Weltweit – Gesellschaft zur Förderung lokaler Initiativen e.V. (Germany)

Weltweit is a network, think tank and open Ngo founded in 2014 by and for sustainability experts of various disciplines. It supports initiatives in the Global South with the aim of developing and implementing local strategies for local problems. We focus on international students and alumni of development-related degree programmes, whom we develop into managers of locally initiated projects through our training, networking and fundraising activities with them. After the implementation of their first independent projects we offer our trainees our partnership in larger projects. We are currently involved in projects in three different continents that mainly have a focus on environmental conservation and/or education. Apart from this actual involvement we facilitate a digital networking platform for young activists and experts. This digital space is also used as a LMS by several other organisations and due to its steady growth is developing into a leading platform for the discussion of sustainability related topics.

We come from the field of development policy and cooperation, which shares the goals of the UNESCO Biosphere Network in the global discourse, namely to involve as many affected groups as possible and not just a few experts in decisions on concrete activities and their implementation. In development cooperation, however, the challenge is to bring the few decision-makers at the levers of politics and resources into a constructive dialogue with those affected on the ground. There is a lack of communication channels that work in both directions and are effective over the duration of a project. We see the co-operation with the young generation of international students and alumni and their empowerment for active project work as a contribution to solving this communication problem. We think that with our concept and growing network we can also help the UNESCO Biosphere Network to better achieve its goals, because we suspect that it is facing the same challenge. For the young activists we support, there are potential links between their grassroots projects or their
academic research to the local reserves in their home countries and the international structure of UNESCO. The task of Weltweit e.V. is to create impactful connections for everyone. By joining the UNESCO Biosphere Network and the subsequent active exchange, we hope to fulfil this task to an even greater extent.

Country: Germany

Field of work: Ecological Conservation; Ressource Managment; Agro-ecology and Agronomics; Education for Sustainable Development; VET; Social Start-up Acceleration; Practical Research Facilitation; Advocacy.