Development policy

The federal state of Hesse is self-conscious of the challenges of globalization. The federal state government (Landesregierung) supports the numerous actors of the civil society in their international relations and helps whenever its intervention as facilitator is necessary in order to provide access for private measures and programs.

Through development cooperation, Hesse contributes to the promotion of trade and economic development as well as to ensuring the protection of human rights and the promotion of peace and understanding among nations. This way, Hesse contributes to the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Economic development is a necessary condition in order to eliminate poverty. Strengthening the private sector helps enabling economic growth, employment, leads to employee qualification and generates income. Hence, Hesse’s development cooperation concentrates on projects aiming at economic growth and the integration of its partners into the global market. This represents also a means of improving the conditions in developing countries for foreign private investments. To achieve these purposes the government of Hesse works close together with associations and organizations active in the field of development cooperation, notably with the Network for Development Policy in Hesse (Entwicklungspolitisches Netzwerk Hessen) and with local actors of the economy.

Hesse supports above all educational projects as well as projects facilitating the transfer of know-how and the strengthening of market-oriented economies – from self-help projects to qualification projects in international marketing.

These measures also include the promotion of Fair Trade. On the one hand, Fair Trade is a means of supporting producers in developing countries; on the other hand, it provides opportunities for action to citizens who, in their role as consumers, wish to contribute to a fair shaping of globalisation.

The federal state of Hesse supports development education and information, on globalisation issues and education for sustainable development, following the motto „shared responsibility in thinking and acting“. This enhances the understanding of global inter-dependencies and encourages cooperation with partners in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Development cooperation in the Free State of Bavaria aims at making the greatest possible contribution to the worldwide fight against poverty and to sustainable and peaceful development, as well as to international understanding. The state wants to improve the living conditions of people in developing and emerging countries and strengthen Good Governance. All this is based on the Guidelines of Development Policy Cooperation of the Free State of Bavaria which were approved on April 30th 2013 by the Government of Bavaria.

Bavaria is committed to many aspects of development cooperation and covers a lot of different topics, including Good Governance, policy and institutional consulting, sustainable economic development, climate protection, environment and energy, scientific and technological cooperation, food security and rural areas, city development and building industry as well as culture, migration and development.

The cooperation with selected countries is based on mutual partnership, it strengthens the own responsibility of the partner countries, it offers aid for self-help and ensures subsidiary and observance of international conventions and standards.

The cultivation and development of relations with partner regions of the Free State of Bavaria play a special role thanks to a high level of mutual interest for cooperation. Besides these selected partner countries, the Free State of Bavaria is open to cooperation programs with other countries.

Furthermore, the Free State of Bavaria intends to achieve a better understanding among the local population of the problems developing and emerging countries are facing, to demonstrate global connections and interdependencies as well as to contribute to sustainable development worldwide. This is why international activities are complemented by domestic activities such as development education and information in schools and extra-curricular activities, network building and cooperation with non-governmental organisations in the
“One-World” sector.

Within the Bavarian State Government, the Bavarian State Chancellery is the coordinator of development policy and, in the case of inter-departmental issues, it has the leading role. The respective government departments carry out measures on their own responsibility.

Think globally, act locally: This is the goal that Berlin’s Office for Development Cooperation (Landesstelle für Entwicklungszusammenarbeit des Landes Berlin - LEZ) aims to live up to through a variety of activities. Over 100 embassies, numerous international associations and political foundations as well as over 300 development actors make Berlin to a centre of multifaceted international knowledge and of outstanding worldwide contact and communication opportunities.

The LEZ and Berlin’s Senate are supported in their work by the Advisory Board for Development Cooperation (Beirat für Entwicklungszusammenarbeit), a committee of experts in development policy. The management of project funding for Berlin’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is taken over by the Foundation North-South Bridges (Stiftung Nord-Süd Brücken - SNSB) on behalf of the LEZ. Civic engagement also makes an important contribution to Berlin‘s development cooperation and is largely represented and supported
through Berlin’s Development Cooperation Council (Berliner Entwicklungspolitischer Ratschlag – BER). BER is an important reference point for NGOs and initiates discussion processes with and within the civil society.

In June 2012, the Berlin Senate adopted the new Development Policy Guidelines. Hereby competence fields were established on which Berlin focuses its development policy. These include: development educational and information work, maintaining town partnerships,
training of specialists and managers on an international scale as well as exercising its network function as the federal capital. The new Guidelines stand for Berlin’s decision to modernize its development cooperation work. They recognize the need for a worldwide development of all states and supersede the idea of a one-sided development policy of giving and receiving. This is to be pursued through equitable international policies which equally take into consideration the responsibility towards economic weaker countries.

The Guidelines point to the inter-dependency between development cooperation and international and inter-cultural cooperation in the fields of economy, culture, education, science, public sector and migration.

Within the field of development cooperation, Berlin dedicates special attention to the development of skills in Global Learning, i.e. in understanding global inter-dependencies as well as to the promotion of Fair Trade and fair procurement. Berlin sees the main task of its commitment therefore in development education. Here, the LEZ is supported by the Development Education and Information Centre (Entwicklungspolitisches Bildungs- und Informationszentrum e.V. - EPIZ) as well as by the Foundation North-South Bridges (SNSB). By conveying knowledge about foreign cultures and countries and clarifying the causes of negative developments in industrialized and developing countries the reputation of Berlin as a cosmopolitan and tolerant city gets consolidated.

The large number of refugees and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals create new challenges for Berlin. As a contribution to Berlin’s refugee policy, the LEZ will deal with the areas of migration, integration and welcoming culture and hence implement one of the guiding principles of the Development Policy Guidelines. To implement the Sustainable Development Goals the LEZ will develop and support initiatives.

Organizations such as the GIZ (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), Engagement Global, German Institute for Development (Deutsches Institut für Entwicklung – DIE), Berlin’s Association for International Cooperation (Berliner Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit mbH – BGZ), Seminar for Rural Development (Seminar für ländliche Entwicklung – SLE) are important partners of Berlin’s development policy. Also, close cooperation takes place with the ASA-Programme as well as the Alumni programme of the Technical
University of Berlin. Joint events are organized within forums for international exchange of experiences.

On the initiative of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung – BMZ) the federal states have initiated a “Promoter”- Program (Promotor/innen-Programm). The One-World-Promoters work within development organizations and initiatives. These experts promote global responsible thinking and acting and mobilize for more commitment to issues of sustainable development. Berlin’s Promoter-Program is coordinated by Berlin’s Development
Cooperation Council (BER) and managed by the Foundation North-South Bridges (SNSB). Currently, eight Promoters are working in the following fields of action: strengthening civic engagement, fair and sustainable economy, decolonization and anti-racism, Global
Learning, climate and resource justice as well as municipal development cooperation.

The LEZ supports a variety of NGOs developmental projects in the area of development education and information work as well as school and town partnership projects. The support of NGOs particularly enables the LEZ to shape and encourage a wide range of development education and volunteer work.

The development support of Berlin’s NGOs was very positively evaluated in 2010. To further promote their work and to gain the interest of more citizens in development policy areas, the LEZ is supporting the creation of a One World Centre (Eine-Welt-Zentrum). The project aims to become a key development site in Berlin.

In addition to national initiatives, the LEZ also promotes European projects. Between 2013 and 2015, the LEZ carried out a follow-up project of the Europe Aid award-winning „Awareness for Fairness“, which had aimed to improve the quality of Global Learning and anchor the concept in the educational landscape of the EU. The program intends to anchor developmental subjects more in school and non-school curricula as well as in teaching practices.

The implementation of the project “Global Fairness” serves LEZ’s policy objectives in development cooperation in the subject area Global Learning and strengthens Berlin’s town partnership with Prague. In the long term, the purpose is to achieve more awareness of global fairness issues and ultimately changes in consumer behavior.

In collaboration with European partners and the EPIZ e.V., Berlin promotes the cooperation of committed stakeholders and the establishment and improvement of networks in the field of sustainable development and good governance. With Berlin as lead partner and in cooperation with BGZ and EPIZ e.V., the project TriNet Global – “Local Authorities, Business Sector and Universities as Agents for Change” has been successfully implemented. The exchange of best practice and the innovative implementation of projects are supposed to strengthen sustainable development and the involvement of cities, industry and universities. Berlin’s focus within these projects were discussions and workshops on city infrastructure and its improvement on a global scale, promoting companies participation in international activities as well as the development and pilot-like implementation of learning modules for Global Learning in universities. As part of the Asia-Pacific Weeks 2015 and TriNet Global, new approaches and strategies for the implementation of Innovation Labs as a multi-stakeholder approach to development cooperation were worked on by participants in an interactive workshop.

The non-profit association "Bund für Bildung" translates socially relevant issues into educational projects. The focus is on issues of inclusion, participation and democracy.

To achieve its goal of creating a 'world for all people,' Terre des Hommes functions as an advocate for children's rights, grass-roots movement in terms of development policy, and citizens' action groups. Terre des Hommes raises funds to support development projects that enable people to actively shape their own destinies. At the same time, structures here in the North must change. To that end, Terre des Hommes fosters development policy in the North and stands up for "global learning".

The student solidarity campaign
With this campaign, learning is no longer restricted to the classroom. Schools or individual classes can choose from a variety of projects particularly interesting for students, and support this project once or on a regular basis. Terre des Hommes provides media and class material for the individual projects.

Children for the rights of children
Terre des Hommes also stands up for the rights of children. It is understood that children are most welcome to join the work of Terre des Hommes, for example in one of the teams where children fight for other children's rights. Children and adolescents form groups and teams with friends, develop creative campaigns, and are responsible for their realization. Terre des Hommes supports them by providing material and ideas.

Material
Terre des Hommes provides books for children and adolescents of different age groups. These books describe the life of young people in the South. Collections of slides on different topics, countries, and projects can be borrowed. Many of those collections are already available on CD-ROM. Above that, there are various wall newspapers, leaflets, posters, comics, and videos. The Terre des Hommes website contains pages for children and students.

The Free State of Saxony supports the goal of a sustainable develop-ment according to the Millennium Declaration of the United Nations 2000. Sharing the responsibility with the federal government and the municipalities, the state of Saxony attempts to contribute to and promote development cooperation. This was reconfirmed through the signing of the 2014 Resolution on Development Policy of the Minister Presidents of the German Federal States.

Youth with disability forum is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization established in 2005 in Belgrade operating all throughout the Republic of Serbia. The activities are implemented by regional offices in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Kragujevac. The main objectives and mission of the organization are defined in the Youth with disability forum’s Statutes, some of which imply advocating society of equal opportunities and service and support provision to different beneficiaries.
As a cross-disability and cross diversity non-profit organization, Forum advocating for and representing the interests of young persons, to address the need for improved participation of civil society with emphasis on youth, in the democratic processes in general, and decision-making on the issues affecting young persons in particular.
Advocating for the development of cross-sectoral cooperation, and dialogue represents one of Forum’s priorities and in a very short while our organization established partnerships with a large number of stakeholders from different sectors (public, business, media, ect ). Also, the organizations entered into partnership with many civil society organizations both from Serbia and region Western Balkans.
The key capacities of the organization mostly refer to human resources, with advance knowledge and skills in many fields, particularly project management. The logistic and operative capacities of the organization are another advantage proved by the fact that we have been delegated the organization of several regional conferences by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy as well as other donors.
The projects have been successfully implemented; some are to be continued on the request of the broader community. It serves as a proof of effective realization and ability for implementation of sustainable actions. Committed to excellence is seen as our additional strength, coupled with permanent efforts to improve the quality of results in accordance with the methodologies (EFQM).
Our organization is not based on membership fee, but is open to all young people willing to participate and contribute to the establishment of equal opportunities society in the Republic of Serbia.

Mission is -promoting European values; to enhance: the civil society development, the democratic process of governance, sustainable development of local community, and promotion of new culture of change and conflict managment.

Vision is -Serbia and Yugoslavia are equal members of the European community of nations.

Intention is -supporting peaceful resolution of conflicts between individuals and community, promotion of the idea of justice and standing up against every kind of violence; developing and maintaining co-operation between citizens and communities in FRY and the world; development of non-profitable sector in FRY; respecting human dignity and against violation of human rights; founding market economy.

Obligation is - articulation and developing of the values of civil society; development of sustainable NGOs; development of a sustainable local community; development of an open forum of citizens and organisations (at the local, regional and national level) aimed at facilitating dialog, exchange of information, advancing mutual understanding, solidarity, co-operation and communication.

Principles are - Investing in peoples´ knowledge and skills is an efficient way for institutional development and promotion change; Training is a tool for capacity building but also for changing attitudes and stimulate initiative at community level; Collaboration and expertise exchange at regional and national level are efficient ways for learning from each others´ successes and failures; Participatory and interactive problem solving processes build partnerships and prevent conflicts; Autonomous, accountable and active local governments are the foundation of democracy; Effective and efficient local governments are crucial for the change management and local development processes; For effective & efficient local governance is more important to have knowledge and skills than capital investment.