About

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is a German development agency headquartered in Bonn and Escborn that provides services in the field on international development cooperation. We develop tailor-made solutions to challenging problems for our clients. As a competent service provider, GIZ supports the German Government in achieving its objectives.

As a service provider in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development and international education work, we are dedicated to shaping a future worth living around the world. GIZ has over 50 years of experience in a wide variety of areas, including economic development and employment promotion, energy and the environment, and peace and security. The diverse expertise of our federal enterprise is in demand around the globe – from the German Government, European Union institutions, the United Nations, the private sector and governments of other countries. We work with businesses, civil society actors and research institutions, fostering successful interaction between development policy and other policy fields and areas of activity. Our main commissioning party is the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

The commissioning parties and cooperation partners all place their trust in GIZ, and we work with them to generate ideas for political, social and economic change, to develop these into concrete plans and to implement them. Since we are a public-benefit federal enterprise, German and European values are central to our work. Together with our partners in national governments worldwide and cooperation partners from the worlds of business, research and civil society, we work flexibly to deliver effective solutions that offer people better prospects and sustainably improve their living conditions.

The registered offices of GIZ are in Bonn and Eschborn. In 2017, we generated a business volume of around 3 billion euros. Our 20,726 employees, almost 70 per cent of whom are national personnel, work in around 120 countries. As a recognised development service provider, we currently have 577 development workers in action in partner countries. Furthermore, in 2018, the Centre for International Migration and Development (CIM), which is run jointly by GIZ and the Federal Employment Agency, placed 317 integrated experts and 518 returning experts with local employers in our partner countries, or provided them with financial support, advice or other services.*

* Personnel figures as at 31 December 2018

Our services:

Trade, climate change mitigation and adaptation, sustainable urban mobility, vocational training adapted to labour market needs, fund management, development partnerships with the private sector, stakeholder dialogues – we offer our clients a wide range of services, methodologies and approaches. Our projects testify to the effectiveness of our work.

The 2030 Agenda:

Sustainable development, poverty reduction and climate policy are inextricably linked in the 2030 Agenda. The Agenda, which was adopted by all United Nations member states in September 2015, calls for nothing less than the transformation of our world. The aim is to reconcile global economic progress with social justice and the conservation of natural resources. It includes ensuring that no one will be left behind. That is why the 2030 Agenda’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals focus on the weakest and most vulnerable members of society. Developing countries, emerging economies and industrialised nations must all do their part to ensure the success of the Agenda.

For GIZ, the 2030 Agenda is the overarching framework that guides its work. GIZ advises countries on implementing their goals, which they set within the context of the 2030 Agenda as well. The 2030 Agenda is now an integral part of the planning, implementation and monitoring of all new projects at GIZ. This provides new incentives to enhance the quality, impact and sustainability of our projects and programmes around the world. Tried and tested advisory approaches in international cooperation will be reinvigorated in innovative ways. For example, through the 2030 Agenda initiative, GIZ is working on behalf of BMZ to support the efforts of selected partner countries to begin implementing the Agenda as quickly as possible. We are also developing new business areas and partnerships. Such partnerships in areas such as textiles, cocoa and palm oil between actors from the private sector, civil society and politics (multi-stakeholder partnerships) build on shared responsibility and the partnership-based approach of the 2030 Agenda and contribute to its implementation.

The 2030 Agenda and its 17 goals are important benchmarks for GIZ. To ensure that they are implemented in our daily work, we have defined five principles drawn from this framework:

• Shared Responsibility;
• Integrated Approaches;
• Leave no one behind;
• Accountability;
• Universality