Poverty

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.

Combating poverty, ensuring peace and preserving the environment: These are the three major concerns of Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation. Every year, about 600 projects and programmes are implemented and funds of well over EUR 100 million are deployed to improve living conditions in developing countries.

Together with the Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs (MFA), partner countries, public institutions, civil-society organisations and businesses, ADA seeks to ensure that sustainable development works to the benefit of all people in Africa, Asia, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe as well as in the Caribbean. Personnel in 13 coordination offices make sure that ADA operations are in line with national development goals and the needs of the local population and that funds are put to the best possible use.

MFA allocates the ADA budget, but other federal ministries and donors or the EU, for example, draw on ADA expertise. Since 2008, the Austrian Development Agency has been conducting programmes for the European Commission. Via a further financing instrument, business partnerships, it allocates private funds for development cooperation: ADA promotes projects of enterprises in developing countries and emerging nations if they contribute to improving the conditions of life of the population in a region. Most funds are invested in its key regions and priority countries.

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.

RAA - regional centers for foreigners' concerns, youth work and schools in the German state of Brandenburg - is a non-profit organization based in Potsdam. We manage six "Regionale Büros für Integration und Toleranz" (BIT) (regional offices for integration and open-mindedness) and four other offices as well as regional and local projects. In 2004, we established "Globales Lernen/Entwicklungszusammenarbeit" (global learning and cooperation for development). For us, global learning is about raising awareness of the world as a whole, of interrelations between North and South, and about relating our everyday life to the lives of people in developing countries. RAA is involved in an enormous variety of development-policy projects. We offer working groups, workshops, and training for teaching staff, and support schools in organizing workshops for students. Long-term projects include supporting school partnerships between schools in Brandenburg and schools in Senegal, Zanzibar/Tanzania and Angola, as well as smaller-scale initiatives. "Begegnungen mit Sansibar" (meeting Zanzibar) is a project that combines education and cooperation for development. Since 1992, more than 160 adolescents and teachers have been given the chance to gain deep insights into another culture and to help promote interactions between Germany and Tanzania, and more will follow. The project in Zanzibar encourages participants to closely examine both the foreign culture and their own. It includes such diverse activities as the building of classrooms, theater projects, thematic research, workshops, seminars and continuous education for teachers. In Germany, the results of this work are available as educational materials, thus enabling our partners from Tanzania to present their life and their views in Brandenburg. In addition, RAA is in charge of organizing and holding the "Brandenburger entwicklungspolitische Bildungs- und Informationstage" (Brandenburg educational and informational days on development aid) as well as the education program of the 'Berlin Import Shop' fair.

ICEP is an independent Austrian Development Association with a clear aim: to bring the people to the economy and the economy to the people.

ICEP advises partner organizations in developing countries and companies on the integration of poor people in economic cycles and implements worldwide projects.

ICEP offers the economy with the corporAID Initiative a platform for information, communication and mainstreaming their social responsibility and sets the global poverty fight on the agenda of Austrian companies.

ICEP wants to contribute as a private, independent developing organization to the creation of a better chance for people in developing countries to lead a self-determined life based on their own work and earnings.

ICEP is active in three areas:

1. We implement projects with partners in developing countries that train and empower people.
2. We motivate and advise companies, so that they can responsibly involve in developing countries.
3. We are working to ensure that the development cooperation in Austria is economy-oriented and relevant.

The solidarity service international (Solidaritätsdienst International e. V.) is independent, party politics and ideological open. SODI stands up for a united, fair and peaceful world in which the natural resources are preserved.

In fair cooperation with women's organizations and trade union organizations, with municipal initiatives, church facilities and cooperatives SODI realizes for over 25 years of self-help projects in countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as East Europe and Southeast Europe.

An important component of the work in Germany is work of information and educational work on developing-political subjects. SODI is specialized in multimedia projects which sensitize above all young people, inform and motivate to exert themselves for a fair and sustainable world. From social transformation to global justice, lastingness and future ability is for SODI, on this occasion, a big concern. SODI takes part with an active engagement in civil-social networks and campaigns. SODI is recommended by the senate management for education, youth and science as a supplier of the global learning.

With partners around the globe, earthlink specifically works for harmony between man and nature. Together with the local population, we create strategies and methods to improve the living conditions of the poor and to protect the environment. earthlink maintains socially sustainable and nature-friendly development in the context of concrete projects on site through public relations in Germany and Europe and through global networks. The involvement of locals is an important aspect for ensuring long-term success.

Daara.de is a project of the alliance “Eine Welt Schleswig-Holstein e. V.” Teachers and employees of nursery schools and youth facilities can find educational work support like consultants, teaching materials and agency in finding classrooms for their developing-political educational work.

Daara.de wants to

• make learning at school a good experience,
• increase the value of the developing-political education in Schleswig-Holstein,
• attract the interest of children and teenagers for “Eine Welt” and provide the ability to look at situations and problems in a worldwide and comprehensive connection.

Light for the world is an international organization that focuses on development projects for blind persons and persons with disabilities in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Southeastern Europe. Light for the world works together with local partners, eye health clinics and disabled peoples organizations.

CO-OPERAID is a humanitarian Swiss association with its headquarters in Zurich. CO-OPERAIDis engaged in the international children’s right to education. Our projects in East Africa and Asiahelp impoverished children and young people with education and professional education. The aim of the projects is basic education for all children and the promotion of secondary and vocational education. At the same time the economic situation of the children’s and young people’s families is improved.