Environment

Since 2010, Support Malawi Heidelberg e. V.  promotes miscellaneous education projects with various focus in north and central Malawi.

The BEI was established in 1994 as an umbrella association for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in order to set the stage for more coordinated and co-operative development projects. The BEI's main objective is to create a network and provide assistance for the development projects of its 65 associated member organizations. These organizations focus on different aspects of development policy-related work and have different political approaches to achieve solidarity in our "One World." Their main objectives include:

• to promote education on development policy, public relations and intercultural communication in Schleswig-Holstein
• to support the Human Rights Movement and the Emancipation Movement in developing countries
• to co-operate in development projects with partner organizations in developing countries - to promote Fair Trade
• to support the Agenda 21 goals
• to provide information about the countries of origin of immigrants and refugees, reasons for migration and refugee flows, and racism
• to promote environment and climate protection

The BEI aims to establish a network for these different One World projects, which are carried out by full time and voluntary workers. The association wants to provide support and training for the involved partners, and aims to represent their and its own development policy concerns in terms of political and administrative issues. The BEI's work is based on the concept of Sustainable Development, which combines ecological, economic and social issues. This concept makes changes necessary both in the North and in the South. In this context ecological issues are as important as the development concepts, because they are mutually dependent.

In different projects and events the BEI functions as a facilitator of co-operation among its associated member organizations, other local development networks or initiatives, and organizations concerned with different aspects of development policy-related work. In Germany the BEI is co-operating on a federal level with the Platform of the German One World Regional Networks (agl) and the Association of German Development NGOs (VENRO).

Development cooperation is a key task of international politics. Even if the competencies for development cooperation basically lie within the Federal Government, the Free State of Thuringia aims to provide its own case-by-case or project-based contribution to this field area and to cooperate with the Federal Government.

In the Guidelines for Development Cooperation (Leitlinien der Thü-ringer Entwicklungszusammenarbeit) adopted on January 2nd 1996, the Free State of Thuringia acknowledged its responsibility for deve-lopment policy. Accordingly, the aim of the Free State of Thuringia has always been the improvement of living conditions of individuals through development cooperation. True to the principle of self-help, over the last twenty years numerous measures of vocational training of professionals in Thuringia or in their home countries as well as corresponding projects have been promoted. The collaboration with the Kingdom of Cambodia in the field of environment has been the focus of international cooperation for many years.

The Thuringian State Government sees development cooperation as a cross-cutting area and thus supports initiatives and projects of the development policy network in Thuringia. The One World Network Thuringia (Eine Welt Netzwerk Thüringen), as an umbrella organi-zation of the development policy commitment of Thuringian NGOs, is the most important cooperation partner of the Thuringian State Government. Furthermore, the Free State of Thuringia welcomes the work of social groups, churches and other non-governmental actors of development cooperation and supports them through mutual in-formation and experience exchange in their self-responsible action.

The main focus of Thuringia’s development policy is sustainable education. Since 1995, it has been supporting the “Thuringia days of educational and information in the field of development (Thüringer Entwicklungspolitischen Bildungs- und Informationstage – THEBIT) aimed at familiarising pupils of Thuringia with the problems of de-veloping countries and, consequently, at contributing to dismantling xenophobia and the promotion of tolerance.

Against the backdrop of the „Development Year 2015“ with nu-merous international decisions, whose implementation lay in the responsibility of each individual, another focus of Thuringia’s govern-ment will be addressing how the worldwide Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be successfully implemented. The starting point for the discussion process on this issue is going to be the FutureTour (ZukunftsTour) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development with its stop in Thuringia in February 2016.

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.