Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH
Postfach 51 80
65726 Eschborn
Germany

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH [German Agency for Technical Cooperation] is an international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations. It provides solutions for political, economic, ecological and social development in a globalised world. Its corporate objective is to improve people’s living conditions on a sustainable basis.

GTZ mainly works for the German Federal Government, its main client is the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The company also operates on behalf of other German ministries, partner country governments and international clients, such as the European Commission, the United Nations and the World Bank, as well as on behalf of private enterprises. GTZ works on a public benefit basis, using all funds generated as profits exclusively for projects in international cooperation. Currently, GTZ is implementing some 2,700 development projects and programmes in over 130 countries. It has its own offices in 66 of these countries. Of the circa 9,400 employees, some 1,000 people are employed at the Head Office in Eschborn near Frankfurt am Main, in Germany.

Information on the scope of GTZ violence prevention activities in health

Violence has been addressed within GTZ scope of work since many years. Violence prevention is seen as an important factor for sustainable development. The GTZ response to violence is framed in technical cooperation programmes from a variety of sectors, including health, education, good governance, law reform, human rights, crisis prevention and post conflict and rehabilitation. Besides a demand-driven approach - whereby the counterpart government or a target group, identify violence as a key problem - GTZ has increasingly realised the need of a systematic and comprehensive approach to violence prevention. In addition, some of the partner countries are undergoing serious developmental challenges and political crises which often interlink with violence, or are caused by violence, as in civil war and post conflict situations.

In 2002, GTZ organised a first international conference on violence against women which was co-sponsored by WHO and UNIFEM. This conference provided a platform to present the World report on violence and health and initiated a partnership with WHO on the issue of violence prevention. In the framework of this partnership, GTZ hosted the German launch of the World report on violence and health in Berlin in June 2003 in collaboration with German Ministries.

GTZ is a founding member of the Violence Prevention Alliance and has actively participated in the First milestones of a global campaign meeting organised in 2004 in Geneva. The following are examples of activities carried out in the frame of the Alliance:

• In 2004, GTZ hosted a first meeting of VPA core group members in Eschborn/Germany to support the drafting of a joint publication on “Violence prevention in international cooperation and development.” The first draft of this publication has been finalised with the support of GTZ and WHO VPA secretariat, the next steps towards finalisation of this joint paper are to be agreed upon.
• GTZ extended its support to the VPA through the secondment of a staff member (Dr Inge Baumgarten) and operational support to WHO Regional Office for Europe’s violence and injury prevention programme since December 2004. The profile of the violence and injury prevention programme, established at the WHO Regional Office in October 2004, has substantially evolved since then and active collaboration with VPA alliance members was established (such as University of Birmingham, Prof Kevin Brown and Liverpool John Moores University, Prof Mark Bellis).
• In collaboration with PAHO GTZ has initiated a regional programme on youth violence prevention in Latin-America (see below link). The three-year programme supports a public health approach to violence prevention in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Argentina and Honduras. A GTZ junior associate professional expert (Katja Steurer) has been seconded to PAHO to support the programme.

In partnership with the WHO Regional Office for the South-East Asia Region, GTZ carried out a research on gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS in the frame of its collaboration with the Cambodian Ministry of Health and Ministry of Women’s Affaires (see below publications developed in this frame).

VPA focal person

Dr Hedwig Petry
Director, Division of Health, Education, Social Protection
Tel: +49 6196 79-1272
Fax: +49 6196 79-1366
Email: hedwig.petry@gtz.de

Dr Hedwig Petry is head of the GTZ Division of Health, Education, and Social Protection since January 2006. Prior to joining GTZ she was working in international business cooperation with a special focus on health and bio-medical research as well as HIV/AIDS. In the more than 20 years of her professional career she held several senior management positions around the world. Her regional experience ranges from Nordic countries to Africa and the United States where she established and managed teams of scientific and private business background. With a PhD in education and a specialist degree in business management she moved from higher education and academics to international cooperation. As a director of the division she promotes the strong profiling and positioning of GTZ competencies on health, education and social protection.

Violence and injury prevention are not part of German development cooperation policy in health. GTZ, as a WHO collaborating Centre on Health Systems Development, is therefore exploring opportunities for strengthening integration in the frame of health systems development.