Senate Chancellery of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg

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.