Who we are
The Heinrich Böll Foundation is headquartered in Berlin and is a legally independent Foundation. The Foundation carries the name of Heinrich Boll, one of the most important writers of Federal Republic of Germany.
The Heinrich Böll Foundation's most important areas of activity are its projects in developmental co-operation and international policy. It currently supports about 130 projects in 60 countries on four continents. By way of its international collaboration with a large number of project partners, such as governmental institutions, public bodies and voluntary organizations, the Foundation provides intellectual and financial support for protection of the environment, art and culture, science and research, developmental cooperation and cross cultural understanding. To attain these objectives, the foundation cooperates with other societal initiatives, public bodies and voluntary organizations, and supports development cooperation on partnership and long term basis. The representative office of the Heinrich Boll Foundation in India oversees and supports the various projects of the Foundation in India. The overall approach of the Heinrich Böll Foundation is to:
- generate opportunities of sharing, analysing and learning among formations of civil society
- engaging in independent and critical analysis of societal trends and issues
- enabling dialogue across varied perspectives, sectors and institutions of the concerned stakeholders.
The mandate of the Foundation's work in India include:
- To support enhanced commitment to democratic processes and social innovation, ecological solutions and sustainable development
- To support, facilitate and contribute to civil society engagement, participation, and intervention
- To provide a forum for open debate and promote dialogue between politics, business, academia, and society
- To support and promote respect for the rule of law and democratic participation
- To ensure that the debates of opinion shapers, decision makers and the general populace reflect comprehensively different perspectives and new assessments of ground realities
- To place gender as a cross-cutting issue in all measures and programmes.
Welcome
The Heinrich Böll Stiftung/ Heinrich Boell Foundation is a German foundation and part of the Green political movement that has developed worldwide as a response to the traditional politics of socialism, liberalism, and conservatism.
We are a green think-tank and an international policy network, our main tenets are ecology and sustainability, democracy and human rights, self-determination and justice. We place particular emphasis on gender democracy, meaning social emancipation and equal rights for women and men. We are also committed to equal rights for cultural and ethnic minorities. Finally, we promote non-violence and proactive peace policies. To achieve our goals, we seek strategic partnerships with others who share our values.
Our namesake, Heinrich Böll, personifies the values we stand for: protection of freedom, civic courage, tolerance, open debate, and the valuation of art and culture as independent spheres of thought and action.
Our India Liaison Office was established in 2002 in New Delhi. Working with governmental and non-governmental local project partners we support India’s democratic governance through informed national and international dialogue processes with a view to enhance the diversity of green thinking.