Time is a crucial factor for sustainability and therefore the success or failure of development efforts. In order to adequately deal with this factor, international development cooperation must be aware of the multitude of concepts and perceptions of time that exist worldwide.

Against this backdrop Misereor, GTZ and the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT got together to discuss the nexus of time and development with policy makers and experts of international development cooperation.

The project consisted of:

• a interviews with leading personalities from 15 German development cooperation organizations and;
• the one-day conference “Time-Zones. Development and the Factor Time” of February 2005 at the GTZ Building in Berlin.

The goal of the conference was to sensitize people to the multitude of concepts and perceptions of time that exist in international development cooperation and in Germany and to identify points of departure for a productive engagement with the factor time. A more pronounced sensitivity for the differences of concepts of time and a more developed awareness for our own way of dealing with time, so the assumption, improves the chances of success of international development cooperation.

This website presents the results of the project.