Refuge and Asylum

Networking of asylum and refugee policy initiatives in Bavaria

The OeVA - Oecumenical Planing-Comittee for the Intercultural Week in Germany (ÖVA - Ökumenische Vorbereitungsausschuss) prepares the annual intercultural week (IKW) which is taking place all over the country. It recommends content focuses, suggests a theme, carries out the annual, nationwide preparatory conference  offers materials available for the preparatory groups and organizes a central nationwide inaugural event.In the EPC 15 members are appointed from the churches. Up to six additional members are coopted from institutions, organizations and socially important areas.

What is the intercultural week?
The annual intercultural week (IKW) is an initiative of the German bishops' conference (DBK - Deutschen Bischofskonferenz), the Protestant church in Germany (EKD - Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland) and the Greek-orthodox Metropolie that takes place throughout all Germany. The intercultural week is held ince 1975 at the end of September and is supported by churches, local authority districts, welfare associations, trade unions, integration advisory boards and commissioned, migrant's organizations and initiative groups. In 2016 about 5,000 events were carried out in more than 500 towns and municipalities. The Refugee Day is a component of the intercultural week.

Forum for International Dialogue

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.