The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH (English: German Corporation for International Cooperation GmbH), often shortened to simply GIZ, is a German development agency headquartered in Bonn and Eschborn that provides services in the field of international development cooperation and international education work.

GIZ’s main commissioning party is Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Other commissioners include European Union institutions, the United Nations, the private sector, and governments of other countries. In its projects GIZ works with partners in national governments, actors from the private sector, civil society and research institutions. It is the organization’s self-declared goal to deliver effective solutions that offer people better prospects and sustainably improve their living conditions.

GIZ was established on 1 January 2011, through the merger of three German international development organizations: the Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst (DED), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), and Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung (InWEnt). GIZ is one of the world’s largest development agencies, with a business volume in excess of €3.1 billion in 2019 as well as 22,199 employees spread over more than 120 countries.

As a service provider in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development and international education work, we are dedicated to shaping a future worth living around the world. We have over 50 years of experience in a wide variety of areas, including economic development and employment promotion, energy and the environment, and peace and security. The diverse expertise of our federal enterprise is in demand around the globe – from the German Government, European Union institutions, the United Nations, the private sector, and governments of other countries. We work with businesses, civil society actors and research institutions, fostering successful interaction between development policy and other policy fields and areas of activity. Our main commissioning party is the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

The commissioning parties and cooperation partners all place their trust in GIZ, and we work with them to generate ideas for political, social and economic change, to develop these into concrete plans and to implement them. Since we are a public-benefit federal enterprise, German and European values are central to our work. Together with our partners in national governments worldwide and cooperation partners from the worlds of business, research and civil society, we work flexibly to deliver effective solutions that offer people better prospects and sustainably improve their living conditions.

The registered offices of GIZ are in Bonn and Eschborn. In 2020, we generated a business volume of around EUR 3.3 billion. Our 23,614 employees, almost 70 per cent of whom are national staff, work in around 120 countries. As a recognised development service provider, we currently have 483 development workers in action in partner countries. Furthermore, in 2020, the Centre for International Migration and Development (CIM), which is run jointly by GIZ and the German Federal Employment Agency, placed 212 integrated experts and 516 returning experts with local employers in our partner countries, or provided them with financial support, advice or other services.*