GTZ resumes bilateral cooperation with Bujumbura

Germany's cooperation enterprise for sustainable development, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), resumed bilateral cooperation with the government of Burundi in March, with the management of three projects focusing on the fight against HIV/AIDS, reintegration of refugees and the rebuilding of the country's judicial system. Its experts are due to travel to Burundi from mid-March, GTZ said on Wednesday from Eschborn, Germany. The German government announced its continuation of cooperation with Burundi at a donors’ conference in Brussels, Belgium, in January. GTZ announced on Wednesday that it was managing the three projects on behalf of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. "Further projects are in preparation," it added. GTZ terminated its cooperation with Burundi in 1996, one year after it evacuated its experts as a result of escalating civil war in the country. "A new peace process having been set up, the Federal Government recommenced its dialogue with Burundi and conducted intergovernmental negotiations in Switzerland for the first time in 2001 under participation of GTZ representatives," GTZ reported. It said the basis for its resumption of bilateral ties was the Arusha peace accord that was signed by 19 Burundian parties in August 2000 in the northern town of Arusha in Tanzania. An action plan was adopted that included several steps towards establishing peace and rebuilding democratic structures in Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, GTZ reported. Under the accord, a three-year transitional government has been established in Burundi, and "a peaceful transition to a new presidency in May 2003, as pledged in the agreement, fulfilled an important precondition for continuing the peace process". "On a multilateral scale the GTZ has been active [in Burundi] already since 2001, assigning a member of staff to work together with the [UN] World Food Programme, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the European Commission," it reported. GTZ is an international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations. It provides viable, forward-looking solutions for political, economic, ecological and social development. Its corporate goal is to improve people’s living conditions on a sustainable basis, and its main client is Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.