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Cooperation with the private sector
Promoting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
While Governments provide the framework for their operation, businesses, for their part, are expected to engage as reliable and consistent partners in the development process. We urge businesses to take into account not only the economic and financial but also the developmental, social, gender and environmental implications of their undertakings.
Through its business activity any enterprise affects the conditions under which its staff live and work, as well as affecting its clients, the natural environment and the economic environment. In today's modern setting, the responsibility that goes along with this is an important corporate policy issue.
Corporate Social Responsibility forms part of the vision of sustainable development on which German government policy is based. To build frameworks for action together with the private sector and improve people's lives in developing countries, BMZ supports private-sector engagement for sustainable development.
As markets continue to globalise, companies will increasingly need to practice Corporate Social Responsibility at the global level.
Almost all international corporations have formulated ethical principles, known as codes of conduct, which affect their business processes and their engagement in developing countries. Not least among the contributing factors to this development has been worldwide consumer pressure. That is why one of the tasks of German development cooperation is to raise consumer awareness on production conditions and the social situation in companies. In addition, the BMZ supports fair trade and backs responsible, sustainable engagement by companies in developing countries, for example through programmes to support development partnerships with the private sector such as develoPPP.de.
The BMZ is also committed to helping establish decent labour standards. Examples of these initiatives include the Voluntary Code of Conduct for the Coffee Sector, which the BMZ initiated in cooperation with the German Coffee Association and GIZ, as well as the Round Table Codes of Conduct, which draws up guidelines to apply to the activities of German enterprises in developing countries.
The BMZ also supports the Global Compact, an alliance between business, governments and civil society initiated by the United Nations in order to strengthen CSR. The Global Compact has become the world's largest and most important schemes of its kind.
Information
Publications
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Social and Ecological Market Economy Principles in German Development Policy
Strategies 158
(PDF 234 KB, accessible) -
Developing markets, creating wealth, reducing poverty, taking responsibility – The private sector as a partner of development policy
BMZ Strategy Paper
(PDF 419 KB, accessible) -
Forms of Development Cooperation Involving the Private Sector
BMZ Strategy Paper
(PDF 221 KB, accessible)
