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Sustainable economic development
Background: Sustainable economic growth – a challenge for all
Broad-based economic growth is an important precondition for successful poverty reduction. That growth creates job opportunities that help the poor safeguard their livelihoods through their own efforts. Another important prerequisite is that growth processes generate positive effects that are not only temporary, but also long-term. Growth must be economically, socially and ecologically sustainable.
In order to promote sustainable economic development in partner countries, the support provided by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) focus on the following core areas: economic policy, private sector promotion, financial systems development, and vocational training and labour market policy.
These policies are based on the principles of a social and ecological market economy. This means that along with people's economic, political and social living conditions, attention is also paid to protecting vital natural resources on a sustainable basis. The goal is to establish a market regime that is complemented by a social policy mandate and takes into account the ecological dimension of economic development. This is designed to enable weak and disadvantaged population groups to also actively participate in economic and social life.
Germany supports its partner countries in the difficult task of establishing well-performing economies through an array of development policy measures. These are designed to enable Germany's partners to integrate into the global economy, and at the same time reduce poverty among their population.
Germany has agreed to make sustainable economic development a focus of its cooperation with 41 countries. In 2008 the BMZ made some 503 million euros available to support these measures.
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