About us

Foundation and Milestones

Global Partnership Hannover was founded in the year 1999 on the occasion of the world exhibition (EXPO 2000) in Hannover.

The main objective of the association was taking up the resolutions of the Brundlandt Commission and the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro: “Promotion of sustainable development, primarily through the establishment and maintenance of a worldwide network of practical initiatives…”.

The first and most prominent undertaking was the coordination and supervision of the 767 ´worldwide projects` which were a constituting part of Expo 2000.

The first chairman was the then President of the Club of Rome Ricardo Diez-Hochleitner. Further (founding) members were the EXPO general commissioner Birgit Breuel, Prof. Dr. Klaus Töpfer, Prof. Dr. Madjid Samii, Prof. Dr. Ernst-Ulrich von Weizsäcker, Heidrun Merk, Margot Käßmann, Dr. Gerd Weiberg, Dr. Christian Ahrens, Jürgen Resch, Berend Hartnagel et al.

After the show of the nations closed its doors on October 31st, 2000, the focus of GPH shifted to the continuation of the “Global Dialogues” and various Agenda 21 projects, which were committed to international cultural exchange and topics of sustainable development.

From 2011 onwards, this objective was further substantiated (through corresponding projects and networking):

  • to make sustainable thinking a more natural parameter of everyday action,
  • to use a culture of memory as a basis for shaping the future by means of contemporary formats,
  • to exemplarily introduce interesting processes from all over the world and put them up for discussion

Members

Our members are active in various areas of society – all inspired by the idea of living and working in terms of international understanding and sustainability.