Our cooperation partners
KfW Development Bank plays an active role in international development cooperation on behalf of the German Federal Government. Its main client is the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. However, we also operate on behalf of other government departments, such as the Federal Foreign Office (AA), the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety an Consumer Protection (BMUV) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). KfW also converts funds from other donors, especially the European Commission. In DC, we work with a number of cooperation partners at both, national and international level.
The KfW Development Bank cooperates with many different German development cooperation (DC) institutions. Projects and programmes are coordinated to ensure that the tasks are sensibly distributed in the partner countries. The most important German cooperation partner is the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Together, we advise the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development with regard to creating country strategies and developing priority area strategies. The promotional plans derived from these (particularly those concerning social and economic infrastructure) are agreed upon with the partner countries. In joint seminars and events, we engage in continuous dialogue on topics such as water and energy supply in order to further develop our promotional approaches. But KfW Development Bank and GIZ also cooperate directly with one another in priority area programmes. There are office partnerships in many countries.
Moreover, KfW Development Bank works with various non-governmental organisations in the partner countries, including the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF), Welthungerhilfe, church relief organisations and political trusts.
More than half of public spending on development cooperation (DC) worldwide comes from the European Union (EU) and its 27 member states. The EU is thus a major player in development cooperation and also an important trade and economic partner for many developing and emerging economies.
On behalf of the German Federal Government, KfW Development Bank is a long-standing partner of the EU in development financing and makes a significant contribution to Team Europe. To further increase the effectiveness of European development cooperation, we work not only with the EU Commission, but also with other European development organisations. To this end, we develop joint working methods for project implementation, such as the Mutual Reliance Initiative with the French development bank Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB), and implement EU funds in blending projects worldwide under the umbrella of European risk protection. Within JEFIC, a network of European bilateral banks and financial institutions, we cooperate with AECID (Spain), AFD (France), BGK (Poland), and CDP (Italy). JEFIC works mainly with public partners in developing countries and emerging economies but also plays an important role in leveraging the private sector and enhancing the local regulatory framework. All partners pursue the goal of a common system of European development finance for increased, efficient investments to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To this end, we offer optimal solutions for beneficiaries as well as partners and donors in international cooperation.
With a combined financing volume of more than EUR 21 billion in 2022, the JEFIC network provides a significant share of global financing for sustainable development. A good third of the funds generated through the EU's blending and guarantee instruments are implemented by JEFIC members. With a local presence in over 200 offices in 85 countries, they ensure very close cooperation with partner countries and their institutions.
In more developed countries, KfW uses its own funds in addition to public funds, which are mixed with funds from the EU Commission or other European donors. This means that an even higher volume is available to fight poverty, improve the living conditions of people in developing countries and protect the climate and biodiversity. At the same time, we advise and accompany partner organisations in developing and emerging economies in their structural reforms, thus ensuring the sustainability of these investments. The package of KfW's technical expertise and its possibilities as a strong bank also increases the prospects of achieving sustainable development success for people in European DC.
List of EU funded procurement contracts(PDF, 155 KB, non-accessible)
As a development bank which operates in the international arena, we maintain close relationships with numerous international organisations. Here, we not only include non-European bilateral development institutions such as the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), but primarily multilateral organisations such as the World Bank, the UN or the regional development banks, such as the African, Asian and Inter-American Development Banks. Our key partners also include national promotional banks in emerging economies, which – just like the KfW in Germany – support national promotional programmes for climate and environmental protection or for assisting small and medium-sized companies (SMEs).
The cooperative partnerships range from reaching agreements in strategy-related dialogue with the partner organisations, to joint promotion and financing of specific projects and programmes. Thus, we are one of the World Bank's biggest bilateral co-financiers and are involved in multilateral facilities of the World Bank Group on behalf of the German Federal Government.
The KfW Development Bank devotes its energies to involving private companies and financial institutions in the wide variety of development cooperation tasks. "Public Private Partnerships" (PPP) are one form of cooperation. Here, private companies play a contractually agreed role when operating a water supply facility or managing a fund, for instance. PPP approaches are very successful, particularly in the financial sector.
We pursue clear goals when cooperating with private companies. On one hand, we mobilise private capital, relieve the burden on budgets and harness private know-how for projects and programmes in developing countries. On the other, we strive to sufficiently transfer risks from the state to private companies or financial institutions. And last but not least, private companies should also help to provide the financial and infrastructure-related services which are so essential for developing countries in a more efficient manner.
