North-South-Relations

Description of the organization:

The Ministry of Education and Culture in Saarland is responsible for the topic of development cooperation. The goal is to work closely with actors from civil society and the municipal level who are active in development policy. Together with these partners, the Saarland assumes global responsibility. This includes fostering partnerships with countries and regions of the global South and promoting development policy information and education as well as civic engagement for the One World.

Goals and priorities

Since development cooperation is above all a task for society as a whole, the successful work of private initiatives, the churches and other non-governmental organizations in particular receives financial and non-material support. Saarland organizations working in and for South-North partnerships network with each other. Together, the state government and civil society want to make a concrete contribution to fighting poverty worldwide, securing peace, realizing democracy and making globalization fairer.

Particular importance is attached to the open and cooperative exchange of all actors in development policy work, both in global partnerships and in information and education work. In order to promote this exchange, the Ministry of Education and Culture invites to the open forum on development cooperation twice a year.

The Saarland Development Cooperation Guidelines were adopted by the Saarland Parliament in March 2017 and are the result of a development process with the active participation of civil society and Saarland non-governmental organizations. They represent the framework of Saarland's development cooperation and are intended to strengthen existing structures, initiatives and activities. They serve as orientation and form the basis for Saarland's future development policy relevant engagement.

The fields of action of Saarland's development cooperation are:

- development policy information, advisory and educational work

- science, research and teaching

- international exchange

- economy, enterprises, public administrations and municipalities

- international trade and agricultural policy

- North-South partnerships/cooperations

- impact of European policy on countries of the global south

Since 2018, the State Coordination Office for Education for Sustainable Development has been the key position for the structural anchoring of Education for Sustainable Development in school education. With the state coordination office, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is systematically and structurally anchored in the education sector. In order to link global interrelationships and individual behavior, even schoolchildren are to be sensitized to sustainable development.

There are also far-reaching efforts in the area of fair trade/sustainable procurement. For example, with the decision of the Council of Ministers on May 2, 2023, fair trade coffee and another fair trade product - such as chocolate, tea or sugar - will be used in all houses of the state government from July 1, 2023. "If you want to have good working conditions in your own country, you cannot save on the price of coffee, cocoa or sugar at the expense of people in the global south. Therefore, in the future, there will be fair trade products in the areas of the ministers, the Prime Minister, but also in the hospitality of guests," explains Secretary of State for Education Jan Benedyczuk. With this decision, the state government has launched the "Fair Federal State" project. With this, Saarland will be the first federal state to submit an application for certification as a Fairtrade federal state in the fall of 2023. The certification is intended to structurally anchor Fair Trade in Saarland.

There are also far-reaching efforts in the area of fair trade/sustainable procurement. For example, with the decision of the Council of Ministers on May 2, 2023, fair trade coffee and another fair trade product - such as chocolate, tea or sugar - will be used in all houses of the state government from July 1, 2023. "If you want to have good working conditions in your own country, you cannot save on the price of coffee, cocoa or sugar at the expense of people in the global south. Therefore, in the future, there will be fair trade products in the areas of the ministers, the Prime Minister, but also in the hospitality of guests," explains Secretary of State for Education Jan Benedyczuk. With this decision, the state government has launched the "Fair Federal State" project. With this, Saarland will be the first federal state to submit an application for certification as a Fairtrade federal state in the fall of 2023. The certification is intended to structurally anchor Fair Trade in Saarland.

The application documents must be submitted to the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Saarland by December 31 of the previous year at the latest for the budget year of the funding. For project funding within the framework of development cooperation, the guidelines of development cooperation of the Saarland apply as a content-related framework. The legal framework for funding is formed by the guidelines of the Ministry of Education and Culture for the granting of subsidies for the funding of projects within the framework of development cooperation, as amended from time to time.

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

FAIR for all generations FAIR education - Our campaigns are aimed at schools, kindergartens and day-care centres (Kitas), extracurricular actors in the greater Saarbrücken area and Saarland University. Several "Fair Kitas", "Fairtrade Schools" and "Fairtrade Universities" from the greater Saarbrücken area have already been awarded. School classes and courses from the Saarbrücken region have already received the award "Fair School Class - Fair Trade Class" more than 100 times. Through our young "Fair Trade Ambassadors" as multipliers and through our wide-ranging commitment, we reach a broad public. The guiding principle of our network is Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).

NETWORK AND DATABASE FOR ACADEMIC DESIGNBUILD

DesignBuild takes students from their studio desks into the physical world of human interactions and construction.

On this platform you can exchange information and knowledge about DesignBuild activities, promote your projects, organisation and your own expertise, search and offer literature, initiate collaboration, look for support, find answers to questions about pedagogy, logistics, liabilities, funding and construction.

Students, planners, employers, clients and users, researchers, teachers, politicians, entrepreneurs, donors, crafts-men, academics and non-academics are warmly welcome to join the dbXchange network. ... become a member!

This exchange platform and database is not reduced to north- south relations but open to all kind of fruitful learning cooperations in every direction.

Future dimensions of development education are widely unknown today. Our global living environment and everyday worlds develop in contexts which become more and more complex. Old certainties are dissolving; new orientations can rarely be identified. Thus, it becomes harder to find reasonable answers to the new challenges that are worthwhile for development education; answers which make it possible to impart knowledge and behavior for a future-oriented living.

The editors and the editorial board of the Zeitschrift für internationale Bildungsforschung und Entwicklungspädagogik (ZEP, Journal for international educational research and development education) have established a medium that, for more than thirty years, has been bringing development education and international educational research to the public.

Complex theoretical contexts are picked up and explained in the different issues while, at the same time, experiences and problems are discussed from a practical perspective in a way that they facilitate relevant impulses back to the scientific discourse.

The journal targets educationalists working in development education and scientists from neighboring disciplines as well as anyone who is interested in global learning and development cooperation in schools and elsewhere.

The Afro-Asian Institute Salzburg (AAI) is a non-profit organisation with close ties to the university of Salzburg. It is financed by the public funds and the Catholic Church. The aims of the AAI are to provide educational services on development policy, to enable intercultural encounters and to promote interfaith dialogue.
The AAI is a meeting place for different cultures and religions. We show different global contexts through a varied educational and cultural program in order to raise awareness of injustices and set out development policy issues and its risks in the context of globalization. Affected individuals, as well as experts from the global South have an opportunity in our organization to take the floor. Within the framework of the AAI scholarship program, students from African, Asian and Latin American countries receive financial support, as well as a personal accompaniment and take part in our educational program.

Aktion Tagwerk organizes yearly the nationwide campaign "your day for Africa" the idea is easy and remains topical: schoolgirls and boys in Germany go on one day of the school year to work instead of school and donate their wage to educational projects in five countries of Africa. The campaign is accompanied by comprehensive offers of global learning, as for example holding speeches at the participant schools, photo exhibitions, a newspaper for the campaign etc.