Note
Since the middle of 2021, weltwärts exchanges have no longer taken place under the umbrella of weltwärts. Youth Exchange for Sustainable Development has since been offered through the African-German Youth Office.
Transfer of weltwärts exchange projects to the German-African Youth Office
Since the beginning of the grant programme four years ago, weltwärts-Begegnungen (wwB) has developed positively as a popular extracurricular exchange format and has grown continually. The results of the evaluation at the end of the pilot phase of the wwB grant programme clearly show that weltwärts-Begegnungen was able to close a funding gap in the field of international extracurricular youth exchanges. The grant programme is characterised in particular by the principle of partnership, a format based on reciprocity and the focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
This positive development was possible due to the successful planning and implementation of a range of wwB projects by you, our partner organisations. In recognition of this, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has decided to transfer the wwB grant programme, a key supporting pillar of international youth exchanges more broadly, into a new German-African Youth Office (Deutsch-Afrikanisches Jugendwerk). The Youth Office is currently being set up and will sit under the Engagement Global (EG) umbrella.
At the request of Minister Dr. Müller, the BMZ aims to strengthen further international development youth exchanges between Germany and African countries. The partnership with the neighbouring continent of Africa is to be further deepened and made tangible for young people in particular. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the Agenda 2030 will continue to be the focus of the programme. A further pillar of the planned German-African Youth Office, in addition to youth exchange projects, is the planned expansion of the exchange of trainees and young professionals between Africa and Germany. This second pillar will be implemented in partnership with the Senior Experts Service (SES).