Environment

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.

(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 Open School 21 offers students in and around Hamburg (Germany) a broad program for global education. It aims to raise their awareness of global correlations and realities. At the same time concrete options for action are created for and together with students that enable them to make a self-determined contribution to a sustainable development and more global justice. In the Open School there is the experience that one can make an important contribution to justice, environmental protection, peacekeeping as well as poverty reduction by oneself and that success in these areas is possible.

Open School 21 offers about 40 different workshops, project days, city walks and harbor tours on request. Topics of the Open School are globalization, human rights, poverty reduction, world agricultural trade, climatic change, flight and migration, fair trade, sustainable
consumption, child labor, colonial history as well as living conditions and environments in different countries.

The program of The Open School 21 is directed to school students from every grade and school form. The activities take place at the harbor, in different parts of the city, in the education center “Werkstatt 3” or in one’s own school.

The events are held by self-employed experts with abroad and migration experiences that come from the field of development cooperation, arts and science. For teachers, the Open School 21 offers consultation for global education, support for day-projects as well as materials for preparation and follow-up of events.

Equipment of the protestant land church in Wurttemberg for development related educational work.

Lower Saxony is committed to a range of activities in Sub-Saharan Africa and thus assumes responsibility for sustainable global development. The aim is to learn as much as possible from and with one another in the context of a global partnership and responsibility with
cosmopolitanism and cross-cultural competence.

Lower Saxony focuses on three priority areas of development cooperation:

1. Partnership with the Eastern Cape (South Africa) since 1995
2. Project cooperation with Tanzania since 2010
3. Development educational and information work

As part of the development policy information and educational work within Lower Saxony, the State Chancellery promotes the Association Development Policy Lower Saxony (Verband Entwicklungspolitik Niedersachsen e.V. - VEN). The VEN is the network of development
NGOs, initiatives and so-called One-World-Shops (Weltläden). The main focus of the VEN is the development educational and information work. The funds are directed to the implementation of „IBQ - projects“ (information, education and skills) of NGOs in Lower Saxony in the field of development cooperation.

Since 2014 Lower Saxony has been co-financing the nationwide Promoter-Program (Promotorenprogramm). The aim is to raise awareness on development issues in Lower Saxony. The continuation of the program up to 2018 has been decided upon in 2015 and the financial means are guaranteed.

As part of a special program for humanitarian aid, Lower Saxony has decided to take in 70 traumatized women and children from northern Iraq in 2015. They are victims of extreme violence by fighters of the terrorist organization Islamic State, whom Lower Saxony is going to ensure a safe stay over the next two years. The regional government has decided to allocate 1.1 million euros in 2015 and 6.8 million euros for the following years for the reception, accommodation and health care of these women and children.

2016 is planned to focus on the implementation and consolidation of the new Development Policy Guidelines and their linking with the Strategy for Sustainability of Lower Saxony, which is currently under revision. The intensified cooperation with development policy actors within the civil society - a positive effect of the process of drafting the guidelines - will be continued by, for example, giving these organizations an active part in developing the implementation strategy.

Furthermore, Lower Saxony participates in the newly established Bund-Länder-Program. With the involvement of GIZ’s office in Lower Saxony (Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit) project opportunities are currently being examined and planned to be approved
by the end of January 2016.

For a long time now, Hamburg has contributed to sustainable development on a global scale. Projects and measures of development cooperation abroad just as development education and information are the most significant features of Hamburg’s development policy.

The support of projects abroad focuses on the areas of eliminating the causes of poverty, on fostering gender mainstreaming, improving health care as well as on measures for environment and resource protection. On the other hand, a further focus area is the  improvement of the municipal infrastructure in urban areas.

Of special significance are measures to improve the general living conditions in León (Nicaragua), twin city of Hamburg since 1989, and in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), twin city of Hamburg since 2010, with which the development of a municipal climate partnership has been in place since 2011. In 2005, the Senate of Hamburg created the Foundation Asia-Bridge (Stiftung Asien-Brücke) as an independent promotional instrument for sustainable development projects in South and South East Asia. The municipality of Hamburg also supports directly non-governmental groups and initiatives in order to encourage the commitment of the civil society as well as to raise awareness on development aspects.

Measures for professional development are important complements of project funding. By providing research fellowships, Hamburg invites, above all, specialists from Nicaragua, Tanzania and India to Hamburg to take part in qualification programs.

Hamburg appreciates the work of its active citizens in the field of development policy and awareness-raising and cooperates with numerous non-governmental organizations and initiatives. Especially the support of the Hamburg One-World Network (Eine-Welt-Netzwerk Hamburg e. V.) is a vivid example of the close cooperation with actors of the civil society. Since 2006, the Hamburg Senate participates in the Network Fair Hamburg (Hamburg mal fair), a cooperation network of several local actors in the field of development educational
and information work that aims to promote Fair Trade. Since 2008, Hamburg’s public procurement entities demand that tenders include a declaration of compliance with the ILO core labor standards in the production process of goods that are delivered to Hamburg. In 2011, Hamburg was awarded the title Fair Trade City. Hamburg contributes to the “One-World”-Promoters Program (Fachpromotorenprogram) with three appointments, one related to Fair Trade, another to Migration, Diaspora and Development and the other to Global Learning.

In the orientation of its development activities the Senate consults the appointed Hamburger Council for Sustainable Development Policy (Hamburger Rat für nachhaltige Entwicklungspolitik).

Hamburg’s development policy extends to further areas in which it has special resources and expertise such as North-South research at the German Institute for Global Area Studies (GIGA), cultural dialogue with countries in the Global South, promotion of South-North trade as well as research and education in the field of tropical medicine.

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.