The following page contains the answers to a range of frequently asked questions.

cooperation between hospitals, universities and non-governmental organisations in Germany and health care facilities in partner countries. The initiative is a global programme that is active in all medical areas and specialisations and countries worldwide via hospital partners. It is carried out by GIZ, commissioned and financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and cofinanced by the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation (EFKS). The hospital partnerships regularly calls for proposals for the two lines of funding: once a year for the ‘Academic’ line, which focuses on academic collaboration, and twice a year for the ‘Global’ line twice a year, which focuses on thematic and open regional collaboration. In addition, there may also be special calls for proposals on specific topics depending on decisions made by the German Government.

All calls for proposals are announced online via the https://www.hospitalpartnerships.org/ website and applications are made on this website. Interested parties can subscribe via the website to a newsletter published by the funding programme, setting out details of calls for proposals and news about hospital partnerships and global health.

In addition to financing, funded hospital partners are given the opportunity to participate in networking and exchange platforms, which provide professional and regional support with regard to medical international cooperation. The GIZ team advises them on topics such as project management, communication and administration. All projects appear online on the hospital partnerships world map (link) and can be found there via the country or topic search bar.

The objective of the funding programme is to bolster long-term, sustainable partnerships that contribute to the strengthening of health systems. The partnerships help to improve health services in partner organisations in low and middle-income countries through collaboration and knowledge sharing. They are embedded in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in this case specifically Goal 3 – ‘Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages’ and Goal 17 ‘Building and sustaining partnerships’.

The programme is jointly funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation (EFKS). EFKS has been involved since the hospital partnerships began in 2016. It obtains almost all of its income from dividends from the Fresenius Health Care Group, where it is the largest shareholder. The Foundation holds a 26.6% stake in the share capital of Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH has been commissioned with the implementation.

The initiative receives specialist support from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) and from the World Health Organization (WHO). GIZ is responsible for the implementation.

We support voluntary work which focuses on improving health services. The emphasis is on joint training sessions and on training partners. As part of the funding programme, funds can be requested for project trips, training costs, materials and equipment and administrative costs. Personnel costs and research measures can also be funded as part of the ‘Academic’ line of funding. Hospital partners receive a subsidy agreement to sign when funding is approved.

We support partnership projects that can make a sustainable contribution to improving people’s health care in low and middle-income countries. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are key here – Goal 3 ‘Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages’ and Goal 17 ‘Global partnerships’'. We help to improve health services in our partner countries through continuing professional development, applied research and by strengthening the health system infrastructure.

The following criteria guide in our selection of partnership projects:

• Relevance: The partnership project responds to a specific need identified jointly with the partner organisation.
• Efficiency: The scheduling and financial planning of the partnership project is appropriate to the objectives. The project application shows that responsibilities and processes for cooperation have been defined.
• Effectiveness: The project application provides a convincing explanation of the suitability of the planned activities to achieve the desired results.
• Sustainability: The partnership project is designed to bring about positive changes beyond the funding period. The project application explains how these long-term results will be guaranteed.
• Ethics: The partnership project complies with ethical guidelines and the principles of the funding programme (link to the principles).

The ‘Global' line of funding supports partnership projects with up to EUR 50,000 over a maximum period of two years. The ‘Academic' line of funding supports your partnership projects with up to EUR 200,000 over a maximum period of two years. Topics and the amount of funding for any additional special calls for proposals are announced on the website.

All calls for proposals are announced in good time on the website as well as in our newsletter and in specialist media.

Yes, parallel grants may be possible within a long-term partnership between two or more organisations. However, the projects must be clearly distinguishable from each other – neither the intended objective nor the measures to be implemented are allowed to overlap. Applicants must show this in their application documents.

The application documents are formally checked by GIZ after the GIZ funding programme has received them. A technical committee (a body of independent experts from the fields of medicine, global health and international cooperation) then evaluates each application. If a project is deemed worthy of funding, it is submitted to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation for validation.

In the event of a successful funding decision, the project leaders will then receive the confirmations simultaneously and in writing via email; it is not possible to provide information by telephone. The time span from the application to the acceptance or rejection and the start of the project is about 6–8 months.

Calls for proposals for the ‘Academic’ line of funding are issued once a year. In the first step, applicants submit a project outline for a German-international partner project that implements joint research activities. The focus is on capacity development with the aim of sustainably improving health care in low or middle-income countries.

After the end of the call period, the GIZ funding programme formally reviews the project outline. Subsequently, an external panel of experts makes a pre-selection in the following two months.

The selected applicants are then invited to submit an elaborated project proposal with a detailed budget and work plan. This phase provides around two months of preparation time. The completed project applications are reviewed and again evaluated by an external panel of experts two months later. Eligible projects receive positive feedback around four weeks later. The project activities for "Academic" start with the commencement of the contract in the form of a grant agreement two months later.

From the first application to the start of the contract, a total period of eight months must therefore be planned with the respective two-month steps.