Jürgen Wilhelm retires from GIZ Management Board

Colleagues pay tribute to his commitment to worldwide development

Bonn, 12.07.2012. More than 100 guests gathered in Bonn today to mark the retirement of Jürgen Wilhelm from the Management Board of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.

Federal Minister Dirk Niebel spoke for the German Government in paying tribute to the constructive part Jürgen Wilhelm played in the GIZ merger process and to his lifelong service to German development cooperation. ‘It is largely thanks to you that we are now well on the way to overcoming the obstacles to integrating development advisors into technical cooperation programmes,’ he told Wilhelm. Hans-Joachim Preuß, a fellow Managing Director of GIZ, also paid tribute to his colleague, noting that Jürgen Wilhelm had shown confidence in bringing the former German Development Service (DED) and its instruments under the GIZ umbrella and make them an integral part of the company.

Jürgen Wilhelm’s career in development policy began in 1979 when he was a desk officer responsible for church development projects in Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Between 1982 and 1983, he was Deputy Head of Division in the Foreign and Security Policy Directorate at the Federal Chancellery and one of former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s team of young advisors. Moving back to BMZ in 1983, he held a number of posts over the next 15 years in the South-East Asia, Europe, Middle East, Central Asia, Near East, Energy, Water and Infrastructure Divisions and headed BMZ’s Legal Division between 1997 and 1998.

Jürgen Wilhelm served as Director General of the German Development Service (DED) between November 1998 and December 2010. He was appointed to the Management Board of the new Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in January 2011.

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is a federal enterprise with worldwide operations. We support the German Government in the fields of international cooperation for sustainable development and international education. Through our work we assist people and societies in shaping their own futures and improving living conditions.