German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)

Today, development cooperation is seen as a global structural und peace policy. It mainly pursues the following objectives:

• help resolve crises and conflicts in a peaceful manner,
• ensure that scarce resources are more equitably shared,
• preservation of our environment for coming generations, 
• reduction of global poverty.

In order to achieve these goals development policy must target different levels. Therefore, development policy works closely together with foreign policy, trade policy and security policy. Accordingly, the mandate of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development is varied.

The BMZ develops the guidelines and concepts of the German development policy. It defines long-term strategies of cooperation with the various players and determines the rules for their implementation. On this basis, shared projects with partner countries and international development organisations are developed in line with the United Nation’s millennium goals, in particular with the ambitious aim to halve the poverty in the world by 2015.

The three BMZ supported GNF projects are intended to achieve the above mentioned objectives in cooperation with the local partners.

• Conservation of Biodiversity and Traditional Cultures in the Mbaracayu Biosphere Reserve through Sustainable Forestry Management in Paraguay
• Mangrove Restoration in Asia (Project countries: India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Thailand)
• Linking Species Protection with Poverty Alleviation in South Africa

More information on the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) available at:

www.bmz.de