German Foundation for International Development (DSE, Deutsche Stiftung für internationale Entwicklung)

The German Foundation for International Development (DSE) provides a forum for development policy dialogue and offers initial and advanced training of specialists and executive personnel from developing and transitional countries. In addition, it supports experts of German technical and cultural cooperation, and their families, in their preparation for assignments in developing countries, and maintains the largest documentation and information centre on development cooperation issues in Germany.
The DSE works in the areas \"Education, Science and Documentation\", \"Economic and Social Development\", \"Public Administration\", \"Industrial Occupations Promotion\", \"Food and Agriculture\", \"Health\", and \"Journalism\".

Conferences, meetings, seminars and training courses support projects which serve economic, social, and ecologically compatible development, thus contributing to an effective, sustainable and wide-ranging development.

The DSE cooperates with partners at home and abroad. A considerable number of the programmes take place in developing and transitional countries, and the rest in Germany. Since 1960 the DSE has given advanced professional training to more than 170,000 decision-makers, specialists and executive personnel from over 150 countries. Every year approximately 9,000 participants take part in the DSE’s dialogue and training programmes.

The DSE contributes to development cooperation on the basis of the guidelines of the German Federal Government\'s development policy. The German Foundation is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Some of its programmes, however, are financed by other donors (e.g. other Federal ministries, the Federal States, the European Union).

Additionally, the Federal States of Baden Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt provide conference and training centres and buildings. Since its foundation in 1959 the DSE has been jointly financed by the Federal Government and the Federal States. This corresponds to the German Foundation’s decentralized structure with specialized departments (centres) and conference centres in a number of Federal States. The seat of the foundation is Bonn. Other locations are Berlin, Bad Honnef, Feldafing, Zschortau, Magdeburg, and Mannheim.

Instruments
The DSE\'s advanced training events are planned together with partner institutions in the developing and transitional countries and, when they take place on-site, are also implemented with them. The events include:
Short-term programmes lasting up to three months in Germany or abroad, e.g. seminars and training courses for middle management specialists and multipliers, international meetings and expert discussions for high-ranking executives and political decision-makers. The programmes also include the secondment of programme officers to support advanced training institutions in developing countries or scholarships for congress trips to take part in the North-South exchange of experience.

Long-term programmes lasting between three and 24 months in Germany and developing countries. These programmes with their focus on practical professional advanced training are offered as part of the Federal government\'s scholarship programme, and in direct agreement with professional institutions of the developing countries, to specialists and executives in the government and non-government sectors of the partner countries.
The short-term and long-term programmes are offered both as project-related and non-project measures.

Combinations of programmes from the short-term and long-term areas, mutually agreed with partner institutions and covering a time-scale of several years, are called programme packages. This bundling of different DSE instruments enables a systematic contribution to organizational and human resource development in particular. Programme packages are eminently suitable to support structural change and to achieve the sustainability and broad impact of DSE work. Examples of programme packages are:
Promotion of local government in Central America
Management of land, forest, and water resources in Lao PDR and Viet Nam
Promotion of African languages in basic education and publishing in West Africa
So-called follow-up contact measures with former participants of DSE programmes serve the exchange of experience and the updating of professional knowledge. Increasingly the Internet is used for follow-up contact measures. The DSE thereby also promotes the sustainability and broad impact of its events.