Financing of projects

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.

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.

Help for Women in Africa, Asia and Latin America

The Marie Schlei Association was founded in 1984 in memory of Marie Schlei, the former German Minister for Development Policy. According to the statutes of this non-profit association, its objectives are "to promote cooperation with poor women, women's groups and organizations, to help educate and train women, to provide information about the causes of poverty and injustice and to promote equal rights for women. We inform the public about the situation of these women in order to raise and increase awareness as well as a feeling of responsibility and the willingness to help the women and therefore all people in the developing countries."

The Marie Schlei Association encourages women to create self-help projects. In the past two decades, about 300 projects have been successfully carried out in 45 different countries, from Argentina to Zimbabwe. All projects were planned and realized by local women's groups and organizations. In order for projects to be successful, the following criteria must be met: time schedules and curricula have to be adjusted to the women's daily routine. The projects have to be effective and applicable to everyday life in order to make the additional work bearable for the women. Cooking, child care, household chores, getting water and heating material – project work adds additional work to their daily responsibilities. Nevertheless, these women want and need these projects, since they offer them the only possible access to education and training and thus to their own income. Our female partners are responsible for "their projects and the management of the material required. The solidarity among women they experience also creates an atmosphere of partnership and mutual cooperation. The Marie Schlei Association works for equal opportunities and justice.

African Impulse e. V. is a registered internationally operating, non-profit, independent non-governmental organization (NGO), which campaigns for a fairer world in which the North and South can cooperate, knowledge can be transferred, communities can be given the impulse to help themselves and children and the vulnerable can be empowered.

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.

Difäm, the German Institute for Medical Mission, based in Tübingen, was founded in 1906. It is a specialized advisory center, medical relief organization and bearer of the Paul Lechler Clinic for Tropical Diseases. We provide support to development and relief organizations worldwide (for example: Brot für die Welt [bread for the world], social welfare work and disaster aid) for the implementation of health projects; we assist our local partners in planning their projects and offer them ongoing support.

Our doctors have run health programs in southern countries for years and can thus provide the necessary specialized knowledge. Our main goal is to establish a firm basis for sustainable health care by promoting basic health care services and home health care. With our seminars in public health and treatment of tropical diseases, we further the training of local health care specialists and of qualified personnel.

Difäm promotes and carries out projects that help patients suffering from disabilities or diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis, and leprosy. Our medical aid service provides indispensable medicine, medical tools and auxiliary materials etc. for partner clinics and health care stations in over 90 countries around the world. Our long-term goal, however, is to make these countries independent of foreign aid. For this reason, Difäm provides raw materials, tools and training for local personnel in order to support the local production of pharmaceuticals. In addition to providing direct aid, we are also active in political lobbying and public campaigns for the right to health care.

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.