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The Hospital Partnerships funding programme is carried out by the German GIZ – the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. The GIZ Hospital Partnerships team works mainly in Bonn and Eschborn. As a service provider for international cooperation, sustainable development and international education work on behalf of the German Government, GIZ is dedicated to shaping a future worth living around the world. Together with its commissioning parties and partners, it generates and implements ideas for political, social and economic change. GIZ works to deliver effective and efficient solutions that offer people better prospects and sustainably improve their living conditions.

The Hospital Partnerships team is responsible for publishing calls for proposals on the funding rounds, for managing financial support and for delivering technical and content-related advice. It supports the partners in implementing their projects. It is also responsible for the program´s PR and networking.

22.000 GIZ employees work in around 120 countries and about 70% are employed locally as national staff. As one of seven German recognised development service providers, GIZ seconds development workers (more info you will find here at Association of German Development Services (AGdD). Furthermore, experts are placed with local employers in the partner countries by the Centre for International Migration and Development (CIM), a joint operation of GIZ and the German Federal Employment Agency.

Launched in September 2016, the Hospital Partnerships – Partners Strengthen Health funding programme is a joint initiative of Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation (EKFS). It is embedded in the agenda of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically Goal 3 and Goal 17.

The German Government is the world’s third largest government donor in the health sector. It works to strengthen health systems as a key element in preventing health crises in order to reduce maternal and child mortality and combat contagious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. Furthermore, it has put pandemic control on its agenda since the outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020. Medical experts have a key role to play in this context.

The Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation (EKFS) has a long-standing tradition of societal engagement in the medical and humanitarian fields. Since 1983, it has also been using its expertise to support and promote projects for research and development. The Foundation’s purpose in the medical-humanitarian sector is to sustainably improve health care in low and middle-income countries. In addition to direct medical assistance for patients and improvements to medical infrastructure on the ground, the foundation supports medical training projects in Africa, Asia and other world regions. The foundation announces annual prizes and scholarships as well as special calls for proposals.

The Hospital Partnership programme receives strategic support from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It is a member of the international ESTHER Alliance, where numerous countries share expertise on institutional health partnerships.