Development cooperation in the Saarland is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education and Culture. The Ministry's 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 information and education as well as civic engagement for the One World.
Bearing global responsibility
The development policy of the Federal Republic of Germany is the joint responsibility of the federal government, the states and the municipalities. In this sense, the government of the Saarland is committed in its government program to international solidarity and the creation of a just world order.
Global Learning: Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Saarland
Since May 2018, Saarland has had a state coordination for Education for Sustainable Development, which systematically and structurally anchors Education for Sustainable Development in the education sector. In order to link global connections and individual behavior, children in Saarland's day-care centers as well as pupils are to be sensitized to sustainable development. To this end, the Saarland umbrella brand "School of Sustainability" was already established in 2019, which certifies schools for their holistic efforts to be sustainable places of learning. Analogously, the state umbrella brand "Kita der Nachhaltigkeit" has been under development since the beginning of 2022.
Fair in the Saarland and the Global South
There are also far-reaching efforts in the area of fair trade and sustainable procurement. Our goal is for Saarland to become the first fair trade state in Germany. A steering group with representatives from politics, business, education and civil society as well as the cities, municipalities and districts that have already been designated as Fair Trade Towns is working intensively to achieve this goal.
We support and promote fair trade to achieve a more just and social life for the people of the Global South, with fair wages for mothers and women, without exploitative child labor, with access for boys and girls to educational institutions and the expansion of health facilities. We have started with fair and sustainable procurement, exemplary global learning, and education for sustainable development nationwide. Nowhere are there so many fair school classes. Our universities live sustainability in everyday life. Saarland University is a fair university. More and more municipalities, cities and municipal associations are becoming supporters of fair trade.
We want to continue on this path. Because we know what it means to depend on solidarity, we want to gradually switch public procurement to fair and regional products and promote globally responsible educational work.
Dialogue with development actors
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 are networked, among others, in the Netzwerk Entwicklungspolitik im Saarland (NES) e. V. 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 involved in development 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.
Guidelines for development cooperation
The Guidelines for Development Cooperation of the Saarland 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 the Saarland's future engagement in development policy.
The fields of action of Saarland 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
Guidelines for Development Cooperation
The guidelines of the Ministry of Education and Culture for the granting of subsidies for the promotion of projects within the framework of development cooperation provide, in addition to the promotion of foreign projects in the Global South, for the possibility of promoting cooperation projects between partners in the Global South and the Global North. In addition, funding can be provided for school, vocational and university education projects, extracurricular education projects for children and young people, further education and adult education projects or development policy measures and events for the broad civil society.
Advisory Council on Development Cooperation
The Advisory Council on Development Cooperation plays a key role in supporting the Ministry in approving applications for development policy project and program activities. The projects to be included in the funding are selected in partnership with the development policy initiatives represented in the Advisory Council on Development Cooperation.