GTZ has been working in Benin for over 30 years on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). GTZ has maintained an office in Cotonou since 1990. GTZ International Services also works in Benin on behalf of other international organisations.

Despite maintaining stable macroeconomic growth since the early 1990s, Benin is still one of the world’s poorest countries. According to figures in the 2007/2008 Human Development Report, Benin currently has a gross national product of US$1,140 per capita (compared to Germany’s US$29,460 per capita). The population growth rate is very high at around 2.9 percent per annum. Roughly a third of the population lives in absolute poverty. A high illiteracy rate and an insufficient basic infrastructure are major factors why Benin ranks 163 out of the 177 countries listed in the Human Development Index.

The economy of this resource-poor country is dominated by agriculture as roughly 85 per cent of all exported goods are agriculture products, with cotton accounting for around three-fourths of all exports. The agriculture sector employs the majority of the working population yet is characterised by low productivity.

The implementation of various reforms in the public service sector, the privatisation of publicly-owned enterprises and the promotion of the private sector is not proceeding smoothly.

In efforts to reverse existing developmental deficits, three priority areas of German-Beninese cooperation were outlined in 2002:

• Conservation and sustainable management of natural resources
• Decentralisation and municipal development (good governance)
• Integrated water resource management and drinking water supply in urban and rural areas

GTZ contributes to these three priority areas. As part of this, the cross-sectoral project ‘Macroeconomic advisory services on poverty reduction’ was launched in 2007.

An additional area of activity is GTZ's work on behalf of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), a fund created by the US Government to stimulate economic growth and reduce poverty in developing countries. In this present case, the objective is to secure the population’s access to land by improving land ownership rights.

GTZ works closely with the German Development Service (DED) and the KfW Entwicklungsbank as well as other Beninese and international organisations.