The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is GIZ’s main commissioning party. BMZ is one of two ministries representing GIZ’s sole shareholder, the Federal Republic of Germany, on GIZ’s Supervisory Board, which is chaired by Friedrich Kitschelt, State Secretary at BMZ.

The Ministry commissions GIZ to implement advisory projects that enhance the capacities of individuals, organisations and societies to improve their living conditions through the efficient and sustainable use of resources and achieve their goals. The inputs provided by Germany are a contribution to, not a substitute for, projects and programmes which are planned or are already being implemented by the partners. This means that GIZ’s partners also contribute to the measures – by covering operating costs or salaries, for example. When working on behalf of BMZ, GIZ attaches priority to ensuring that the projects can continue after funding from the German Government has ceased.

For more information, visit http://www.bmz.de/en.index.html

The European Union is a unique economic and political union between 28 European countries. What began as a purely economic union has evolved into an organisation spanning policy areas, from climate, environment and health to external relations and security, justice and migration.

A name change from the European Economic Community (EEC) to the European Union (EU) in 1993 reflected this. The EU is based on the rule of law: everything it does is founded on treaties, voluntarily and democratically agreed by its member countries. The EU is also governed by the principle of representative democracy, with citizens directly represented at Union level in the European Parliament and Member States represented in the European Council and the Council of the EU.

For more information, visit http://europa.eu/european-union/index_en