Development cooperation

Difäm, the German Institute for Medical Mission, based in Tübingen, was founded in 1906. It is a specialized advisory center, medical relief organization and bearer of the Paul Lechler Clinic for Tropical Diseases. We provide support to development and relief organizations worldwide (for example: Brot für die Welt [bread for the world], social welfare work and disaster aid) for the implementation of health projects; we assist our local partners in planning their projects and offer them ongoing support.

Our doctors have run health programs in southern countries for years and can thus provide the necessary specialized knowledge. Our main goal is to establish a firm basis for sustainable health care by promoting basic health care services and home health care. With our seminars in public health and treatment of tropical diseases, we further the training of local health care specialists and of qualified personnel.

Difäm promotes and carries out projects that help patients suffering from disabilities or diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis, and leprosy. Our medical aid service provides indispensable medicine, medical tools and auxiliary materials etc. for partner clinics and health care stations in over 90 countries around the world. Our long-term goal, however, is to make these countries independent of foreign aid. For this reason, Difäm provides raw materials, tools and training for local personnel in order to support the local production of pharmaceuticals. In addition to providing direct aid, we are also active in political lobbying and public campaigns for the right to health care.

The Foundation Education and Development is the Swiss centre for Global Education. We support teachers in Switzerland at all levels in their daily work by giving them impulses for their lessons which are directed towards a viable development in a global society. We sell and lend over 800 tried and tested teaching aids in German, French and Italian language. We provide teacher training. We inform and advise with relation to Global Education. We are part of a network of national and international organisations having similar aims. The services of the Foundation Education and Development are available at four regional centres throughout Switzerland: in the German and Rhaeto-Romanic-speaking region, in the French-speaking region, and in the Italian-speaking region.

The ÖFSE is the largest Austrian institution that provides information on issues concerning developing countries, development cooperation, and development policy. The ÖFSE has the most extensive specialized library in Austria on general questions regarding those fields, on recent developments in the Southern countries, and on specific questions regarding Austrian development cooperation. The scientific department of the ÖFSE offers analyses as well as expert advice. In addition, it encourages reflecting and thinking processes and organizes discussions on the following topics: educational cooperation, promoting education, development theory and development cooperation, Austrian development policy, international relations, world economy, and political, economic, and social structures in developing countries. The organization cooperates closely with related institutions all over Europe and the world.

Since October 2010, the responsibility for the “One-World”-policy in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) has been in the hands of the State Chancellery section of the Ministry for Federal, Europe and International Affairs. In December 2012, the Cabinet passed on a new „One-World”-Strategy, through which North Rhine-Westphalia underlines its global responsibility as the most populous federal state in Germany. The new “One-World”-Strategy functions as the basis for the future development work in North Rhine-Westphalia and for its development cooperation with partners in countries of the South. The strategy states the six strategic fields of action of the development contribution of North Rhine-Westphalia: education and youth; science and research; climate protection; economy; Good Governance and administrative action; participation of the civil society. Basic principles of the North Rhine-Westphalian involvement are global justice, sustainability, inter-departmental coherence and concentration.

In collaboration with German and Filipino associations, the organisation aims to implement and support projects concerned with environmental education, conservation of species and resources, and development cooperation in order to facilitate sustainable society development.
The organisation's concern is to motivate others to act responsible with regard to the principle of sustainability and North-South equitability, as well as teaching the necessary skills.

The State Government of Schleswig-Holstein supports development policy initiatives through, among other things, an annual financial contribution to the One-World Network (Landesnetzwerk Bündnis Eine Welt – BEI) as well as to the Promoter Program (Promotorenprogramm), whereas four positions have been created in 2012 in cooperation with the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Furthermore, Schleswig-Holstein works hand in hand on the basis of mutual trust with BEI within the framework of nationwide committees for development cooperation.

The Ministry for Energy, Agriculture, Environment, Nature and Digitalization (Ministerium für Energiewende, Landwirtschaft, Umwelt, Natur und Digitalisierung - MELUR) also cooperates with the Service Agency Communities in One World (Servicestelle Kommunen in der Einen Welt) and the Lutheran-Protestant Church of Northern Germany. A high-level agreement was signed with the Church of Northern Germany. Development projects by non-governmental organizations are subsidised by BINGO, the state-owned lottery.

Beside the support of municipal and school-related North-South partnerships, MELUR prioritizes awareness-raising measures, for example in the areas of sustainable and fair procurement and Fair Trade as well as educational work within the UNESCO Global Action Prorgramme on Education for Sustainable Development. These projects are run by the Ministry, mostly in cooperation with the “Educational Centre for Nature, Environment and Rural Areas” (Bildungszentrum für Natur, Umwelt und ländliche Räume – BNUR). Global Learning
and development policy subjects are also part of educational work in schools within the framework of Schleswig-Holstein’s initiative “School of the Future.SH” (Zukunftsschule.SH). Several schools have already contributed to projects in this area.

With the aim of supporting climate protection, Schleswig-Holstein has joined the Initiative “Global Climate Leadership” in 2015. MELUR supports the cooperation between participants from the economic and academic sectors in Schleswig-Holstein, who, together with their Mexican partners, work in the field of renewable energies and climate protection within the framework of the German-Mexican Climate Alliance.

Every year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the WTSH GmbH jointly fund a training program for specialized personnel from the Chinese province of Zhejiang.

Multi-facetted cooperation with developing countries exists in the area of university research and educational work.

bezev engages itself in various fields in order to improve the life of people with disabilities, especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America. bezev is an education and information centre and acts as an interface between theory and practice. bezev intends to establish a closer network between the academic knowledge of Special Education and the practical work of development cooperation agencies. bezev performs lobbying work in the area of development policy. People with disability should be involved on an equal footing in all development policy schemes.

(wlp)° - the world lecture project is an online library for video lectures in any language and of any faculty from all over the world. The project is collecting all links to video lectures and their meta data in one freely accessible database. A search engine helps the users to find the lecture of their choice easily. They can search lectures according to various criteria: theme, faculty, country, language and others. Everyone can contribute to broadening (wlp)°'s lecture fund. Once registered it is easy to put new lectures onto the data base or to complete the data of the lectures that are already available. (wlp)° is looking for partners across the globe who contribute in facilitating the exchange and the access of knowledge for everyone – everywhere. The World Academy of Young Scientists (WAYS) and Young-People Platform in Agricultural Research (YPARD) for Development are already collaborating with (wlp)°.

The Institute for Environmental and Sustainability Communication was founded in 1996. Today, it is part of the Faculty of Environmental Technology at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg. The institute's academic staff carries out research, teaching, and knowledge-transfer activities related to environment and sustainability communication. Scientific analysis, theory elaboration, and concept development are the key components of all research projects carried out at this institute. Their objective is to promote the development of competencies at the individual, institutional, and collective levels in order to create a future based on the principle of sustainability. In the autumn of 2005, this institute was awarded the UNESCO Chair in Higher Education for Sustainable Development. The Chair's goal is to integrate the principle of sustainability into teaching activities and strengthen the institute's international orientation by establishing new cooperative ventures.