Development Cooperation
General information
German development cooperation with the People’s Republic of Bangladesh is guided by the Millennium Development Goals and the principles of sustainable development as agreed upon by the International Community during the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. In addition, it is based on the Poverty Reduction Strategy of the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) as formulated first in October 2005 and updated in June 2008 with the overarching aim of poverty reduction.
Germany has been a reliable partner of Bangladesh in development cooperation since 1972. An overall amount of 2.4 billion Euro for bilateral Financial and Technical Cooperation has been committed so far. Since 1978 the German development assistance is given exclusively as grants. Furthermore, we are contributing to the development cooperation of the European Union and other multilateral institutions like the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the UN-Organisations working in Bangladesh to which Germany is a major provider of funds. These funds and those of our bilateral cooperation totally amount to ca. 4.4 billion Euro for bilateral and multilateral projects and programs in Bangladesh since the start of our commitment.
In order to maximize value and impact of German Development Cooperation (GDC) its focus was gradually shifted to the following three priority areas in recent years:
1. projects in the health sector: a substantial contribution to the sector-wide approach (Health, Nutrition and Population Sector Programme / HNPSP) and a project on HIV/AIDS.
2. the energy sector: especially improving energy efficiency in industry by upgrading power transmission systems and expanding the use of renewable energies –
3. governance and local development
For the period 2010 and 2011 Germany has pledged Euro 60.8 million new funds for bilateral projects in the three priority areas mentioned above. However, acknowledging that Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change in the world the two governments also decided to cooperate in projects regarding reforestation and maintenance of mangrove forests in coastal areas, increasing wetland biodiversity and restoring livelyhoods in cyclone affected districts.
Together with bilateral and multilateral donor partners Germany is striving for improved international coordination. Based on the guidelines of the Paris Declaration we all aim to improve our cooperation efficiency by further aligning financial and technical assistance to GoBs development policy and by harmonising activities amongst donor partners and with GoB through a Joint Cooperation Strategy and division of labour in the context of the Local Consultative Group (LCG).
