Local/Regional Economic Development in South ... - Value Chains

1.1 GTZ as a Partner for Local/Regional Economic Development –
our Services: Regional and Sector Expertise from a Single Source
Ulrike Gantzer-Sommer
The contributions presented in this collection provide an
impressive insight into the wide range of GTZ’s experiences
and its abilities in the field of local/regional economic
development in South-Eastern Europe. In line with
the GTZ Vision, we are “successfully promoting international
co-operation which contributes to sustainable development”
in South-Eastern Europe and are strengthening
our “position in the global market for international
co-operation services.”
Professional networking throughout the world and 15
years of successful Technical Co-operation (TC) in Transition
Countries (GTZ has been active in this region since
1991), has meant that GTZ has both conceptual competencies
and institutional knowledge that combine a variety
of economic, social, institutional and political instruments
for analysis and implementation. This combination
of skills and experience has been put together to provide
services for local/regional economic development that are
demand-oriented and tailored to the situation.
However, the key to developing customized concepts and
their successful implementation has been the work of our
employees in the region, together with the freelance consultants
and advisors that we employ for specialized tasks.
Over the past 15 years we have established a team of German,
international, and national experts that, alongside
with partners from politics, business, and civil society in
the regions, are committed to economic development, European
integration, and regional co-operation in South-
Eastern Europe. The co-operation of these skilled and
highly motivated personnel has yielded our problem-solving
competencies, from the analysis of a situation through
to achieving the desired results.
Our main client is the Federal Ministry for Economic
Cooperation and Development (BMZ), although we also
work on behalf of other German ministries. As one of the
most significant financing organizations for multilateral
Development Cooperation, the German Government, has
put co-operation in multilateral organizations, including
the European Union, the World Bank, and the United
Nations, as a major priority. As a result, a comparatively
small amount of funding has been earmarked for bilateral
Technical Cooperation, which is shared by various
instruments and organizations. Despite this, in 1999 the
German Government drew up an unusually high budget
for developing the region with the Stability Pact for
South-Eastern Europe. Today South-Eastern Europe continues
to receive significant amounts of funding within
the framework of bilateral German Technical Co-opera-
tion program, despite the needs of numerous disasters and
crises throughout the world requiring financial support.
Integration of the region into Europe is the primary goal.
The prospect of membership in the European Union is
a unique and special aspect of TC in the countries of
South-Eastern Europe, and the governments, businesses
and civil society organizations receive support in preparing
for accession to the European Union. Funding made
available by the bilateral German TC (BMZ/GTZ) program
is equally distributed to the countries and is not concentrated
in particular regions. Once accession has been
achieved bilateral TC will be withdrawn from the new
member states to be replaced by European funds and instruments
for co-operation.
Economic reconstruction and development are crucial for
meeting the development policy criteria (poverty reduction),
as well as for supporting European integration. In
all countries in this region the starting position was similar;
warlike conflicts and/or misallocations of resources in
planned economies, which led to the collapse of national
economies. Therefore initially the main objective of TC
was short-term effective support for reviving economic
activity and improving living conditions. The next step
was to provide advice to transform the economic system.
Today TC (BMZ/GTZ) focuses on supporting the development
of long-term effective and sustainable structures
for economic promotion and improvement of the investment
climate, which include the approaches to local/regional
economic development described in the following
chapters.
The effectiveness of TC in this region was confirmed in an
appraisal carried out on behalf of BMZ (Lührmann 2005),
which reported that GTZ employees had succeeded in
developing solutions, based on a wide range of experiences
globally and regionally. Through the careful and
pragmatic selection and combining of the development
policy instruments used, the solutions were successfully
adapted to particular situations and the needs of target
groups and partners.
A result of our work was to contribute to easing the return
of refugees in the years following the warlike conflicts,
to facilitate economic co-operation through fostering a
spirit of partnership and to contribute to peacekeeping.
The goal of many transnational approaches is to promote
a growing feeling of solidarity and support, and the realization
that co-operation contributes to economic growth
and improved living standards of each person more effec-
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