Development policy in Saarland
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 in civil society and at 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.
Carrying global responsibility
The development policy of the Federal Republic of Germany is the joint responsibility of the federal, state and local governments. In this sense, the government of the Saarland is committed to international solidarity and the creation of a just world order.
Global Education: 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 interrelationships and individual behavior, children in Saarland's daycare centers as well as schoolchildren 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 Saarland and the Global South
There are also far-reaching efforts in the area of fair trade and sustainable procurement. The 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. Already 74% of the people in Saarland live in certified Fair Trade Towns. The certification is intended to structurally anchor Fair Trade in Saarland.
The Saarland supports and promotes Fair Trade in order to achieve a fairer and more 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.
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 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.
Guidelines for development cooperation
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 an orientation and form the basis for Saarland's future engagement relevant to development policy.
The fields of action of Saarland's development cooperation are:
- information, advisory and educational work in the field of development policy
- science, research and teaching
- international exchange
- economy, enterprises, public administrations and municipalities
- international trade and agricultural policy
- North-South partnerships/cooperations
- impact of European policies 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 of partner:s in the Global South and the Global North. Furthermore, projects in school, vocational and university education, 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 can be funded.
Advisory Council for Development Cooperation
The Advisory Board for Development Cooperation provides the Ministry with significant support 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 on the Advisory Board for Development Cooperation.