International development cooperation is becoming increasingly important: Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti and also Afghanistan, which has almost been forgotten in this country, all demonstrate that the greatest threat to peace comes from the impoverishment in the marginalized parts of the so-called "Third World".

Willy Brandt's statement that "development policy is the peace policy of the 21st century" is more true than ever before. But our perceptions are different: the German (and European) public barely registers the threat. At most they pay attention to Central and Eastern Europe or the Mediterranean. People tend not to look beyond their own immediate neighbourhood.

The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES = Friedrich Ebert Foundation) nevertheless continues to apply itself to this task of the future. Contributing to the promotion of development and democracy in the development continents of Africa, Asia and Latin America remains a cause to which the Foundation is dedicated.

We have attempted to use a new form of presentation for our development policy commitment which continues on a broad basis in spite of certain financial restrictions; we have decided to focus on information regarding the content of our work rather than on completeness, numerical or geographical. We hope that this will also help our readers to get a better idea of our positions and the level of progress made.