Priority areas in Bangladesh

By agreement between the German and Bangladeshi governments, the following priority areas of cooperation were adopted in September 2006:

Health care (including family planning, HIV/AIDS)

GTZ has been working in the Bangladesh health sector since as long ago as the end of the 1970s. More than a dozen projects and programmes in the health sector have been successfully completed in the meantime. In the last government negotiations in 2006 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, the present cooperation in the health system was confirmed as a priority area in development cooperation.

• Strengthening the health system

Human rights, democracy, participation and good governance

The promotion of human rights, democracy and good governance plays an increasingly important role in German and European Development Cooperation. They are all multi-sectoral principles for shaping development cooperation, but also objectives in themselves and firmly incorporated in the UN Millennium Development Goals. Bangladesh’s national poverty reduction strategy, published in October 2005, also recognises the necessity for good governance if success is to be achieved in the continuing efforts to combat poverty.

• Human rights, democracy

Energy, especially renewable energy and energy efficiency

Development requires energy. Germany ranks as one of the global pioneers in the development of renewable energy. In 2005, Germany overtook Japan for the first time in terms of installed solar energy capacity, and is the global leader technically and commercially in renewable energy. But this preeminence in technical know-how also entails a certain responsibility towards energy-poor developing countries. Germany is conscious of this responsibility and faces up to it in the framework of increasing cooperation with developing countries in the energy sector.

• Energy