Development cooperation aims to help resolve crises and conflicts in a peaceful manner. It aims to help ensure that scarce resources are more equitably shared, and that our environment is preserved for coming generations. And it aims to help reduce global poverty.

In order to achieve these goals, development policy must target different levels. And of course we cannot lose sight of the fact that foreign policy, trade policy, security policy and development policy are today very closely linked. This makes the mandate of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) wide and varied.