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ABOUT
US – history in brief
1992, the year of the Rio World Summit for Sustainable
Development (WSSD), also saw the establishment of ECO Gesellschaft
für sozialökologische Programmberatung GbR. Founded in
the spirit of WSSD concepts, yet based on the managing directors'
twenty years' experience in bilateral cooperation,ECO made a headstart
as contractor of German official development assistance in the applied
sciences ("Technische Zusammenarbeit").
The GTZ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit
(German Technical Cooperation), implementing agency for the German
Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, long remained
the company's prime commissioning body – later seconded by
KfW, AfDB, the World Bank and non-governmentals.
Founded by experts in temperate/tropical
forestry and in social sciences, ECO sought new ways to "combine
human and natural resources for sustainable development", in
the area of natural resources management, namely forestry and silviculture.
Solutions for forestry-related challenges were integrated and proved
fruitful in rural development, food security
and obvioulsy, poverty reduction programmes.
Intersecting services in
capacity building and public relations were continually extended
and partly cast into branches of their own (cf. ECO Nature Edition,
ECO Expo). With ECOG, ECO established its own Agadir-based office
in the Maghreb. ECO Education was founded in 2005, to cover services
for the public education sector. ECO REISEN , founded in 2004, developed
from a service provider in sustainable tourism into a fully fledged
business-to-consumer travel agency based on ECO sustainability standards.
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ECO co-founder Cornelia Sepp (left), working for GTZ-GATE
in 1984 (from GTZ GmbH's anniversary review). |
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| Think-tank
for innovative concepts: head office Oberaula. |
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