Beschreibung: The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, one of Germany"s
main development agencies, has been cooperating with the African Union (AU) on behalf
of the German Government since 2004. The GIZ AU Liaison Office actively engages in
about 20 supra-regional projects in 33 African countries. The main office of GIZ AU
is located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with a number of offices in other locations, including
South Africa, Algeria, and Tanzania. GIZ cooperates with seven of the eight AU departments,
with a focus on the following five areas: (1) peace and security, (2) good governance
and migration, (3) regional economic integration, (4) education/youth/employment,
and (5) agriculture and land governance. Many programmes pursue a multi-level approach
and work not only at the continental level but also at the regional and national level.
Most staff work in the respective offices while some are seconded to the Regional
Economic Communities (RECs), including the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS), Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community
(EAC) and to 19 of the AU"s Member States. They strategise together with the respective
partners on how to realise best and implement continent-wide policies, agendas, protocols,
and declarations. An important measure to create awareness and sensitise stakeholders
- ranging from (high-level) policymakers, legislators, representatives of the media,
academia as well as the private sector, and members of the civil society, including
Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) - on relevant policy issues as well as facilitate
networking between these actors are virtual and physical/face-to-face dialogue events.
Such exchanges can focus on a particular country (national level), but also on specific
regions or the continent (regional and continental level). The exchange formats vary
largely in format, length, and number of participants. Some GIZ projects organise
up to 40 events per year, depending on the requests and needs of partners and commissioning
parties. Implementing such events, significantly larger face-to-face events requires
a lot of resources and coordination efforts on the side of GIZ and its partners, including
the procurement of air tickets for participants, booking of conference venues and
accommodation for participants, securing catering, interpretation services and technical
equipment as well as supporting the reimbursement of participants for expenditures
such as visa and transport costs and coordinating COVID-tests.