44. Turkish Airlines – the semi-state carrier – now flies to 51 destinations in 39 sub-Saharan states.³¹

In Africa in particular, Turkey’s geopolitical, diplomatic, and development policies complement one another. Since declaring 2005 its “Year of Africa”, Turkey has pursued a notably successful soft-power strategy on the continent. This strategy has been supported by a public diplomacy campaign led by First Lady Emine Erdoğan, who has accompanied her husband to more than two dozen sub-Saharan countries and in 2016 opened the “Africa House” in Ankara to support African women entrepreneurs. In recent years, a defence export strategy has been added to this mix. The sale of Turkish military equipment – most notably Baykar’s flagship Bayraktar TB2 drone – has been used as political capital in what is sometimes referred to as “drone diplomacy”. Turkey has signed bilateral security and defence agreements with more than 30 African states and conducts military training missions in 21 of them.³²

Countries such as Somalia, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Afghanistan illustrate Turkey’s highly integrated approach of combining humanitarian, development, diplomatic, economic, and military engagement. Somalia and Afghanistan in particular show how humanitarian aid can open the door to deeper strategic partnerships while also positioning Turkey as a Muslim NATO member that is able to act as a bridge between worlds.

Turkey’s leading role as humanitarian donor, security partner, and investor of Somalia

During the 2011 humanitarian crisis, Turkey was one of the first countries to establish a presence in Somalia and to demonstrate solidarity. President Erdoğan’s high-profile visits from that year onwards laid the groundwork for what remains a unique, multi-dimensional partnership between the two states. Somalia today serves as Turkey’s “gateway” to Africa, with Turkey now being Somalia’s largest aid donor, partner, and investor. The TİKA office in Mogadishu implements a wide range of projects in infrastructure, education, and health. Closed at the outbreak of the civil war in 1991, the Turkish embassy in Mogadishu was reopened in 2011, after which the consulate general in Hargeisa was opened in 2014. Extensive scholarship programmes for Somali students, direct investments, and a Turkish diaspora of businesspeople, doctors, engineers, and aid workers have fostered close interpersonal ties, thereby strengthening Turkey’s cultural influence and soft power in Somalia. “Istanbul” has even become a common female name in the country.³³

Since 2017, Turkey has operated its largest overseas military base – Camp Turksom – in Mogadishu for training Somali security forces and now aims to establish a naval base in East Africa. Turkish companies run Mogadishu’s international airport and seaport as well as major hotels and hospitals. In late 2024, Turkey announced plans to build a spaceport in Somalia for rocket testing.³⁴ Since 2020, Ankara has also shown interest in exploiting Somalia’s offshore oil fields.

On the diplomatic front, Turkey acts as a mediator in regional disputes. Since 2013, the country has facilitated talks between Somalia and the breakaway autonomous region of Somaliland and has also played a prominent role in the Somali peace process. In December 2024, Turkish mediation produced the Ankara Declaration, marking the first step towards rapprochement between Somalia and Ethiopia.

However, with Turkey’s growing political, geoeconomic, and military engagement in the Horn of Africa, resistance and criticism have also increased. A July 2024 agreement between the Turkish Petroleum Corporation and the Somali Petroleum Authority to develop oil and gas resources provoked strong domestic criticism and resistance.³⁵ Additionally, since 2013, Turkish interests and facilities have been repeatedly targeted by the terrorist group Al-Shabaab.

Turkey as a muslim NATO member and mediator for Afghanistan

Until the Taliban takeover in 2021, Turkey was a military and development partner to successive Afghan governments. Alongside the US, Germany, Italy, the UK, Georgia, and Romania, Turkey remained one of the largest contributors of troops in the country. Despite its military presence, Turkey sought to be perceived as both civilian and culturally sensitive. The Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) that the country led for NATO in Wardak and Jawzjan provinces were the only PRTs headed by civilian diplomats. Turkey also ran its largest development programme in Afghanistan. The Maarif Foundation operated 45 schools – including many girls’ schools – and offered education programmes for women. More than 4,000 scholarships were awarded to Afghan students.³⁶

As NATO’s only Muslim member, Turkey leveraged its position to act as a mediator in Afghan peace talks (“Istanbul Process”). Thanks to close ties with Qatar, the country enjoyed trusted communication channels with the Taliban leadership in Doha at the time. Throughout the two-decade war, Turkish Airlines maintained one of the few international flight connections to Afghanistan – a lifeline for many foreign aid organizations operating there. After the Taliban takeover, Turkey kept its embassy in Kabul open and today maintains political relations with the Taliban government alongside countries such as China, Russia, Japan, and India.

Overall assessment of international cooperation

The emergence of new donors such as China, India, the Gulf states, and Brazil has intensified competition in the global aid landscape. Turkey has successfully used its role as a humanitarian and development donor to expand its global profile and to secure regional interests. Equally important to its influence are Turkish scholarship programmes, a vast network of direct flights operated by the semi-state-owned Turkish Airlines, and direct investments promising tangible benefits for the local population.

At first sight, Ankara seems to have tapped into the spirit of the times in international relations, appealing to the desire of the “Global South” for “greater equality” and “win-win partnerships” instead of Western values-based policies and “patronising” approaches. In many partner countries, Turkey enjoys greater acceptance and goodwill than Western donors – and more than China. The country has benefited from the West’s loss of prestige as well as from rising scepticism towards Beijing in an era of post-colonialism, multipolar alliances, emerging regional powers, and growing prosperity aspirations in the “Global South”.

However, despite the considerable soft power Turkey has built up in many regions, challenges remain. For instance, the ongoing economic and inflation crisis in Turkey since 2018 has limited the country’s financial resources. One structural weakness of Turkish development cooperation is its low ODA transparency: In the 2022 Aid Transparency Index, TİKA ranked 49th out of 50.³⁷ This situation makes it difficult to distinguish between rhetoric – or “nation-branding” – on the one hand and the reality on the ground on the other hand.

Turkey’s increased military engagement in Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Sudan – combined with an active foreign economic policy aimed at securing raw materials and export markets as well as its support for certain religious and political groups – could provoke more resistance and conflict, thereby undermining its credibility as a neutral donor. Turkey is no longer simply a humanitarian actor: Indeed, in many parts of the world, it now competes directly with other players for political and economic influence. The country’s political, military, and geoeconomic presence inevitably generates political pushback. However, despite these challenges, Turkey’s influence at the crossroads of Asia, Europe, and Africa is set to continue growing.

Given Ankara’s expanded role in many world regions, Germany can draw lessons from both the strengths and the weaknesses of the Turkish model. Germany’s international engagement should place greater emphasis on market-oriented approaches and on the promotion of trade and investment in order to foster genuinely “win-win” relationships rather than perpetuating aid economies and donor-recipient dependencies. Genuine local ownership cannot be created through transfer payments alone.

Partnership on equal terms does not mean that Germany has to set aside its national interests. Instead, the different strands of foreign relations – that is, diplomacy, security, and defence as well as economic and development cooperation – need to be strategically interlinked. In operational contexts, multiple national interests often have to be considered at the same time: national and collective defence; countering disinformation, crime, and terrorism; protecting supply chains, export markets, and overseas investments; securing energy and raw materials; safeguarding the ecosystem; and managing migration.

Germany must remain aware of how its actions are perceived locally. By drawing on local expertise and cultural sensitivity, international engagement can better take account of local concerns. Attempting to transplant domestic socio-political debates into other countries and societies either fails to resonate or – at worst – provokes rejection. International cooperation is particularly likely to gain acceptance when it delivers practical, tangible improvements for the local population without placing Germany’s own values centre stage.³⁸ The tension between values and interests can – contrary to what is suggested by the Turkish model – never be entirely eliminated, but a pragmatic, less ideologically driven, and in some areas more politically restrained approach could prove more effective.

Dr Ellinor Zeino is Head of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung’s Turkey Office.

1. 2018 figures show Turkey providing 8.07 billion US dollars in humanitarian aid, followed by the US (6.68 billion), Germany (2.98 billion), the UK (2.52 billion), and the EU (2.25 billion). Cihangir-Tetik and Meltem Müftüler-Baç, “A comparison of development assistance policies: Turkey and the European Union in sectoral and humanitarian aid”, Journal of European Integration, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 439–457, published 27 February 2020, https://ogy.de/6uap, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
2. Birce Beşgül, “The Evolution of TİKA: A Case Study in Turkish Soft Power Projection”, in Liberal Düşünce, vol. 29, no. 115, pp. 57–82, here p. 66, published 28 September 2024, https://ogy.de/7dua, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
3. The high ODA ratio is due mainly to the fact that a large share of the aid for Syrian refugees in Turkey is included in the figure. Yavuz Tüyloğlu, “Turkish Development Assistance as a Foreign Policy Tool and Its Discordant Locations”, in Working Paper 02, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, pp. 6–8, published April 2021, https://ogy.de/xtvp, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
4. Meliha Benli Altunısık, “Turkey’s Humanitarian Diplomacy:The AKP Model”, in CMI Brief, no. 8, Chr. Michelsen Institute, p. 2, published September 2022, https://ogy.de/7ags, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
5. The OECD offered Turkey DAC membership in 2012. Tüyloğlu 2021, n. 3, p. 25.↩︎
6. Hikmet Mengüaslan, “Turkish Aid Allocation in Turbulent Times: Changes and Continuities in Turkish Aid Modality”, Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üniversitesi, pp. 135–160, here p. 147, published October 2023, https://ogy.de/c3oh, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
7. Devecioğlu, Kaan, “Türkiye’s Vision for Africa: Humanitarian Diplomacy and Development Cooperation”, in Insight Turkey by SETA Foundation, vol. 26, no. 3, p. 147, published 9 October 2024, https://ogy.de/k1vu, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
8. Following the founding of the Turkish Republic by Kemal Atatürk in 1923, the political and societal elites sought cultural alignment with Europe and, from 1952 onward, integration into the Western NATO alliance. Kemalism represented a departure from the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, the exclusion of religion from the public sphere, and the establishment of laicism as a constitutional principle. In 1996, Necmettin Erbakan, a representative of the ideological milieu of the Muslim Brotherhood, became the first Islamist prime minister. The AKP likewise advocates a (re)orientation towards religious values and the heritage of the Ottoman Empire.↩︎
9. Abdurrahim Sıradağ, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy Toward Africa: Three Levels of Analysis”, in Journal of Asian and African Studies, vol. 60, no. 4, pp. 2257–2270, published 7 December 2023, https://ogy.de/7zea, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
10. In his 2021 book “A Fairer World is Possible” (original title: “Daha Adil Bir Dünya Mümkün”), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan calls for a reform of the UN Security Council.↩︎
11. Reuben Silverman, “The ‘Shadow’ Foreign Minister Steps into the Light: Hakan Fidan Enters the Cabinet”, The Türkiye Analyst, published 14 June 2023, https://ogy.de/1i8q, accessed 1 July 2025.↩︎
12. Erman Akıllı and Bengü Çelenk, “TİKA’s Soft Power: Nation Branding in Turkish Foreign Policy”, in Insight Turkey by SETA Foundation, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 135–151, here p. 143, published 12 September 2018, https://ogy.de/mvs4, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
13. Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA), About Us, TİKA Website, https://ogy.de/3up8, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
14. TİKA, Development Assistance Report of Türkiye 2021, pp. 30 ff., TİKA Website, published 2022, https://ogy.de/lldv, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
15. TİKA, TİKA Annual Reports, TİKA Website, https://ogy.de/15sk, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
16. Founded in 2007 and named after the Anatolian poet and mystic, the Yunus-Emre-Institute now has more than 50 locations worldwide, including branches in Berlin, Cologne, and Vienna.↩︎
17. Established in 2010, the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (Yurtdışı Türkler ve Akraba Topluluklar Başkanlığı, YTB) is – alongside Diyanet – the most important instrument of Turkey’s diaspora policy and reports directly to the president. It maintains a dense network of representatives in almost every European country.↩︎
18. The Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (Afet ve Acil Durum Yönetimi Başkanlığı, AFAD) has regional emergency and disaster response offices in all 81 Turkish provinces and is also responsible for international humanitarian aid, e.g. in Syria. It reports to the Ministry of the Interior.↩︎
19. Toni Alaranta, “Turkey in Afrika. Chasing markets and power with a neo-ottoman rhetoric”, in FIIA Briefing Paper 280, Finnish Institute of International Affairs, p. 3, published April 2020, https://ogy.de/80cy, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
20. Sıradağ 2023, n. 9, p. 8.↩︎
21. Ibid., p. 10.↩︎
22. Devecioğlu 2024, n. 7, p. 139.↩︎
23. Under AKP governments, the share of humanitarian aid going to Muslim states has grown, while economic assistance has increasingly been directed to key trading partners. Kerim Can Kavakli, “Domestic Politics and the Motives of Emerging Donors: Evidence from Turkish Foreign Aid”, in Political Research Quarterly, vol. 71, no. 3, pp. 614–627, published 19 January 2018, https://ogy.de/vpwz, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
24. As a state institution reporting directly to the presidency, Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (DIB, or Diyanet) runs Turkish state mosques in over 140 countries in addition to restoring religious and historic sites. It posts advisers (müşavir) and attachés to embassies and consulates and plays a leading role in Islamic cultural diplomacy, especially in Turkic-speaking Central Asian states, such as Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.↩︎
25. European Parliament, Controversial aims of the IHH organisation, Question for written answer E-010094/2010 to the Commission. Rule 117, European Parliament Website, published 18 November 2010, https://ogy.de/r09j, accessed 2 July 2025; Institute for NGO Research, IHH (Insani Yardim Vakfi) – Turkey, NGO Monitor Website, published 17 March 2025, https://ogy.de/jnw4, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
26. Akıllı and Çelenk 2018, n. 11.↩︎
27. In the Global Diplomacy Index 2024, Turkey ranks third worldwide – behind only China and the US – as the most active diplomatic actor. Lowy Institute, Global Diplomacy Index, Lowy Institute Website, published 2024, https://ogy.de/x4gw, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
28. This visibility helped secure enough votes in 2008 for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Tüyloğlu 2021, n. 3, p. 23.↩︎
29. Foreign Economic Relations Board, Türkiye – Africa Business Councils, DEİK Website, https://ogy.de/j3vl, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
30. Ulf Laessing, “Türkei – die neue Großmacht in Afrika”, in loyal, Verband der Reservisten der Deutschen Bundeswehr, pp. 38–41, published 24 May 2024, https://ogy.de/eeuc, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
31. Yeni Şafak, Turkish Airlines aims to integrate Africa with world, Yeni Şafak Website, published 12 March 2025, https://ogy.de/72bu, accessed 23 July 2025.↩︎
32. Nebahat Tanrıverdi Yaşar, “A relational approach to Turkey’s security engagement with African states”, in European Journal of International Security, pp. 1–19, here p. 11., published 19 March 2025, https://ogy.de/mih2, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
33. Mohammed Dhaysane, ‘Istanbul’ a common female name in Somalia as Turkish influence gains momentum, Anadolu Agency Website, published 24 December 2021, https://bit.ly/40WaQMP, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
34. The Economist, Turkey is building a spaceport in Somalia, The Economist Website, published 6 February 2025, https://ogy.de/b0t6, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
35. Sheriff Bojang Jnr, Why Somalia’s oil deal with Turkiye is facing growing backlash, The Africa Report Website, published 24 April 2025, https://ogy.de/e7un, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
36. Meliha Benli Altunisik, “Humanitarian diplomacy as Turkey’s national role conception and performance: evidence from Somalia and Afghanistan”, in Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, vol. 23, no. 3, published 7 October 2022, pp. 657–673, here pp. 665–666, https://ogy.de/q6l0, accessed 2 July 2025.↩︎
37. Publish What You Fund, Aid Transparency Index 2022, Publish What You Fund Website, https://ogy.de/c2e4, accessed 23 July 2025.↩︎
38. Problems such as the lack of local acceptance, the fostering of aid dependency, and the absence of coherent objectives were among the many issues highlighted by the Bundestag’s 20th electoral term. Deutscher Bundestag, Interim Report, Study Commission on Lessons from Afghanistan for Germany’s Comprehensive International Engagement in the Future, Deutscher Bundestag Website, https://ogy.de/xevq, accessed 23 July 2025.↩︎