Aid Group Hits Gold

Whether it's improving the water supply in Africa, introducing renewable energy in China, laying wells in Afghanistan or promoting democracy in South America, the German-based GTZ aid group is active worldwide.

The organization, whose primary goal is to improve living conditions of people in developing regions, reached a milestone of a different kind on Wednesday as it released financial figures for 2006.

For the first time, the GTZ's business volume surpassed the one billion euro mark. Turnover rose to a total of 917.8 million euros ($1,221.42 million), marking an increase of 4.8 percent over the previous year. In the case of charitable donations, the group took in a whopping 770 million euros -- a rise of 11 percent on last year.

Aid contracts from around the world

Wolfgang Schmitt, director of the organization, said the extraordinarily good figures mirrored the high esteem that the GTZ is held in for its work not just in Germany but around the world.

"There's been a trend in the past years that others donors, industrialized countries and other developing nations have been increasingly supplying their own funds to engage the GTZ," he said. "The trend has been continuing and so we can now almost speak of records."

The GTZ's main employer last year remained the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development which handed the aid group more than 700 million euros to realize development projects in Africa and other regions.

But even co-financed projects, where third parties supply additional funds for projects that the GTZ carries out for the German development ministry, got a huge boost last year by rising 29 percent to 61 million euros. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, was the biggest player here by bankrolling the GTZ with 21 million euros.

The GTZ also raked in a host of contracts from around the world -- the Ethiopian government built a network of health care centers with the help of development experts from the GTZ and even institutions such as the World Bank and the EU Commission hired the services of the German aid group.

Recipe to success

Schmitt emphasized that the GTZ had become something of a world leader in the field of developmental aid. The recipe to its success is the GTZ's focus on long-term goals and sustainability as opposed to other aid organizations, Schmitt said.

"There's a tendency in the development industry to score quick successes," Schmitt said. "But if you look at the problems and responsibilities in the field, then you realize that these are things for which even Europe needed centuries to overcome. That's why you need to have patience and stamina when it comes to development and cooperation."

Rosy future

Bernd Eisenblätter, another GTZ director, said the organization tended to attract skilled and highly qualified applicants around the world.

Last year, the number of GTZ experts sent abroad rose by 4.8 percent to 1,100 persons. Most of them (39 percent) work in Africa.

"We get many more applicants than we can hire, even on a limited basis," Eisenblätter said. "They're highly-motivated, highly-qualified and 60 to 70 percent of them are women. That's why I'm not worried at all about the future of the GTZ. It shows there's huge potential and a huge interest in the field of development work and in the GTZ."