Purpose/Activities

 

The Federal Foreign Office is responsible for maintaining relations with other states and with international and supranational organisations. The political guidelines of Germany's international cultural affairs are an integral part of Germany's foreign policy and formulated and coordinated by the Federal Foreign Office.

 

German cultural foreign policy focuses on:

cooperation in education and science;

cooperation on socio-political issues, international cultural dialogue;

teaching German in foreign countries;

exchanges in the fields of art, music and literature;

youth and sports exchanges;

German schools abroad.

 

Germany's foreign cultural policy is mainly implemented via agencies that are independent in designing their own programmes. The most important of these institutions are:

 

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation;

UNESCO Institute for Education;

German Academic Exchange Service;

Goethe-Institute;

Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen;

German Music Council.

 

In line with promoting German language and culture the Federal Foreign Office funds a global network of German schools, open to pupils from Germany but also from the host countries. These are places for the meeting of cultures.

 

A regional priority of the cultural relations and education policy is the dialogue between Germany and the Islamic world as well as the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the successor states of the former Soviet Union.

Publications

http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/EN/Aussenpolitik/KulturDialog/Uebersicht_node.html