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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, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) 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 the world's public expenses on development cooperation (DC) comes from the European Union (EU) and its 28 member states. The EU is therefore a major DC player, as well as a key trade and business partner for many developing countries and emerging economies.
KfW Development Bank cooperates closely with EU institutions on behalf of the German Federal Government with a view to further increasing the effectiveness of European DC. This not only includes cooperation with the European Commission. We also liaise with other European development organisations and develop shared ways of working during the project implementation process – one example of this being the 'Mutual Reliance Initiative', which we set up together with the French development bank, 'Agence Française de Développement' (AFD), and the European Investment Bank (EIB). Here, our aim is twofold: to work in such a way that means we are more efficient and that tasks are divided reasonably whilst also reducing the effort required by our partners on the ground.
The KfW also uses its own funds, which are mixed with funds from the European Commission or other European donors, for European development cooperation in advanced countries. As a result, there are more funds available to fight poverty, to improve people's living conditions in developing countries and to protect the climate.
At the same time, we advise and support partner organisations in developing countries and emerging economies during their structural reforms and thereby ensure the sustainability of these investments. The package of KfW's specialist expertise and the possibilities open to it as a strong bank also increase the opportunity for sustainable development success for people in European Union DC.
List of EU funded procurement contracts (PDF, 146 KB, non-accessible)
EU Actions implemented by KfW (XLSX, 55 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.
