Results: After Graduation

Abstract

It is exciting to see what paths the (former) scholarship holders took after they finished their studies. Did they return to their country of origin after completing their studies in Germany or did they stay in Germany or migrate to another country? The field research in the five countries under investigation revealed a variety of answers to this question. Yet, it has become clear that (former) international students contribute to development in their countries of origin in many different ways and in various (migration) forms. In accordance with the design of our study, in Palestine this can be seen in particular in the health system, in Indonesia in the technology and economic system, in Ghana in the environmental and agricultural sector, in Georgia in the legal system, and in Colombia in the political system, especially with regards to the ongoing peace and democracy process. It also became clear that this was not a one-sided transfer from North to South, but rather a circular exchange of ideas, know-how and goods, initiated and implemented by the commitment of the alumni, who, this should be noted in advance, both returned to their country of origin and remained in Germany. In the first parts of this section, we want to draw a more detailed picture of the different forms of engagement in the five case study countries and show what impact the migration of international students had on the different sectors of society in their countries of origin. The final section will then deal with overarching findings that apply to all case study countries. Here, the focus will be on contributions to the academic system, but also on problems of reintegration and, finally, on students’ and alumni’s views on the topic of ‘development‘itself.

It is exciting to see what paths the (former) scholarship holders took after they finished their studies. Did they return to their country of origin after completing their studies in Germany or did they stay in Germany or migrate to another country? The field research in the five countries under investigation revealed a variety of answers to this question. Yet, it has become clear that (former) international students contribute to development in their countries of origin in many different ways and in various (migration) forms. In accordance with the design of our study, in Palestine this can be seen in particular in the health system, in Indonesia in the technology and economic system, in Ghana in the environmental and agricultural sector, in Georgia in the legal system, and in Colombia in the political system, especially with regards to the ongoing peace and democracy process. It also became clear that this was not a one-sided transfer from North to South, but rather a circular exchange of ideas, know-how and goods, initiated and implemented by the commitment of the alumni, who, this should be noted in advance, both returned to their country of origin and remained in Germany. In the first parts of this section, we want to draw a more detailed picture of the different forms of engagement in the five case study countries and show what impact the migration of international students had on the different sectors of society in their countries of origin. The final section will then deal with overarching findings that apply to all case study countries. Here, the focus will be on contributions to the academic system, but also on problems of reintegration and, finally, on students’ and alumni’s views on the topic of ‘development‘itself.

5.1 Stabilization and Differentiation of the Health System in Israel/Palestine

Although Palestine is internationally recognized by many states, it is not a completely independent state. Rather, it depends in many essential political areas on the decisions of the Israeli state and therefore has only a limited budget and can act as a state only to a very limited extent. In addition, war can break out between Israel and Palestine at any time, which could also severely damage the Palestinian economy and society, as happened in the Gaza war in 2015. The Palestinian health sector also depends very heavily on private and international initiatives due to the uncertain situation of the Palestinian Authority.¹

Due to the limited study and research opportunities at the universities in the Palestinian Territories, many Palestinian students go abroad to study, if they can afford it. This is especially true for medical students, since until the beginning of the 2000s it was not even possible to study medicine in Palestine. Today, it is possible to study medicine at least at two Palestinian universities, at the universities of An-Najah National in Nablus and al-Quds in East Jerusalem, but many interested students continue to go to neighbouring countries, such as Jordan or Israel (if this is possible). Even during the Cold War, many went to the Soviet Union or Romania.² After 1990, many Palestinians also studied medicine in Western Europe and the USA. Many of them did not return after their studies, but settled abroad as doctors. In the early 2000s, it was estimated that this applied to almost half of all Palestinian medical students (Palestinian Health Ministry 2004).

The situation in the Palestinian health system therefore is not easy. You can see this with the number of hospital beds per 1000 inhabitants: In Germany, the average number of hospital beds per 1000 inhabitants is 8.3, in the Palestinian territories the ration is 1.1, according to the last official report. State hospitals account for only about 20% of hospital beds (cf. Palestinian Health Ministry 2004), while private hospitals account for a corresponding 80%. The private health sector in Palestine is also much better equipped and more important for the people than state facilities, which is mainly due to the large amount of donations for private organisations in the region.³ For example, the Catholic and Protestant churches finance many organisations, especially in the region around the holy city of Bethlehem, so that the region also has the highest density of hospital beds in Palestine (Palestinian Health Ministry 2004). In addition, the state hospitals suffer from understaffing and a shortage of specialists in particular. Also, many of the doctors employed at state hospitals received their training at Jordan universities or, if they are older, in former Soviet countries during the Cold War. Private hospitals, on the other hand, not only have more money, but have also more specialists, most studied in Western European countries or the USA.

Also from the point of view of those interviewed in our study, health care in the region is suffering:

In this country, first of all, there is a shortage of doctors in all medical fields. There are too few heart surgeons, oncologists, hand surgeons, specialist doctors for burns and so on. Because of this, wrong diagnoses are often given and wrong treatments are often given. That is why in this country many people do not have confidence in medical treatment. This is especially true of government hospitals. There are no specialists there for complicated treatments of special diseases. (Interview with a Palestinian alumna in Germany, Skype, 2016)

Since 1984, KAAD has sponsored a total of 243 scholarship holders from Israel and the Palestinian Territories.⁴ Almost half of them studied medicine/health care – i.e. medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, health science or psychology – or spent a research period in these fields in Germany. The return rates of the Palestinian scholarship holders at KAAD is also relatively low at about 65% (KAAD internal documents).

The returning KAAD scholarship holders have founded the association “AUDA – Association of Returning Academics from Germany”. They mainly find work in private hospitals or set up their own medical practice, especially doctors who studied in Western European countries or the USA. An outstanding example of a successful returnee is a former KAAD scholarship holder who is now the director of the largest and best-equipped children’s hospital in Palestine, the Caritas Baby Hospital in Bethlehem. In 2007, she was awarded the KAAD Prize of Peter Hünermann.⁵ Under her supervision, more than 50,000 patients are treated each year. In her daily work, she draws not only on the knowledge she acquired in Germany, but also on a broad network of colleagues in Germany and Palestine. According to her, she regularly exchanges information about rare childhood diseases with doctors in Freiburg, Tübingen and Hamburg. X-ray images, for example, are sent to Germany for consultation. This has already saved “one or two lives”, as the clinic director reports. “This would not have been possible if I had not studied in Germany,” she says. She is not only referring to the contacts in Germany, but also to the specialist knowledge acquired in Germany, which, according to the former KAAD scholarship holder, cannot be acquired in Palestine until today, but is so urgently needed. Only she and a few colleagues who had studied abroad would now pass this expertise to younger colleagues in Palestine (Picture 5.1).

Picture 5.1

Caritas Baby Hospital Bethlehem. (Source: private)

While some KAAD alumni have made a career as employees in private hospitals sponsored by international aid organisations, others have set up their own businesses and have their own opened private practices or clinics in Palestine after returning from Germany. One of them is a KAAD alumnus who completed a 3-month training course as an orthopaedic surgeon at a clinic in Kirchberg/Saxony in 1999 and opened his own clinic in Beit Sahour, next to Bethlehem in 2002. The clinic now employs almost 40 doctors and nurses, including specialists in radiology, orthopaedics and physiotherapy. Many of them have also studied in Western European countries. Patients now come from all parts of Palestine because word has spread about the high-quality treatment and the latest equipment of the clinic. Incidentally, the founder financed this with the help of loans he took out during his training stays in Italy (2006 and 2010) and the USA (2007). One of the clinic’s main focus is the diagnosis of rare diseases, which require specialist expertise to detect. He commented:

We specialize in diagnoses because it is important to identify the right disease before operating. In Palestinian hospitals, doctors often lack expertise and start operating even though they have diagnosed the wrong disease. In addition, there is no supervision of doctors’ work in government hospitals. People can die because of wrong treatments and there are no consequences for the doctors. This is a big problem in Palestine. (Interview with a Palestinian alumnus in Beit Sahour, Palestine, 2016)

After the right diagnosis, the patients are send on to hospitals that have the necessary surgical equipment. These are usually private hospitals, such as the Caritas Baby Hospital or the Dips Clinic in Bethlehem, where also many specialists studied abroad and have the appropriate expertise. The diagnoses in his clinic are cheap compared to other private clinics, e.g. an X-ray examination costs 50 shekels (12.50 euros) or an MRI treatment 500 shekels (125.00 euros). Since most patients do not have private insurance and the costs are not covered by the state health insurance, the patients usually have to pay in cash.

The case of two Palestinian sisters (64 and 68 years old) who opened a small children’s clinic in their own apartment in Ramallah is also very instructive. Both were sponsored by KAAD during their 6-month medical training courses in Germany in 2004 and 2009. Both studied in Germany already in the 1970s and earned their doctorates in the 1980s. After graduation, the older sister immediately went back to Palestine to work for children’s health. The younger sister stayed in Germany and worked as a neurosurgeon in Kiel until 1986, before she also returned to Palestine. Back home, neither of them could get a job as a doctor in a state hospital, so both had to work as nurses for a long time. This time was very difficult for them:

I have often asked myself: Why did I study so much and for so long in Germany, when you don’t find any attention here and no profession? Of course, this is because I am a woman and a Christian in a Muslim-dominated world. (Interview with a Palestinian alumna in Ramallah, Palestine, 2016)

However, after they had saved enough money they opened a small pediatric practice in their private apartment in the centre of Ramallah in 1983. For this purpose, they bought used examination equipment from a well-known colleague in Germany and drove it all the way to Ramallah in their car.⁶ Today, the two sisters treat up to 50 children per week in their small private practice. Since most patients do not have a proper insurance, they only charge up to 60 shekels (15 euros) for treatment, or, if the parents cannot pay either, they do it for free. In addition, they both volunteer for church institutions and social NGOs (interview with the two alumnae in Ramallah, Palestine, 2016).

Another KAAD alumna has established a private dental practice in Ramallah. She bought the practice equipment from a Dutch dentist 10 years ago, including all instruments and equipment. Prior to that she worked there as an employed dentist for 2 years. With the support of KAAD, she completed a 3-month continuing education course in Cologne in 2002/03. This knowledge was not yet available in Palestine. She enjoys her job very much, but has to deal with daily challenges: Since she lives in East Jerusalem, she has to cross the border between Jerusalem and Ramallah by car every day to get to her dental practice in Ramallah. Due to the strict border controls, this can take up to 3 h each way. This takes a lot of energy and time that she better could use for the patients in Ramallah (interview with a Palestinian alumna, Skype, 2017).

KAAD alumni do not only work in the West Bank, but also in Israel, although this is not that easy due to the difficult position of Palestinians in Israeli society, even if they are Israeli citizens. However, a KAAD alumna got a job as a health advisor at a private hospital in Jerusalem. The hospital is run by Palestinian and Israeli doctors who work for an Israeli NGO. The alumna is responsible for patients care, but also works in the hospital administration and management. She grew up as a Muslim with Israeli citizenship in the Arab town of Um El Fahem on the northwest border of the West Bank, earned a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing at the renowned Hebrew University in Jerusalem and, with the support of KAAD, completed a one-year Master’s degree in International Health at the University of Heidelberg (2014/15) (interview with a Palestinian alumna in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel, 2016).

Furthermore, many alumni work also as pharmacists, psychologists, food chemists or drug manufacturers and thus also contribute to the health care system in Palestine. For example, one alumnus worked as a food chemist for a private company and the Ministry of Health in Ramallah. He was responsible for testing the quality of food, water and medicines. He stated that there is still a shortage of food chemists in Palestine. He studied food chemistry at the University of Münster from 1999 to 2005 and had a scholarship from KAAD from 1999 to 2002 (interview with a Palestinian alumnus in Bethlehem, Palestine, 2016).

Another KAAD alumnus helps to provide access to the health care system for people in need, e.g. through the reimbursement of medical and medication costs, as part of his work as regional director of the association Christians Helping Christians in the Holy Land.⁷ He studied business administration at the University of Augsburg from 2005 to 2010 on a KAAD scholarship and since his return he has also worked in the foreign offices of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Ramallah, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Amman/Jordan and the GIZ in Ramallah (interview with a Palestinian alumnus in Bethlehem, Palestine, 2016).

Another KAAD alumna from Nazareth works for the NGO Al Tufula Nazareth Institute⁸ to promote the health of young children and mothers, especially through education workshops on healthy nutrition and lifestyle as well as maternity counselling in pregnancy and early childhood education. During her psychology studies in Germany, she established numerous contacts from which she still benefits in her work today. This is also the reason for the close cooperation between the Al Tufula Nazareth Institute and the Catholic relief organisations Misereor and Caritas, which support various women’s projects of the association (interview with a Palestinian alumna in Nazareth, Palestine, Skype, 2016).

Our interviews in Germany made clear that alumni can also contribute to the development of the Palestinian healthcare system from Germany. A prime example of this is an alumnus who studied human medicine at the University of Regensburg on a KAAD scholarship until 2011 and has since been working as a doctor at a hospital in Essen. Together with a clinic in Palestine, he has set up an exchange programme in which Palestinian doctors come to Germany every year for 6 months for special training. The invited doctors receive training in equipment and instruments which is rarely available in Palestinian hospitals. Also German doctors are involved, who pass on their specialist knowledge to the visiting doctors. In this way, the Palestinian doctors acquire valuable know-how for their work in the Palestinian hospitals. The training is free of charge for the Palestinian doctors.

By bringing the knowledge back to Palestine again and again through the doctors, he believes that his work in Germany has a much greater impact than he would have had returned:

These training measures have a multiplier effect. The doctors acquire valuable knowledge that they can’t get in Palestine because of the poor equipment, and pass it on to their team of four or five staff. As a result, I support over 20 doctors and nurses in total. If I were to go back, I would only support my team if I could have found a job as a doctor at all. (Interview with a Palestinian alumnus in Germany, Skype, 2016)

Moreover, the doctor earns many times more in Germany than he would earn in Palestine. With part of his monthly savings he finances the full pension of his parents, who live in a small village in the West Bank. He would not be able to support his parents if he worked in Palestine because the monthly income there would not be high enough (interview with a Palestinian alumnus in Germany, Skype, 2016).

In addition, returning doctors who were trained abroad have to make a medical test conducted by representatives of the Ministry of Health, because a medical degree from a German university (or from other Western European countries) is not automatically recognized by the Palestinian state. According to the alumnus, the exam is extremely difficult to pass, and many returning doctors fail:

The exam makes no sense at all. We are better trained than most doctors in Palestine. Most of us would easily pass the exam as well, but questions are asked that often have nothing to do with our subject, and many are intentionally failed. Also, you can only take the exam in English, which makes it harder for those who speak more German or Arabic. I suspect that they don’t want us in the country because we are seen as competition to the doctors at state hospitals. They are afraid that we will take their jobs because we are better educated. (Interview with a Palestinian alumnus in Germany, Skype, 2016)

This regulation is justified by the regional representative of the Palestinian Ministry of Health for Bethlehem – who himself studied medicine in Russia in the 1980s – as follows:

We only accept medical diplomas in Palestine from the countries that also recognize our medical diplomas. Germany does not do that. Therefore, even Palestinians who have graduated in Germany must first pass an examination here before they are allowed to work as a doctor. This applies not only to state hospitals, but also to private ones. (Interview with the regional representative of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Bethlehem, Palestine, 2016)

Another alumnus also complained about the lack of support and appreciation of the skills he acquired in Germany. As a psychologist with a doctorate and current postdoctoral researcher at the University of Regensburg, he sees no future in Palestine for the simple reason that there are hardly any practicing psychologists there. Throughout Palestine, there have been only three universities that offered a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and this has only been for a few years. There are no doctoral programs in psychology (British Psychological Society 2016). Therefore, he can only imagine contributing to the development in Palestine from Germany. Currently his research focus in Germany is on therapy methods for various forms of anxiety. In this connection, he also treats war refugees from Syria and other Arab countries in Regensburg who are traumatized due to war and flight. He emphasizes that his work is indispensable because he is the only Arabic-speaking therapist in Regensburg and knows the culture of the refugees (interview with a Palestinian alumnus in Germany, Skype, 2017).

Another colleague researches and teaches as a psychologist at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and also sees his future in Germany, although he would like to return to Haifa. The poor career opportunities for Arabs at Israeli universities do not allow him to return. He completed his doctorate in Munich with the support of a KAAD scholarship (from 2002 to 2005) and is now a researcher in the field of industrial and organizational psychology. He wants to try to contribute to the development of psychological research in Israel and Palestine through scientific networks. How this can be done in concrete terms, however, is still unclear to him, since, as mentioned above, there are hardly any researchers in Palestine who could be considered as cooperation partners. However, he contributes to the development in Palestine in another way by maintaining regular contact with family members and friends in Haifa and sending money to his parents on a regularly basis, who are dependent on it (Interview with a Palestinian alumnus in Germany, Skype, 2017).

Another former KAAD scholarship holder established a practice as a family doctor in Homburg/Saarland after studying medicine at Saarland University from 1999 to 2006. In 2013, he took over the practice from a colleague. In addition to his medical work in Homburg, he has built up a transnational aid network between the Gaza Strip and Germany together with his brother, who is also a doctor and lives in the Gaza Strip.

Both have launched a sponsorship programme for needy children in the Gaza Strip. Patients in Germany pay for the costs for the treatment of sick children in the Gaza Strip. So far, more than 50 sponsorships have been established. In some cases, medical bills of “up to 200 euros” are paid for children in Palestine. The good and trustful relationships with his patients in Germany certainly played a key role here, so that the sponsor have “with a good feeling” and know that it is “for a good cause”.

In addition, the former KAAD scholarship holder donates money or medical equipment from time to time, most recently a sum of almost 10,000 euros for the transport of medical instruments and medicines from Saarland to Gaza City. The donations were received by his brother and distributed to various smaller practices and hospitals in the region. The alumnus is convinced:

I can help much more because I live in Germany. Here I have a higher income, more security and quick access to working partners. From Gaza, I could not manage the aid projects for medical professionals there. No one would be helped if I went back to Gaza. Here I also have more resources, that is, fast internet, telephones and a good infrastructure. None of that is the case in Gaza. (Interview with a Palestinian alumnus in Germany, Skype, 2017)

Occasionally he works together with the GIZ, which often co-finances the transport of the medical instruments, or with the German health insurance company AOK, which donated several wheelchairs. Once he also cooperated with the Palestinian government. But he would not do that again, because some money and instruments disappeared in the process. In general, he sees his work in permanent danger because of the extremely insecure situation and the isolation of the Gaza Strip. The bombings by the Israeli army alone in the last 3 years destroyed some of the medical practices he supported with his brother. Another problem is the unsafe transport to Gaza. There have been cases of a shipping container being held for over a year at the Egyptian border because the Israeli border guards would not let him be transported into Gaza.

Another KAAD alumnus from Palestine, who works as a pharmacist in Germany, regularly sends containers full of laboratory and medical equipment, books and other things to Gaza. After studying pharmacy at the University of Würzburg on a KAAD scholarship in the 1990s, he immediately returned to Gaza City to take up a research position at the university there. He used the contacts he had made in Germany to establish the first Institute of Pharmacy in Gaza in the late 1990s. He headed this institute until 2009, when he decided to return to Germany with his family. In Munich, he first worked in a pharmacy for 6 months before opening his own one. The contacts to Gaza have not broken off. On the contrary, he regularly sends medicines and care products to Gaza that are not available there. In this context, he also delivers care products worth up to 200,000 euros to various small pharmacies in Gaza every year. The alumnus says that he has created over 20 jobs in Gaza through these collaborations (interview with a Palestinian alumnus in Germany, Skype, 2017).

In contrast, another KAAD alumnus from Rhineland-Palatinate would like to return to his hometown in Gaza immediately when the political situation has eased and the situation is more secure. He studied medicine at the University of Mainz from 2008 to 2009 on a KAAD scholarship and then immediately got a job as a specialist in orthopaedics and trauma surgery at a clinic in Bad Kreuznach. He has now been working as a spine surgeon in a hospital in Koblenz for 4 years. Despite his secure and well-paid job, he plans to return to Gaza. He has already saved enough money to set up a small orthopaedic practice in his home town in Gaza. Such kind of a practice does not yet exist there. He has already commissioned his brother, who lives in Gaza, to buy the materials he needs to build a practice and which have to be procured in time because building materials and raw materials are rare in Gaza. For this, he regularly sends money to his brother. Since his father died years ago, he also supports his mother financially. When he will move back to Gaza, however, he cannot yet foresee. It all depends on the political and security situation in Gaza (interview with a Palestinian alumnus in Germany, Skype, 2017).

Overall, it can be said that the Palestinian alumni play an important role for their home country. Thus, new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches were brought to Palestine by the former students, which were not yet available or, in some cases, were not even known. This includes differentiated diagnostic and therapeutic approaches in dermatology, oncology, orthopaedics or urology, which have come to Palestine from Germany via the alumni. As we have seen, the knowledge acquired by alumni abroad is not only transferred to the countries of origin, but also multiplied.

5.2 Innovation and Networking in the Technology Sector in Indonesia

Along with Korea and India, Indonesia is one of the early focus countries of KAAD in the Asian region. The first contacts with civil society representatives in Indonesia were established as early as the 1950s (interview with the head of the KAAD Asia Department). Since then, numerous Indonesian students have participated in KAAD scholarship programmes, so that there are now several alumni generations. As already mentioned, Indonesia was mainly used as a case study country because many Indonesians in the STEM field were supported by KAAD. In the last 15 years, these were around 60% of all Indonesian scholarship holders (internal KAAD documents).

With over 260 million people, Indonesia is the fourth most populous and the largest Muslim-majority country in the world. Its population has doubled in the last 30 years. Indonesia has a gross domestic product per capita of US$ 11,600 (in PPP) do and has experienced a very strong economic growth of up to 10% over the past 20 years. Indonesia has also been a G-20 member state since 2008. It has one of the largest higher education systems in the world, with more than 4600 private and public institutions providing tertiary education. Most universities are located in Jakarta, the capital city with 30 million people. Indonesia was founded after independence from the Netherlands in 1949 (DAAD 2018a: 9).

Since the 2000s, about two thirds of the KAAD-scholarship holders have returned to Indonesia after their support. This means that Indonesia, like Israel/Palestine, has only an average return rate. The returned alumni founded a KAAD alumni association in Jakarta (Ikatan Alumni KAAD di Indonesia), whose work focuses mainly on religious topics and in particular on the situation of Christian minorities in a predominantly Muslim-dominated country.

In addition, professional topics are addressed. Thus, the association carries out various networking activities and organises educational workshops, among others in cooperation with another KAAD alumni group (KONTAK), whose members are mostly composed of the Catholic Indonesian Student Family KMKI, founded in Germany, and the Atma Jaya University in Jakarta, where the KAAD partner committee (“KAAD Committee Indonesia”) is located and where, among other things, information events on studying in Germany are offered (Picture 5.2).

Picture 5.2

Atma-Jaya University in Jakarta. (Source: Atma-Jaya University Jakarta)

The returned KAAD alumni are often employed in leading positions in the Indonesian economy or have founded their own companies. They played a big role in the positive development of the dynamic technology sector in the past decades. An outstanding example is the founder of the technology company “Triputra Group” which produces tools and household appliances. The founder studied architecture in Mainz and Braunschweig in the 1980s and set up his own business in Indonesia after his return in 1989. He brought new, environmentally friendly production methods for manufacturing tools and household appliances from Germany and successfully introduced it in Indonesia. Even today, the company uses its contacts in Germany to recruit young talented professionals for his company by recruiting graduates of STEM courses in Germany. Some of the graduates themselves are Indonesians who studied in Germany. Over the years, the company has grown from a four-man business to one of the ten largest companies in the country. Today, the company employs several hundred thousand people, among them KAAD alumni who studied mechanical engineering or other engineering sciences in Germany. One KAAD alumnus, who was recruited through the company’s KAAD network and has been with the company since 2014. He developed a new impact drill with diamond and stainless steel head attachments that make drilling in stone and masonry much easier. He acquired the expertise for this new development during his studies at the RWTH Aachen in the field of automation technology:

In Germany, I learned almost everything about automation technology. But at that time I wasn’t aware that Germany also produces the best drilling machines in the world. I only realized that here in Indonesia. Just think of Bosch, they built very good drilling machines that you can also buy in Indonesia, but they are much too expensive here. That’s why we are now developing our own drilling machines, which are affordable. In doing so, I apply almost one-to-one the technical know-how I learned in Aachen. This includes, above all, the details and precision for the drilling machine. It’s not easy, but our models are getting better all the time. Not quite at Bosch level yet, but I think the best in Indonesia so far. (Interview with an Indonesian alumnus in Pontianak, Indonesia, 2017)

Another KAAD alumnus, who was hired by the company, is now working on the development of a new production process that will enable a more efficient and climate-friendly tool production. He also cooperates closely with the alumnus who co-developed the impact drill.

KAAD alumni contribute also to innovations in other areas of the economy. For example, an alumnus – who studied architecture in a master’s programme at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and has set up his own business as an architect in Jakarta – is currently involved in the construction of the largest church in the north of Jakarta with over 2000 seats. Since his small company with two employees does not have sufficient capacity itself, he cooperates with three other architectural firms. He has designed the ground plan for the church and is supervising the construction work. However, there are also problems in the realization of the project:

It was difficult to get a building permit from the city of Jakarta, because due to the increasing Islamization it is becoming more and more difficult to build churches in Indonesia, especially if they are to be large churches that tower over other buildings such as mosques. But we were lucky to get the permission. (Interview with an Indonesian alumnus in Jakarta, Indonesia, 2017)

Already during his studies in Germany he developed a sense for entrepreneurship through the exchange with other German and Indonesian students and built up a network with other Indonesian entrepreneurs:

Especially the network among Indonesians in Germany is very important. We are very well networked there and expand our contacts there and continue to use them in Indonesia. The Indonesians who stayed in Indonesia didn’t learn that and hardly do that. That is a big plus that we learned in Germany, because there we had to network. I now use these networks for my work as an entrepreneur in Indonesia. (Interview with an Indonesian alumnus in Pontianak, Indonesia, 2017)

Another KAAD alumna, who studied Global Production Engineering at the TU Berlin at the end of the 1990s, founded a consulting company in the education sector in Jakarta immediately after her return. She developed the idea for her self-employment during her studies. By founding the company, she transferred her master’s thesis “Private Owned Business Sector in Education” directly into practice. The central goal of the company is to place Indonesian and Korean students in English-speaking schools, language schools and universities in the USA, Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. The company works closely with partner companies in South Korea. The alumna said about the tasks of her company:

You can say, we bring rich students, boys and girls, abroad to study there or to learn a new language there. They mostly come from rich families in Indonesia, who are able to pay for the tuition fees at the universities, and who can afford the living costs for their children abroad. Many of the parents live and work in Jakarta, and have a good education themselves. Most of them want to go to the United States, but not all of them can go there. So, they also go to England or Australia. We also want to expand to Germany, and I want to use my experiences and contacts there, but it is difficult to get into Germany, because most education institutions are state owned, and not privately owned. It is difficult to cooperate with them, and sometimes even impossible. (Interview with an Indonesian alumna in Jakarta, Indonesia, 2017)

Most of the placed students have to pay college or university fees to be allowed to study there. The colleges and universities then in turn pay placement fees to the alumna’s company. With this business model, she has been very successful. Since its founding in 2008, the number of employees grow to 17 people. She also sees her work as a contribution to Indonesia’s development:

I want to help to educate students by taking them abroad. I think they need education and expertise from abroad to bring Indonesia forward when they come back. That is very important. Because the universities in Indonesia are still not as good as the ones in the United States, England, or Australia. They have to study there, come back, and bring Indonesia forward with their knowledge. It is a bit like the KAAD. […] And most of them really come back. (Interview with an Indonesian alumna in Jakarta, Indonesia, 2017)

Her husband, who is also a KAAD alumnus, first worked for various companies in the energy sector after returning home before taking a management position in the Indonesian energy company Puri Energi Kencana in 2010. In the meantime, he has risen to the position of director there. The company focuses on sustainable energy supply in the greater Jakarta area, with an emphasis on hydropower. The company has over 120 employees. Its biggest current project is the development of a new hydroelectric power plant in Jakarta, which will provide water more cheaply, efficiently and in greater quantities for the city. He commented:

The population in Jakarta is growing incredibly fast, but the water supply cannot be guaranteed, especially in the outskirts of the city, where more and more people are moving from the countryside. It is now our task to be able to transport water there as well. The city of Jakarta has commissioned us to do this. All in all, a lot is happening there now, not only the water supply but also the transport infrastructure, such as the construction of a metro system. It’s all part of the same project, and it’s makes a significant contribution to the development of our city. […] But there is still a lot to be done. (Interview with an Indonesian alumnus in Jakarta, Indonesia, 2017)

Another KAAD alumnus has also set up his own business in Jakarta. After completing his engineering studies at RWTH Aachen University in 1996, he first worked for 6 years for various companies in Indonesia, including Motorola and Softwarehouse, in order to gain professional experience, but he already had the goal of becoming an entrepreneur during his studies:

During my engineering studies in Aachen, I was not able to attend any business administration seminars. […] Because none were offered in engineering studies. That’s not good, and many engineers who want to start a business lack the entrepreneurial knowledge to run a business well, such as accounting, marketing and so on. […] I had to acquire this knowledge when I started my business in Indonesia. It took me a lot of time in the beginning and also a lot of money. (Interview with an Indonesian alumnus in Pontianak, Indonesia, 2017)

In 2002, he founded a telecommunications company that sells prepaid phone units in over 40,000 stores in Indonesia. He now has over 20 employees. In the future, he would like to expand his company further and also enter the mobile phone market.

An alumna who studied business administration at the University of Hamburg in the early 2000s now works as a development manager at one of the largest chemical companies in Indonesia, where she is responsible for the introduction of new manufacturing processes for paints. She was offered the position through a collaboration between her doctoral supervisor and a leading German chemical company, where she was working at the time while completing her doctorate in Germany. She is convinced that she would never have got the job in Indonesia without this mediation. The professional connections to the German company continue and her company also benefits.

And similar to Palestine, KAAD alumni who stayed in Germany are also active in development process in Indonesia. A KAAD scholarship holder from TU Dresden who does his doctorate on the development of a new construction technique for high-rise buildings, cooperates with the Bandung Institute of Technology in Indonesia. High-rise buildings are made of concrete and steel in Indonesia up to now. The new construction method uses also a lot of wood and plastics. By using wood and plastic, the buildings become more stable and flexible in earthquakes and do not collapse as quickly, rather they resonate with earth tremors which is particular important in earthquake-prone Indonesia as as Indonesia was repeatedly hit by earthquakes and the tsunamis that follow, as demonstrated by the devastating Christmas 2014 earthquake that killed over 200,000 people in Sumatra. Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s decision in August 2019 to move the seat of government and capital status from Jakarta on the island of Java to the East of the island of Borneo is also due to the acute earthquake risk and it shows how dramatic the earthquake risk is in Indonesia.

He is not only working with colleagues from TU Dresden, but also from the Bandung Institute of Technology, who want to implement these new techniques and processes in Indonesia in cooperation with Indonesian companies. The KAAD scholarship holder says:

Research and wood processing in Germany is leading worldwide. We don’t know much about it in Indonesia yet, but we learn a lot in this project. Building sky scraper with wood has never been thought of in Indonesia before. Through this new manufacturing method, we can contribute to a safer life in Indonesia. (Interview with an Indonesian scholarship holder, Skype, 2017)

Moreover, contrary to popular belief, the alumnus sees timber construction as a type of eco-construction, or green building, as timber is easy to produce in Indonesia. And trees are already grown sustainably in large quantities. In addition, timber construction would reduce CO₂ emissions, which are emitted in large quantities during steel or cement production for conventional high-rise buildings. He says timber construction can even be applied to the construction of high-rise buildings above 30 storeys. His research supervisor at Bandung University recommended him to go to Germany because there are few research opportunities in this field in Indonesia. Therefore, he decided to apply to the Technical University of Dresden, which has a focus in this research field. He would like to pass on this technique to the research community in Indonesia and teach it in seminars in order to implement this technique in Indonesian practice in the long run. So far, little research has been done on this at the University of Bandung. Meanwhile, there are planned constant visits, lectures and conferences between the two partner institutes. He describes the intensive research cooperation as follows:

Some of my colleagues in Bandung have done that already sometimes. This is good for our research exchange and it takes care of our partnership with Dresden. We are permanently in contact with our partners in Dresden over the Internet, and we work together in different research projects. We also visit each other permanently. And I represented my first findings already in Bandung. So, we learn from each other, the Institute in Bandung learns from the colleagues in Dresden about how to use new research methods, and the colleagues in Dresden learn from us about how to implement the research findings on the ground. So, Indonesia can be an experimental ground for new sciences. And they learn about wood types they do not have in Europe. (Interview with an Indonesian scholarship holder, Skype, 2017)

Another KAAD alumna from Indonesia works as a mechanical engineer in a Munich-based consulting company, where she already worked part-time during her studies. At that time, the company already realized that the student could help the company in future projects in Indonesia. Immediately after her graduation, the company offered her a full time job. In the interview she told us:

The job was very important alongside my studies because it gave me a permanent job after graduation. Otherwise I wouldn’t have got it. There I learned a lot about German bureaucracy and German laws and also about the way of working in Germany. I needed all that again later in my job. But the company also learned a lot from me, especially about the people and the culture in Indonesia. That is also very important if you want to do business there. (Interview with an Indonesian alumna in Germany, Skype, 2017)

In this context, she is regularly in Indonesia for several weeks or months. For a project on the Indonesian island of Sumatra she was there a whole year to advise an Indonesian company on the design and construction of an evacuation building in a tsunami area on Sumatra. Her work focused on safety guidelines, the construction of emergency exits (which had to be accessible and barrier-free for handicapped, among other things), signage and directional signs. She used her experience with guidelines in Germany, which are very precise and well developed compared to Indonesia. In addition, most buildings on Sumatra have not been built to be earthquake or tsunami proof, although this problem exists since the first settlements.

Another alumnus founded a consulting company for intercultural training and management in Jakarta. He still regularly travels to Germany to advise companies that want to gain a foothold in Southeast Asia and trains them in intercultural management strategies. The companies are told how to deal with the political, social and cultural conditions in Indonesia, especially with regards to the prevailing business culture, which differs fundamentally from Germany. The alumnus explained that Indonesian business culture is essentially shaped by the Javanese ethic of harmony,⁹ in which people tend to argue cautiously in communication and tend to avoid conflicts. In contrast, the German culture is more characterized by direct confrontation and clear problem-solving approaches. The Indonesian culture is more concerned with the personal well-being of the employees, whereas the German culture is more concerned with achieving a business goal. The central difference therefore lies in the “harmonious” compromise on the one hand and the efficient achievement of goals on the other.

On this he said:

I am very attractive for the German companies because I they understand what my added value is. In Germany, I learned how to explain to Indonesians what Germans want. And very importantly, I also learned what Indonesians want from Germans. And I help them explain their interests to each other and find an agreement. (Interview with an Indonesian alumnus in Pontianak, Indonesia, 2017)

Today, his company is also active in China, Singapore and Malaysia.

5.3 Development of Environmental Protection and Agriculture in Ghana

As a Central West African country, Ghana is one of KAAD’s priority countries in Africa and many Ghanian students have been supported over the past decades. Ghana was the first African country to gain independence from Great Britain in 1957. Since then, the country has been subject to constant political and social changes and has been ruled by dictators time and again. However, today Ghana is considered to be one of the safest and politically most stable countries in Africa. The central West African country is currently home to 28 million inhabitants (mainly English-speaking), who generate a gross domestic product per capita of 4300 US dollars (in PPP). However, similar to many other African countries, the country suffers from a severe brain drain of highly qualified academics, especially scientists, engineers and doctors, who are lacking in many regions of the country (Ghanaian Government 2017). The university landscape has only emerged in the last 50–60 years since independence and is mainly concentrated in the major cities of Accra, Kumasi and Tamale. Many of the country’s leaders have studied abroad and have also been financially supported by scholarship programmes. These include former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and two Ghanaian ex-presidents, John Evans Atta Mills, who was President of Ghana from 2009 to 2012, and Kofi Abrefa Busia, President of Ghana from 1969 to 1972, both were sponsored by the US Fulbright Program (Fulbright 2018).

Ghana remains a predominantly agricultural and fisheries-based country. Nearly 60% of the population are employed in agriculture, forestry or fishing industry. As a result, many development projects in Ghana focus on the agricultural sector. The main focus is on measures to improve the efficiency of agriculture in Ghana, e.g. through better water supply, better transport options for agricultural products (especially from the south to the dry north of the country) or better adaptation of agriculture to climatic changes (Ghanaian Government 2017).

The focus of KAAD’s support also lies in the areas of agriculture, energy and the environment, which are also of outstanding importance from the students’ point of view. A KAAD alumnus told us:

Agriculture is the most important issue for Ghana. If you want to develop Ghana sustainably, you have to focus on agriculture. One point is also crucial: fostering agriculture also supports local structures and community institutions, because almost all people living in rural areas in Ghana are dependent on agriculture. They not only get their own food from it, but also earn their money from it. Everything in Ghana depends on agriculture. (Interview with a Ghanaian alumnus in Kumasi, Ghana, 2018)

Other alumni also emphasized the outstanding importance of agriculture for Ghana’s development:

Agriculture and processing of agricultural products should be a focus in development policies in Ghana. Because we have comparative advantages in cocoa or palm oil to other countries. We have the best soil and best climate. However, we export too many raw products. We should improve our processing, so that we can export more quality products that are actually produced in Ghana. (Interview with a Ghanaian alumnus in Accra, Ghana, 2018)

For me, development means that people are better off today than they were yesterday. In Ghana, development can only be achieved through better promotion of agriculture. Agriculture in our country is not yet mechanised, a lot of cultivation and harvesting is still done by hand. That’s why you can’t see much development in agriculture yet, that has to be improved. The farmers are not yet getting back what they invest. (Interview with a Ghanaian scholarship holder, Bonn, 2017)

In Ghana, many returned alumni – the return rate of those sponsored from Ghana in the 2000s was with 85% above-average (internal KAAD documents) – worked in the fields of agriculture and environmental protection. Many former scholarship holders have also often reached leading positions.

A prominent example is the two-time Ghanaian KAAD scholarship holder Stephen Nana Ato Arthur, who became the first KAAD alumnus to be elected to an African national parliament in 2013. He is intensively involved in international development cooperation between Germany and Ghana (KAAD Annual Report 2013). In 2012, he received a KAAD scholarship for his PhD in Development Studies at the University of Bonn and returned to Ghana immediately after his graduation. His doctoral thesis focused on decentralisation and local government in Ghana.¹⁰ He came to the conclusion that individual municipalities in Ghana could take on more political responsibility, although most municipalities still have democratic deficits, especially with regard to the political decision-making process. He transferred his theoretical findings into practice as Deputy Central Regional Minister, and becoming the Head of the Local Government Service in 2017.¹¹ In this position, he supervises the implementation of national guidelines for local government in Ghana.

Some alumni and also non-KAAD-sponsored returnees who are active in the field of environmental protection and agriculture work for international NGOs that support Ghanaian farmers in introducing new, more environmentally friendly production methods. In doing so, they use also technologies developed by KAAD alumni. For example, an alumnus at the University of Kumasi developed a new irrigation system for the cultivation of water-intensive crops in the dry season. The irrigation system is easy to install and operate and is also very inexpensive to maintain, since it consists only of a water pump and a water storage tank. This makes it affordable and easy to use, especially for small farmers. But also larger agricultural enterprises use the system more and more.

Another KAAD alumnus, who studied Biology and Aquatic Tropical Ecology at the University of Bremen from 2000 to 2002 and Forestry at the Technical University of Munich from 2002 to 2004, wrote his thesis on “Researching the Organisms at the Bottom of the Lagoons at the Ghanaian Coast”. He came to the conclusion that the polluted lagoons in Ghana have more microorganisms than those that are not polluted, which results in a strain on the biotope. Today, he works at the University of Kumasi, where he is heading a research project to improve water quality in Ghana’s rivers. River pollution has been a major problem for decades. Even today, sewage, faeces and garbage are often disposed of directly into the rivers. Many Ghanaian towns and villages along the coastline are described as the “biggest garbage dumps in West Africa”, as recently reported in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ 2016).

The pollution has increased significantly in recent years, because gold prospectors – either private individuals or small and large companies, especially from China – try to find gold in the rivers. In doing so, they dig up large parts of the river bottom, which pollutes the rivers enormously. In addition, they use lead to find the gold more quickly, which adds toxins to the water and leads to large plant and kills fishes. This also excludes the rivers as drinking water reservoirs. Yes, even for laundry the water is no longer clean enough. The big gold prospecting companies do not use environmentally friendly technology because they want to save money; the small companies or private individuals do not have enough money to afford it.

The alumnus currently investigates the effects of water pollution on people, animals and plants, and tries to find a way to remove the toxins from the water to make it usable for agriculture again: “I can already tell that the water quality needs to be improved for agriculture because the high level of lead in the water can destroy the crops and be very harmful to the people who eat the maize or beans” (Interview with a Ghanaian alumnus in Kumasi, Ghana, 2018).

In another research project, he studies the use of purging nuts in aviation. Lufthansa also already tested it (FAZ 2011). Many international companies want to invest in this process and try to buy land from the farmers and chiefs in order to grow more plants for oil production, which they can then sell in Europe. This regularly leads to conflicts between Ghanaian farmers and chiefs on the one hand and larger international corporations (e.g. from Denmark or Israel) on the other:

For instance, a chief got very angry, because he sold land to someone he never saw through a middleman. He never knew what they did with his land, or what they planned to do with his land. When he decided to sell the land, he thought he would negotiate with the company directly, and would get to know the new landowner. When he realized that there are no direct negotiations between him and the company, it was too late, his land was already sold. (Interview with a Ghanaian alumnus in Kumasi, Ghana, 2018)

Another alumna works currently a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Statistical, Social, and Economic Research (ISSER) at Legon Uni in Accra on these social impacts in the Ghanian agriculture. She did her Master’s in Agriculture at the University of The Hague and completed her PhD at the Centre for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn on a KAAD scholarship in 2011.¹² In a current project, she examines the social and economic situation of women in the shea nut trade from a gender perspective.¹³ This project is about the cultivation of shea nuts in northern Ghana and their sale in Europe, especially in Denmark. The women collect the wild shea nuts in the forest and sell them to larger traders in Ghana and Europe, who then sell them worldwide. The women farmers’ share of the global trade is extremely small, leaving them trapped in poverty. The products made from shea nuts, such as cosmetics of the brand “Body Shop”, are nevertheless expensive. So the shea nuts are not fairly traded. In her project, the alumna interviews women in Ghana as well as traders in Denmark. She also works in the Ph.D. programme on “sustainable agriculture”, which is carried out by ISSER in cooperation with ZEF (it was also set up by ZEF); she also helped to set up the programme as ZEF’s contact person at ISSER. Further research collaborations with universities in the USA and Great Britain have been added; at present, five Ghanaian doctoral students are part of the programme.

Another case is a Ghanaian alumna who works for a German forest and land surveying company in Ghana and is currently heading a project to create virtual maps for agricultural land. Immediately after completing her Master’s degree in Geoinformatics and Photogrammetry (Aerial Surveying) at the University of Stuttgart (2010), she did a 6-month internship with the company. During this activity, the company made her aware of market opportunities in Ghana. Until then, there were no companies of this kind in Ghana. The German company would not have been able to gain a foothold in Ghana without her Ghanaian’s contacts with the Ghanaian Ministry of the Interior and local administrative institutions. Not without pride she makes clear:

Without me, the German company would not be in Ghana. I made them aware of this opportunity here, of the Ghanaian ministry’s call for applications, and advised them on how to apply, i.e. what things to look out for in Ghana, what is important to the ministry, what special environmental conditions there are in Ghana, the challenges of land surveying in Ghana and which partners you can work well with here. I already knew all that quite well through my colleagues here and my contacts with Ghanaian authorities. (Interview with a Ghanaian alumna in Accra, Ghana, 2018)

Another KAAD alumni also helped a European company to gain a foothold in the Ghanaian market. For example, an alumnus who studied Food Science at the TU Berlin from 1989 to 1998 supported a Swiss agricultural company in exporting the wild plant Griffonia from Ghana to Europe. In doing so, he used his contacts in the Ghanaian authorities. In 2010, he started working for GIZ and later took over the management of the Centre for International Migration (CIM) in Accra. As part of his CIM work, he is both the chief coordinator of the reintegration programme and head of the German Ghanaian Center for Jobs and Reintegration, which was inaugurated in Accra in December 2017 by President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Der Spiegel 2017). The centre is intended to help returnees in their job search and reintegration.¹⁴ After 2 years, the German Ghanaian Center is to be maintained by the Ghanaian side alone. In the past, many KAAD returnees have been among those supported.¹⁵

KAAD alumni have also established a broad network of alumni associations. At the KAAD-partner university Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, for example, there is the “Regional KAAD Partner Committee for West Africa” (KASWA), which also cooperates with various local civil society organisations. The aim of the association is to bring together KAAD alumni and to exchange ideas on development issues in Ghana. They often hold seminars on religious and social issues. KASWA is divided into three chapters: the Northern Ghana Chapter, the Central Ghana Chapter and the Southern Ghana Chapter. All chapters have their own chairperson and all chapters have their own focus with regional programs and seminars. All members of the three chapters meet once a year in a Ghana-wide, cross-regional annual seminar to which KAAD is also invited. The annual meeting rotates between chapters and is held in a different region each year, usually Kumasi, Tamale or Accra. KASWA’s greatest successes in recent years have been the steady growth in membership to now over 100 members, 60 of whom are very active. In addition, KASWA has succeeded in establishing a close exchange with the Catholic bishops in Ghana, especially on the major issues in Ghana such as sustainable development and peaceful coexistence of religions.

Other central topics of KASWA are education and health. Thus, the KASWA events discuss whether the education reforms in Ghana, are sufficient to meet the needs of the universities. One of the issues discussed was whether secondary education should last 3 or 4 years. Most policy makers argue for 3 years. KASWA demands at least 4 years, because otherwise the students are too young and inexperienced when they enter the universities. KWASA also sees a great need for reform in the health system. There is still a lack of doctors and nurses in the country. Although a mandatory health insurance was introduced in 2004, it still does not cover all treatments by far (Oxfam 2011).

The connection between development, emigration, and flight is also intensively discussed among KAAD alumni in Ghana. A long-time member of the alumni association said the following about this:

Overall, it is important, and I see this as an essential part of my job, to educate Ghanaians before they flee so that they don’t make the dangerous flight to Europe in the first place. Most of them will never get there. Getting through the desert is already the most dangerous part of the escape. Many die already before or in the desert. They have no idea of the dangerous journey, they know nothing about the ruthlessness of the smugglers and the heat and dangers of the desert. And after that, there is the Mediterranean and the Alps. Many poor Ghanaians from the village have never heard of these. We have to educate them about that. Europe is not the promised land and even a low-paid but safe job in Ghana can be an alternative to the dangerous journey into the unknown or death. (Interview with a Ghanaian alumnus in Accra, Ghana, 2018)

He also tries to refer potential migrants (but also returnees) to NGOs that can help them find jobs. He also cooperates with German organisations such as the Catholic relief organisations MISEREOR and Raphaelswerk. He also sees himself as an intermediary for Ghanaian students who want to go to Germany and informs them about funding opportunities from the DAAD, the FES or the KAAD. He emphasised in the interview (Picture 5.3):

Through this education and mediation work, we can convince young people to stay here in Ghana or to come back from abroad, i.e. to show them job perspectives here in Ghana. In this way, they can contribute to the development here and thus also reduce the causes of flight. If young people have job prospects, then they no longer have to flee and can help to develop the country. (Interview with a Ghanaian alumnus in Accra, Ghana, 2018)

Ghanaian KAAD alumni who stayed in Germany after their studies are also professionally committed to the development in Ghana, especially to sustainable ecological goals. One alumnus works in a 3-year project with the international NGO “Local Governments for Sustainability” in Bonn, which promotes sustainable policies in municipalities worldwide (ICLEI 2018), including Ghana. Specifically for Accra, the project develops a strategy to reduce emission rates (mainly caused by cars). The strategy mainly consists of a combination of more public transport and a traffic reducing infrastructure. The project cooperates with the authorities in Accra and various federal ministries and organisations, such as the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service. He commented:

The goal of the project reflects my personal philosophy that development and sustainable change has to come from below. This means supporting and developing communities. […] And educating and supporting local community leaders. They are the change agents and driver of development. (Interview with a Ghanaian alumnus in Germany, Bonn, 2018)

He already collected the basics and the first ideas for this during his studies. In his highly regarded master’s thesis in the “Geography of Environmental Risks and Human Security” course,¹⁶ he looked into the effects of climate change on cocoa production in Ghana and developed an ecological approach to increasing the harvest in cocoa cultivation. His work shows that many farmers have not yet found adequate means to cope with the changing cocoa growth patterns caused by rising temperatures and lower rainfall. While many farmers know they need to irrigate crops more, they have very limited options for sourcing sufficient water. In his MA thesis, he therefore recommends an environmentally sound and community-based approach that can lead to an increase in harvests and thus income among farmers.

Picture 5.3

Campus of the University in Kumasi. (Source: private)

However, the strong focus on agriculture in Ghana is increasingly viewed critically. An alumnus who has remained in Germany comments on this:

We have to focus on high technology in Ghana. I think we can do that now, we learned about that in the last years. I learned about that in Germany. But in Ghana, everyone just talks about agriculture. That was right 20 years ago, but now we are a step ahead, we should do the next steps towards a higher development. We should develop from an agricultural to an industrial country, and here we should focus on technical products. […] Another big challenge for start-up companies in Ghana is to get a loan at the beginning. No bank gives a loan. They don’t trust young people, and don’t believe in their knowledge and ability to form a company. If a bank gives a loan, then it can cost up to 50 percent interest rate. No one can pay for that. (Interview with a KAAD alumnus from Ghana)

That’s why he started his own business in Germany: In 2016, alongside his studies in Leipzig, he founded an online shoe store called “KOLIKOWEL.com”. In his online store, he sells shoes made from used and recycled clothing in Germany and second-hand clothes from clothing stores in Accra.¹⁷ The shoe production is in Accra done by his six employees. The shoes are made for a young target group (both women and men): “We make cool shoes that young people in Ghana like to wear, young people in Germany would also wear them, but the competition is too big here. These are shoes like sneakers and sports shoes. They are also already bought quite well by young people in Accra.” This small company is a good example of a small transnational company that creates jobs for young people in Ghana operating from Germany.

It is crucial for him that he knows the Ghanaian work culture and also the Ghanaian employees in Accra itself, because otherwise the company would not work. He pays above average salaries so that the employees can have a good live in Ghana and support their families. He looked for employees “on the street”, so to speak; all of them were unemployed and desperately looking for a job. This was also the only way he could afford to hire them in the first place and start the business. Since the company has been running well and the sales figures have increased, higher wages could also have been paid. The wages shall continue to grow with the company:

I got the idea to found this company in Germany. I had no money, but only knowledge. That’s why, I came up with this idea to start this company. Wouldn’t I have studied in Germany I maybe would have got this idea, but not the skills to actually realize the idea. (Interview with a Ghanaian alumnus in Germany, Skype, 2018)

By founding this small online company, he was able to transfer his know-how acquired during his business studies at the University of Leipzig to Ghana. He currently completes his doctoral thesis on “Tech Start-Up Companies in Ghana”. He investigates the start-up landscape for high-tech companies in Ghana and looks into the motives of young people in Ghana to start a tech company: What are their goals and what challenges they face? He focuses primarily on the two major economic hubs in Ghana, Accra and Kumasi. From his point of view, there is a new entrepreneurial spirit among young people who have often studied abroad and want to use their knowledge to build up a new economic sector in Ghana.¹⁸ It is important to get away from the “old development philosophy” of agricultural and to invest more in future technologies like internet and mechanical engineering. In his opinion, however, the material resources for this are often still lacking, and therefore a focus on internet high-tech would be best, because it does not require a lot of start-up capital and material, but only knowledge. Many young academics in Accra and Kumasi have recognised this new development and want to become entrepreneurs. In Accra there is a “boom like in Berlin”. His online shoe store is part of this development. Now it’s just a matter of finding a niche on the Ghanaian market (and perhaps also on the world market). Balancing the doctoral thesis and the job together: “That is the biggest challenge. It is very difficult to complete the PhD and take care of the business on the side. The business is how I earn my living. Nevertheless, I am still trying to finish my PhD this year [2018]” (interview with a Ghanaian alumnus in Germany, Skype, 2018).

5.4 Promoting and Consolidating the Peace Process in Colombia

As in Palestine, Indonesia and Ghana, KAAD also has a long scholarship tradition in Colombia. The special commitment of the KAAD in Latin America goes back to the former president of the KAAD, Peter Hünermann, who established numerous contacts to universities and governmental institutions during several trips to Latin America in the 1960s and in 1968, together with Bernhard Welte.¹⁹ Also a scholarship programme with Latin America was set up, on which many of the KAAD’s networks in Latin America are still based (Eckholt 2011: 13; Interview with Peter Hünermann, Bonn, 2017). Colombia has always been a sponsored country since the foundation of KAAD in 1958.

Colombia is a predominantly Catholic country (more than 70% of the population is Roman Catholic, about 20% belong to Protestant and Evangelical religious communities and another 10% to other smaller religious groups). With almost 50 million inhabitants, it is also the second most populous country in Latin America after Brazil. Three quarters of the population live in urban agglomerations, one sixth alone in the capital Bogotá. The rural areas are mainly inhabited by indigenous groups whose way of life and village structures are legally protected, but this is often violated by the Colombian state, companies and other groups. In general, there is strong social inequality in Colombia, with indigenous groups at the lowest level of the social hierarchy.²⁰ This strong social inequality has characterized Colombia since its independence from Spain in 1810 and has repeatedly led to social conflicts and civil wars over the last two centuries, including the civil war in the Granada Confederation from 1860 to ‘62, which led to the creation of the United States of Colombia, and the “War of a Thousand Days”, which led to the appropriation of small-scale smallholder land by large landowners (latifundistas) as a result of the coffee boom. It is estimated that over 100,000 people, who were displaced in this war, died (cf. König 2008). The last armed conflict (1964–2016) between the Colombian state on the one hand and various terrorist and guerrilla groups on the other lasted more than 50 years and also claimed many victims. It was only brought to an end at the end of November 2016 with the peace treaty between the Colombian government and the largest guerrilla group, the FARC-EP.

This conflict is a complicated mixture of interests of different conflict parties. Basically, the conflict is about the distribution of land, raw materials and goods. The latifundistas and international companies continue to buy land from small farmers and indigenous groups for low prices in order to grow oil palms or coffee or to carry out mining. In this process, small farmers and indigenous groups were insufficiently protected by the Colombian state. Therefore, left-wing guerrilla groups (including the two largest groups FARC-EP and ELN) – consisting mainly of left-wing intellectuals, the rural population and indigenous people – tried to defend the interests of small farmers and indigenous groups against the state and right-wing paramilitaries (consisting of right-wing military and citizen militias). In total, the conflict has claimed the lives of over 300,000 people over the last 50 years and over eight million people have been displaced from their land, fleeing within Colombia and in some cases abroad (Adveniat 2018). Among those suffering are also many landmine victims and peace activists.

However, the peace agreement did not completely resolve the conflict, so that it is still continuing, sometimes violently, in many rural areas of the country. In addition, the peace agreement was not recognized by some guerrilla groups. Also, the conflict revealed enormous democratic deficits in Colombia. This became particularly evident in the lack of protection of the rural population from the paramilitaries and guerrilla organizations, as well as in the involvement of politicians and judges in drug trafficking, corruption and the exploitation of natural resources by large corporations and the associated environmental pollution. In political science, Colombia is referred to as an “incomplete democracy” and ranks 51st in the global comparison of the Democracy Index (The Economist 2019).

As already mentioned above, one focus of KAAD’s support in Colombia is on law, economics, humanities, cultural studies and social sciences. More than two thirds of all Colombian KAAD scholarship holders have been enrolled in these subjects over the past 15 years. In contrast to alumni from the other case study countries, Colombian KAAD alumni have a relatively low return rate. As a rule, less than 50% of all Columbian KAAD alumni return home after their studies in Germany (46% in the 2000s). Those who returned live and work mostly in the capital Bogotá. As in the other case studies, we were able to find former scholarship holders who not returned, but who are committed to the development of their country of origin. The engagement of the KAAD alumni focuses primarily on overcoming the numerous internal Colombian conflicts as well as on promoting the democratic process in general, to which many hopes have been pinned since the peace agreement in 2016. In this context, many KAAD alumni are also involved by advising Colombian politicians on conflict resolution and peace dialogue or by advocating for the rights and interests of the victims of the conflict.

For example, a KAAD alumnus who completed his doctorate in philosophy in Germany advises Colombian politicians on peace dialogue with indigenous groups. In doing so, he relies on a model of interreligious dialogue between indigenous world views and Christianity in Latin America, which he developed as part of his doctorate. The model is based on mutual respect, inter-cultural openness, solidarity and communicative sensitivity. It has now been partly adopted by the Colombian state and is being successfully applied in dialogue with indigenous communities in northern Colombia, which suffered particularly badly from violent conflict during the civil war but are now largely self-governing and cooperating with the Colombian national government.

Another KAAD alumna, who studied sociology at the University of Heidelberg and the University of Frankfurt and is now a professor of sociology at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, advises politicians on how to deal with guerrilla and paramilitary organisations at the local level. In doing so, she attempts to convey a more participatory approach which was hitherto not very common in Colombia., In contrast to the old approaches, the new approach incorporates also the interests of the guerrillas and paramilitaries into the decision-making processes to a greater extent:

And I am a participant of different research networks in peace and conflict research. That is with German institutions and with my university Universidad del Rosario. My university is a member of the Instituto Colombo-Aleman Para la Paz. In this Instituto Colombo-Aleman para la Paz I am the representative of the Universidad del Rosario. The Instituto is located at the Universidad Nacional, Universidad del Rosario, Universidad de los Andes, Universidad Javeriana and Universidad Externado in Colombia. In Germany, it is located at the Universities of Gießen, Göttingen, the Latin American Institute at the Free University of Berlin, the Peace Research Institute in Berlin, and the University of Frankfurt am Main and the University of Freiburg. […] It is mainly about the study of the conflict in Colombia, but also post-conflict and peace building in Colombia. My research focus in this framework is the relationship between civil society and the state. But also around citizenship. The role of citizenship in the peace process and the new relationships between the state and the citizens. I’ve published a book on that, a handbook with Routledge. It’s a Transformation of Citizenship book, co-written with a professor in Potsdam. It’s about research I did in the Colombian Caribbean, in a small town in the Caribbean about the political participation of people in a town controlled by paramilitaries. It’s very interesting because it’s about a small community called Magangué. It’s near Cartagena in the Caribbean. This small town has been controlled by paramilitaries for more than 20 years. They control everything through fear. But they have so much money through money laundering and drug trafficking. A mayor won the elections in 2011, he’s from a left-wing party. And my question was, what’s happening here? And I was in Magangey doing interviews. My contacts in this small town was the Catholic Church and I had this contact through KAAD. That’s very good, a really good network. Former KAAD scholars have contacts with Caritas in Colombia and the Bishops’ Conference in Bogotá and they were interested in my work. And they told me that I could do research in Magangey. And I work with them in different workshops, meetings with people. And thanks to those contacts I was able to do my research. That was wonderful. And the results are very complicated, not so easy to explain. Many people in Magangey, like many people in different places in Colombia, can sell their votes and others trade with these votes. Normally it costs 20 euros. In Magangey, it costs 30 euros. What happened? Many people sold their vote, but voted for another candidate. They don’t believe in the paramilitaries, but get their money. That’s a special rationality. But the most important thing is, I couldn’t have done the research in Magangey without the churches. […] The new mayor, the socialist, was also corrupt and had too many problems with the paramilitaries. And in 2015 the new mayor still has people from the paramilitaries in his staff. The paramilitaries still control the city. It’s a special constellation. It’s not so public, but the paramilitaries still control many regions in Colombia. […] Yes, I think a lot of people are doing well. I just don’t know if it’s resignation, but a lot of people have a weird relationship with the paramilitaries between love and hate. But it works. For example, people ask for a new school and the paramilitaries build the new school. Sometimes yes and sometimes not, but there are no other good options as well. […] Yes, but my question for the next years is what happens, for example, with the regions that were controlled by the guerrillas. So the guerrillas are not there anymore, so they don’t govern the regions anymore and then what happens next? So there’s a new citizenry or new actors in control and more or less the same old relationships remain in place, and the same inequal relationship between citizens and the state. But here, we don’t understand the state in the classical sense, but the state can be the guerrillas or the paramilitaries, or other groups. It’s complicated. (Interview with a Colombian alumna in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

As part of her work, she regularly cooperates with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Colombia (FESCOL):

FESCOL has a long tradition of mediating peace in Colombia. Every month they organize a meeting between mayors, politicians, NGOs and academics. They talk about different topics like democracy, security, gender issues and conflict resolution. And everyone brings their own perspective. I am often invited to these meetings. Here, I have the opportunity to present my positions to FESCOL, mayors and politicians. But usually these politicians have a big distance to the academia. They think: You write your books and we work. That is the perception. FESCOL sees itself as a neutral player providing a place where different parties of the conflict can exchange their positions. And I bring my academic perspective. (Interview with a Colombian alumna in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

Other Colombian alumni work on the legal aspects of the conflicts, such as a lawyer who studied law at the universities of Marburg and Mainz and completed his doctorate on the subject of bonds with warrants and convertible bonds in European banking law at the University of Mainz in 1995. After his return and a few years working as a professor at the Universidad Nacional in Bogotá, he founded his own law firm in 2002, which is now one of the largest and most renowned law firms in Colombia. He currently employs 12 lawyers and over 30 other employees. The firm is specialised in the areas of banking law, environmental law, energy law, infrastructure law and public procurement law.

Among his clients are also Germans who live in Colombia. He has established these contacts mainly because of his good command of German and his good relation with Germany. As part of his work as a lawyer, he also takes care of the legal needs of victims of the conflict, especially the visually impaired, on a voluntary basis. This commitment is mainly due to the fact that he himself suffers from a visual impairment and therefore knows the concerns and needs of blind people very well from his own experiences. In doing so, he does not take money from the victims because they are mostly from poor rural communities and cannot afford any counselling. Nor is this group supported by the state “because they simply don’t have a lobby,” the KAAD alumnus said. Many of them have been victims of open-road shoving, mostly by sheer coincidence because they wanted to cross the road but did not see the altercation on the road in time because of their visual impairment. In addition, he helped them to build their own association to represent their interests in Bogotá. Today, he also is a member of the association. This has also made it easier for him to represent their interests in court because there is an organization behind and he can speak on their behalf (interview with a Colombian alumnus in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017).

A lawyer with a doctorate in Germany,²¹ who has been working as a research assistant in law at the Universidad Externado in Bogotá since her return in 2017, fights for the compensation and social reintegration of landmine victims. Colombia has most landmine victims worldwide after Afghanistan. According to the Colombian Commission for Peace, there have been 11,460 landmine victims since 1990, 80% of them were civilians. Approximately 20% have died by landmines, most in the state of Antioquia (Oficina del Alto Comisionado para la Paz 2019). The mines were laid by the guerrilla organization FARC-EP to fight the Colombian military.

It is estimated that over 100,000 landmines have been laid in fields, forests and roadsides (Caritas International 2018).²² Despite landmine clearances since the 2016 peace agreement, there are still many uncovered mines that continue to cause civilian casualties (NZZ 2017).²³ The number of victims even increased from 37 in 2017 to 107 in 2018 (Caritas International 2019).²⁴ Stepping on a mine is very likely to cause maiming (Oficina del Alto Comisionado para la Paz 2019). In order to compensate the victims, the KAAD alumna travels the whole country, especially the rural regions, to educate the local administrations, but also the victims directly on their rights. The main focus is on free legal aid, which victims are entitled to by law, but which is rarely demanded by victims due to a lack of knowledge about it. In addition, the victims are entitled to free long-term medical services, which are, however, also often only scarcely called upon. In general, the Colombian population is insufficiently informed about the dangers of mines. About her work she says:

Currently, Colombia is destroying many landmines from the civil war, which were placed in rural areas by the paramilitaries or guerrilla groups to fight the state opponents, but also to intimidate the rural population. However, most of the victims were children, women and elderly people, people who had nothing to do with the war. They also hardly get any support from the state or from their community, they also have no insurance. But they have rights under the Colombian constitution, and also under civil laws and policies. I try to help them to work out their rights, and then also to represent them in hearings with state institutions, in other words to support them in their affairs with state authorities. Many of them cannot read and write. I help them with that. But the project is also about creating job opportunities for them, such as in the municipal administration, which they can do despite their physical disability. We have already been able to achieve initial financial compensation, and physically handicapped people have also been employed in the municipalities. We also propose not only compensation for the victims, but a long-term disability pension so that these victims can live on something. (Interview with a Colombian alumna in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

I also travel to the victims’ villages to see the situation on the ground and to talk to the victims and community leaders. By talking to them directly, I can also better educate them about their rights and help them advocate for their rights vis-à-vis the state. So once a month I travel to the areas where the victims live. (Interview with a Colombian alumna in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

The project, which is funded by the Norwegian, Swedish and Swiss governments, is also about defusing and disposing of discovered landmines so that displaced villagers can return to their villages and farms. The alumna commented:

It is also about informing the current government, the opposition parties and the relevant authorities about the conditions in the country. And also to represent the rights of the landmine victims with the responsible authorities and in courts. We are also supposed to make recommendations to politicians on how the victims can be helped best, because that was an important part of the peace treaty. So far, the Colombian state has cooperated very well with us, but you never know how long that will last. Next year [2018], a new president will be elected, who may, for example, be against dealing with the conflict and against the peace process, in this case our work may even have been in vain. (Interview with a Colombian alumna in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

Even though, the Colombian state cooperates in the project, compensation for landmine victims comes slow and has to be addressed further in the peace process. She added:

Before the project, I had a lot of concerns about cooperating with the Colombian state and working with the Colombian police, I didn’t have a good opinion of them, because they didn’t treat the victims well either, but that got better during the project, my opinion got better because I realized that that’s also just people who have to do their job. You can work with many of them. I do believe that they want peace and want to help the victims now. Well, not all of them, but many of those I have spoken to. (Interview with a Colombian alumna in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

Another Colombian KAAD alumna, who studied in the LLM “Governance and Development” at the University of Duisburg-Essen from 2014 to 2015, offers education and coping workshops for victims in small villages in western Colombia as part of an UN project (in cooperation with IOM and USAid). Indigenous women and children in particular are affected, and she educates them about their rights. In particular, she explains how rape victims can take legal action against the perpetrators:

My project at the United Nations is to formulate projects on how to solve the conflict in local communities in West Colombia. The work focuses on the help of traumatized women and children, who suffered from violence during the war, as I already said, and I have to educate the conflict victims about the law and their rights, because many have no idea about that, they have no access to information, or even cannot read or write. We also help the community members how to receive money in the community, how to formulate development or infrastructure projects in the community, and where to get funding for that. […]In the communities are mostly mestizos and indigenous people, and I try to convince them that they can trust me and that I want to help them, but I’m not sure if I could convince every one of them. They don’t trust the Colombian government, so it helped that I don’t work for the government. But it was a challenge for me, because I’m young and I’m a female, and many of them didn’t believe that I’m smart and that I could help them. In the communities exist a lot of machismo attitudes. And what is also a big problem, is that most people still think in racial categories. Everyone wants to be a mestizo, even black people say that. As a blond male you would have more opportunities, even when you are from abroad. Women have to be tough to be successful in Latin America.

People have stereotypes about women here, they have to be pretty and soft, and should take more care about household issues, and should not be involved in politics, economics, or development issues. (Interview with a Colombian alumna in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

Another KAAD alumnus who studied law in Germany now works as a judge at the Supreme Court in Colombia. In his daily work he can use his knowledge of the German legal system, which is considered to be a role model for Colombia. In his current work, he draws many comparisons to German and international criminal law and introduced many aspects into the Colombian criminal law, which is currently being revised in the frame of the end of the civil war and victim compensation:

When I worked as an assistant judge in the Court, I had to assist the decision making process or make recommendations on a few war crimes sentencing cases that were also related to my final thesis in Germany. That’s somewhat interesting: I can always combine the academic stuff with the professional stuff. During that time we had a constitutional reform. There were negotiations between the Colombian government and members of FARC, the guerrillas. And there were initial norms and regulations to punish the perpetrators of the civil war. But then the peace agreement came and various laws were passed. Then the discussion went further in the direction of making Colombian laws compatible with the statute of the International Criminal Court. But that’s still a process, it’s not finished yet. The laws still have to be developed further – step by step. That’s why I work as a private lecturer. I keep this connection with the university, because professional things can be improved by academic discussions and findings, and vice versa. I wrote my master’s thesis in German. The title of the thesis was ‘The Complementarity Principle of the Criminal Court demonstrated by the example of Colombia.’ Skills in criminal law, but also the way lawyers work in Germany was very important for me, to get to know how a student becomes a lawyer in Germany. I learned this process as I followed some friends in Germany, they were preparing for the second state exam during this time. That was very interesting and I learned a lot. I was always a witness to legal proceedings, law firms, court hearings. That was always good to see the possibilities of legal comparisons. Many people asked me, why did you study law in Germany, you can’t directly apply this knowledge in Colombia because the laws are different. That’s true, but the more you know other legal systems, the better you can develop different interpretations and also draft laws. And I have also worked in international law and that helps in every country. (Interview with a Colombian alumnus in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

Germany is seen as a role model because of the reappraisal and punishment of the perpetrators in the GDR and the compensation of the GDR victims. And Colombia is a “laboratory” for conflict resolution worldwide (Picture 5.4):

At the beginning, there were some problematic issues in the last draft that may hinder the admissibility of the International Criminal Court, because, for example, the most important leader of the FARC can become a candidate for the next presidency. That may violate the rights of the victims. One consideration was that they hold a trial against him and also alternative punishments were considered, not the normal sentence for an international crime, 30, 40 years in prison. These normal sentences were not possible. Instead, they had to stay in certain regions, their mobility was limited and they had alternative sentences like social work, reduced political rights, but the new court was not working yet. That’s why they couldn’t be convinced and they can still be politically active, but this can be problematic from the International Criminal Court’s perspective. That’s why the president meets the FARC. They discuss this today. And there is the point of the accountability of military. There is a norm that somehow leads to a release for militaries, especially of high rank who have committed crimes. It’s a very important player in the discussion and it plays a big role in the design of the new legal system. And Germany has a role model function here with regards to the clarification and handling of the criminals after World War II or the cases after the fall of the Berlin wall, the clarification of crimes in the GDR, the shootings at the wall and the border. These were well dealt with in Germany. And Colombia is nowadays like a laboratory for the world, because it is the first demobilization of a very large guerrilla that has fought for more than 50 years and now justice can be found and a justice sentencing of these crimes. There will also be a ‘truth commission’, and different mechanisms. And there is a new component and this is the jurisdiction of the International Court of 2002.” (Interview with a Colombian alumna in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

Even those, who have not returned to Colombia after their studies in Germany, are mainly involved in the peace and democracy process in Colombia. For example, a Colombian alumnus regularly organises trips to Colombia with German and Colombian students and university lecturers, who act as mediators in the conflict between locals and guerrilla groups. In doing so, he cooperates closely with other KAAD alumni in Colombia.

Picture 5.4

Campus of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá. (Source: private)

Another alumna is involved in the implementation of the Colombian peace treaty in a small village in northern Colombia as part of the German-Colombian peace and conflict research network “Instituto Colombo-Alemán para la Paz” (CAPAZ) mentioned above. The project deals specifically with the local implementation of the local electoral law and the representation of the village population. There is an intensive exchange between the members of the research network in Germany and Colombia. Despite the manifold engagement and individual progress, most KAAD alumni are rather sceptical about the peace process and the conflict resolution. One KAAD alumna said:

I have to be an optimist, but I am sceptical. From my opinion we should not talk about post-conflict, but about post-agreement. I am very sceptical because there are still many actors who do not want peace in Colombia. And a particular factor in this is drug trafficking. We will not have peace in Colombia as long as there is an active drug market. […] Coca plantations have doubled since the agreement with the FARC. A hundred will be planted this year, then 200 next year. And cocaine exports have also grown. The U.S. government thinks that this is a consequence of the peace agreement with the FARC and we Colombians should have an aggressive policy. But in 2000, Plan Colombia did not succeed, it even strengthened paramilitarism and not peace. This is an old recipe that does not work. (Interview with a Colombian alumna in Germany, Skype, 2017)

5.5 Transformation of the Legal System in Georgia

Georgia is one of KAAD’s priority countries in Central Eastern and South Eastern Europe. Although Eastern European scholarship holders, mainly from Poland and the former Yugoslavia, were already supported in single cases in the years before 1991, a special programme for Eastern Europe was only established in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At this point of time, a special Eastern Europe Programme was set up for applicants from the countries of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. In contrast to the other KAAD-programmes, this programme provides funding for a much shorter periods.

Georgia became independent in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since then, the country has been undergoing constant social changes with a strong orientation towards the West. The Caucasian country currently has a population of around four million and a gross domestic product per capita of US$ 10,023 (in PPP). The economic growth rate in 2019 was 2.85%. The university system is dominated by young and private universities, which are mainly concentrated in the capital Tbilisi.

For many years, the focus of funding has been in the field of law, which, together with economics and other humanities, has accounted for more than three quarters of all Georgian KAAD scholarship holders in the last 15 years. The case study country Georgia represents with 55 scholarship holders the second largest Eastern European country after Poland. Of these, the overwhelming majority were humanities scholars, legal scholars and social scientists (45 out of 55 in total). Georgian alumni had the highest return rate (in the 2000s) of all five countries in our study, at 88%. The proportion of returnees in our study was correspondingly high.

The influence of Georgian alumni is great, especially with regard to the development of the legal system in Georgia. According to our interviewees, this is mainly due to the fact that lawyers have relatively good career prospects and are in great demand in Georgia, not only by the Georgian state, but also by companies and civil society organisations. Many Georgian law students go to Western Europe, and especially to Germany, for their studies. This is mainly due to the fact that Georgian law is very much based on continental European legal developments. Even Georgia’s first democratic constitution from 1918 was very much based on Swiss, French and German law.²⁵

Even after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, when Georgia aligned itself with Western Europe under President Shevardnadze, the Georgian legislators attempted to design the new constitution according to Western European law. After the end of the Shevardnadze era in 2003, the Georgian constitution was reformed again, and again much was taken over from Western European legal systems. This also involved the establishment of democratic legal norms in Georgia, which, unlike Western European states, had no democratic traditions. Many lawyers pointed out in our interviews that Georgia has actually been in a permanent process of constitutional and political transformation for the last 25 years. This can be exemplified by Georgia’s transformation from a strongly developed presidential democracy to a parliamentary system (since 2012), which severely limits the president’s power.²⁶ Whereas in the 1990s the Georgian president still had almost all political power, in the 2000s a semi-presidential democracy based on the French model was established – also as a result of the negative experiences of corruption and war under Shevardnadze – and in the 2010s the path was finally set towards a pure parliamentary system similar to the German one.²⁷

Georgian lawyers returning from Germany played an essential role in this transformation process, as well as in the further development of other areas of the Georgian legal system. For example, Merab Turava (criminal law), Paata Turava (administrative law) and Lado Chanturia (European law) are considered pioneers of legal development in Georgia. They studied and researched in Germany in the 1990s and brought their knowledge acquired in Germany back to Georgia, where they authored standard books in their respective legal disciplines and played a decisive role in drafting legislation. In addition to their academic and legal activities, they have also acted various advisory board for many ministries and authorities and have worked hard to include various regulations of German law into the Georgian legal system. Lado Chanturia is now the Georgian ambassador to Germany. In addition, the current Georgian Minister of Defence, Levan Izoria, who studied law at the University of Göttingen, together with the Georgian Minister of the Interior, are campaigning for a reform of police law along German lines. Due to this trend in legal policy, Georgian professors still recommend that students should study law in Germany or other Western European countries and then return to Georgia in order to use their special knowledge in the further implementation of Western European law (especially German law) (interviews with Georgian alumni and experts, Tbilisi, October 2016). A Georgian legal scholar and KAAD alumnus summarises this relationship between Georgian and German law as follows:

I would like to particularly emphasize that there is a special love and respect for German law inherent in the relationship between the German and Georgian lawyers. […] Here many Georgians learned the German language thoroughly, which was particularly important for their further work in their subject. One of the factors of rapprochement between Germany and Georgia became the legal system. The civil law of Georgia is the result of the reception of the German legislation. When reforming this or that area of law in Georgia, ‘the German model‘is always taken into account. The reforms in Georgia are always accompanied by German experts. On television and in the press we can often hear that in Germany that legal issue is well decided and we have to follow the Germans. For example, when in Georgia important constitutional reforms were carried out in 2009 to 2010, the constructive vote of no confidence was implemented in the Constitution of Georgia. I want to say that Germany is a role model for us in all respects. (Interview with a Georgian alumnus in Tbilisi, Georgia, 2016)

Many former KAAD scholarship holders were involved in various legal reforms in Georgia in recent years. An outstanding example – besides the introduction of parliamentarism, which we will discuss in more details below – is the current reform of juvenile criminal law in Georgia by former and current KAAD students. One alumnus in particular, who is currently doing his doctorate in Germany and had already worked for the Ministry of Justice before his doctorate in Germany, campaigns for a liberalisation in the area of juvenile justice and tries to integrate approaches of prevention measures into the Georgian law. To this end, he regularly translates paragraphs and passages from the German Juvenile Penal Code into Georgian and contributes to the drafting of new legislation for the Georgian Juvenile Penal Code. In doing so, he is very much oriented towards the German model.

The alumnus is proud of the fact that entire passages of the new Georgian Juvenile Criminal Code were drafted by him. With regard to juvenile criminal law, he advocates lighter sentences and more preventive work to combat juvenile delinquency. In his opinion, the Georgian state has for decades punished juveniles too harshly for minor offences, such as imposing a prison sentence for marijuana use. After completing his doctorate in Germany, he would like to return to work as a permanent employee in the juvenile justice department at the Ministry of Justice (interview with a Georgian alumnus in Germany, Skype, 2017).

Another KAAD alumnus deals with corruption issues in the context of Georgian criminal law. It is important for him not only to contribute scientifically to the future development of Georgian law, but also to help politicians implement democratic legal principles and laws in their everyday political life. For this reason, he has also been working since 2011.

In addition to his research projects, he is also involved in the trust group on corruption issues of the National Parliament in Tbilisi. He deals with corruption cases of members of parliament and with the legal clarification of these cases:

My father was a prosecutor in Georgia for 28 years, even after the Soviet era. Even then, corruption was widespread among politicians and also in society in general. This is still the case today. […] I help to clear up corruption among politicians, especially at the highest level of the state. This is not easy. Especially the old government was corrupt, but corruption occurs sporadically in the new government as well. (Interview with a Georgian alumnus in Tbilisi, Georgia, 2016)

In this work, he benefits from the legal knowledge he acquired in Germany and its practical application, because Georgian criminal law and anti-corruption laws were also largely copied from Germany, says the alumnus. His good knowledge of German also helps him to look up German criminal law books in unclear cases. He often gets new ideas on how to formulate individual points in Georgian law even more clearly. In the course of his teaching activities at the Caucasus University in Tbilisi, he has also become aware that there are hardly any in-depth and comparative textbooks in Georgian. For this reason, he started to write a textbook on criminal law that explains the applicable law on the basis of concrete case studies. There are many such textbooks in Germany, which he uses as a guide when writing the Georgian edition. His doctoral thesis, in which he analyses numerous cases on the basis of both German and Georgian criminal law, would also provide material for the textbook. Despite his numerous academic activities, he can imagine a long-term career in the Georgian civil service rather than in academia after completing his doctorate (interview with a Georgian alumnus, Skype, 2017).

Another Georgian KAAD alumnus worked as a lecturer for international and Georgian constitutional law at the State Institute for Economic Relations in Tbilisi (TEUSI) during his studies in Tbilisi at the age of 23. During his doctoral studies, he served as a member of the Parliamentary Committee on Cultural Affairs from 2009 to 2013. Within this framework, he played a key role in drafting a law on the protection of national intangible cultural heritage in Georgia. In doing so, he had to deal in particular with research on Georgian cultural assets as well as with the comparison of laws in other countries on this subject and to implement the UNESCO World Heritage Guidelines into law. In addition, he reviewed draft laws before they were submitted to the responsible minister for signature. Also during his 6-month research stay at the Law Faculty of the University of Bonn, he worked as an advisor to the Georgian Ministry of Culture and Monuments Protection. In addition, he has been teaching philosophy of law at the KAAD partner university Sulkhan Saba Orbeliani University in Tbilisi since 2014. He now wants to use the experience and contacts he gained in Germany to establish an institute for legal studies based on the German model with a research focus on the philosophy of law. His academic models for this are the structures of the Faculty of Law at the University of Bonn and the Max Planck Institute.

He emphasises that Georgian universities hardly do any in-depth research in the fields of legal philosophy and applied law, but that the professors tend to concentrate on teaching, i.e. on conveying legal content. For him, it has always been important to combine research and political practice. In this sense, he says, Georgia can still learn a lot from Germany. It is also crucial, he says, that written law is also strictly implemented in political practice. Georgia has always had problems with this in its young democratic history, also due to the widespread corruption in the civil service. He would like to help establish a practice of “embodied laws” in Georgia. Germany has also achieved this in its recent history “after many years of injustice”. In order to make German legal philosophy better known in Georgia, he is committed to political exchange with Germany in addition to his advisory work in the Ministry of Culture. For this purpose, he often invites German delegations (with representatives from politics, business and culture) to Georgia and organizes parliamentary visits and day trips to important national cultural sites in Georgia, such as Mtskheta, Georgia’s ancient capital, in order to give the German guests a better understanding of Georgia. He also helped with the preparations for the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair, where Georgia was the partner country and where books on Georgia’s state and legal system were also presented. In this sense, he also advocates a stronger orientation towards the West and a timely accession to the EU (interview with a Georgian alumnus, Skype, 2017).

As already mentioned, former KAAD scholarship holders were also involved in the transformation of the once rigid presidentialism into a more parliamentary system based on the German model. A KAAD alumnus is currently a law professor at the East European University in Tbilisi and has been advising the Supreme Court of Georgia for several years. To this end, he made concrete proposals on how a bicameral system in Georgia could be designed, including a greater involvement of the various regions of Georgia at the national level following the model of the German Bundesrat. In Germany he worked on the topic of “Perspectives on the implementation of a bicameral system in Georgia” at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg with a 3-month scholarship of the KAAD.

The Georgian alumni are also very active in social and academic networking: In recent years, the “Club of Former KAAD Scholarship Holders in Georgia” was founded. The club organises various conferences focusing on development and networking in the Caucasus region, often together with other Georgian and international partners. These often took place at the KAAD partner university Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani Teaching University in Tbilisi, whose rector is a KAAD alumnus (cf. KAAD Annual Report 2011: 89).

Although many scholarship holders return from Georgia, it should also be emphasised that contributions are also made from Germany. Some of the people concerned are even convinced that their contribution can be done better from Germany than if they were on site in Georgia. These include a Georgian who has remained in Germany and who also advises the Georgian Ministry of Justice from Germany, as well as a current scholarship holder who works for the Legal Committee of the Georgian Parliament alongside his studies. In his case, it is only through his stay in Germany that he has access to specialist literature and quick contact with German law professors and judges in case of questions:

It’s really the case that employees from the Ministry of Justice contact me regularly and ask for advice on how this and that is done in Germany. You have to imagine it like this: I then go to the library and look up the German law books and translate paragraph by paragraph. I then send that to my colleagues in Georgia. There I would not have access to the legal texts. (Interview with a Georgian alumnus in Germany, Skype, 2017)

When drafting legal texts, he is also very closely oriented to the German law. In this way, he also contributes to the development of Georgian law. Even before his stay in Germany, he had to analyse German laws as part of his job in the Ministry of Justice.

Another KAAD alumna, after completing a one-year Master’s degree in “German and European Law and Legal Practice” at the Humboldt University in Berlin, was re-employed as a legal advisor at the National Agency for State Ownership (CoöR) in Tbilisi, where she already had worked before her stay in Germany. For this one-year course of intense training – which she completed with an international Master of Laws (LL.M.) – she did not have to give up her job, but was given leave. She was supported by the CIM Programme for Georgian Returnees.²⁸ Her work at the CoöR focuses on issues such as the management of state property (privatisation of state enterprises, transfer of the right of use, etc.) and the organisation of investment projects under the direction of the Ministry of the Economy and Sustainable Development. In the future, she will assist the implementation process of European directives within the framework of the Association Agreement between Georgia and the EU (bilateral free trade agreement). In her work, especially in the interpretation of European and German law as well as in the exchange with German authorities, she benefits directly from her knowledge of German and her special legal training in Germany. Also in order to support this intra-European exchange, this post is co-supervised and co-financed by CIM. The entire process of this circular migration – first working in Georgia, then studying in Germany for a year and then returning to Georgia to work – was organised by CIM in close cooperation with CoöR. The idea behind this is to offer Georgian specialists a long-term study visit to Germany, without losing his or her job in Georgia. 50% of the study programme was financed by KAAD.

Georgian lawyers who studied or researched in Germany but did not receive a scholarship from KAAD played also an important role for the Georgian state after their return. For example, the law professor and dean of the law faculty at Sulkhan Saba Orbe Liani University, who completed his law degree at the University of Bremen 7 years ago, advises the Ministry of Justice and other state institutions. His focus is on civil law and he is very committed to ensuring that the principle of retention of title, which exists in principle in Georgian civil law, is also applied more frequently in legal disputes. Other former Georgian students in Germany went on to political careers and have taken on high leadership positions in Georgian ministries and authorities. These include the above-mentioned Ambassador to Germany, Lado Chanturia, and the Georgian Minister of Defense, Levan Izoria. Another example is a KAS alumnus who earned his doctorate 10 years ago at the University of Hamburg on the topic of “Party Law in Georgia and Germany”. He currently works as State Secretary in the Georgian Diaspora Ministry where he is responsible for organising international student migration.²⁹

He is also responsible for the administration of the state scholarship program IEC (International Education Center),³⁰ which supports Georgian master and doctoral students abroad. Approximately 80 Georgian students are supported by this programme every year (interview with a Georgian KAS alumnus in Tbilisi, Georgia, 2016). It is also possible to receive only part of the funding from this programme and the other part from another scholarship provider. This is also the case for a KAAD scholarship holder from Georgia.³¹

On the other hand, it should be noted that former Georgian students who did not study in Germany or other European countries, but in the USA, have mostly taken on higher leadership positions in the Georgian state. These include, for example, former President Mikheil Saakashvili (2004–2013), who studied law at Columbia University in New York, current Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, who studied finance at the University of Illinois, and one of his predecessors in office, Nika Gilauri, who earned his business master’s degree from Temple University in Philadelphia. Interestingly enough, none of the previous Georgian presidents, prime ministers, or of the ministers of justice studied in Germany (those who studied abroad were mostly in Russia or the USA, occasionally also in France).

Other KAAD alumni who do not work directly in the civil service are also committed to (democratic) reforms in Georgia. They do this primarily in academia. In this sense, a professor in religion at the State University of Tbilisi – who has already been supported by KAAD several times for his research in Germany (University of Tübingen and Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich) – repeatedly advocates in his writings and public statements for a clear separation of church and state in the Georgian constitution as well as in political practice. In doing so, he makes it clear that although a separation between church and state is already part of the constitution, the privileged position of the Georgian Orthodox Church in the state, in contrast to other religions and denominations, still prevails. In fact, the Georgian Orthodox Church in Georgia is constitutionally superior to other church groups, such as the Catholic Church, as well as other religions. Moreover, in his opinion, the representatives of the Orthodox Church have (too) close relationships with the Georgian government and a great influence on the opinion forming process and even elections in Georgia. He describes the relationship between state and church in Georgia as follows:

The main problem here is that the sphere of “religion and state” or “church and society” is still influenced by a ecclesiastical-orthodox nationalism and fundamentalism. That is, the equation of the denomination and nation or organization of the local Church according to the national principle, which according to the ecclesiastical-theological language is called phyletism. This is a feature of the activity of the present Georgian Orthodox Church and the consciousness of the majority of contemporary Georgian society. I write a lot about this subject. […] The influence of the Orthodox Church is sometimes so strong that the government is forced to change even decisions that have an international legal impact, if that is demanded by the so-called Orthodox Georgians. (Interview with a Georgian alumnus in Tbilisi, Georgia, 2016)

The strong interconnection between the Georgian Orthodox Church and the state is also made clear by the first Georgian “junior ambassador” in Germany, who does his doctorate in political science in Cologne:

The Georgian Church has too much power. […] If you want to work for the state, then you must not say anything critical against the Orthodox Church. (Interview with the Georgian “Junior Ambassador” to Germany, Cologne, 2016)

The KAAD alumnus at the Tbilisi State University therefore pleads for a constitutional equality of religious groups in Georgia and a political disentanglement between representatives of the Georgian Orthodox Church and the Georgian government. In doing so, he also refers to the German constitution and political practice in Germany, in which religious groups cannot directly influence political decisions (interview with a Georgian alumnus in Tbilisi, Georgia, 2016).

Another KAAD alumnus, who tries to contribute to the social development in Georgia through his academic work, already dealt with theories of business ethics and models of the social market economy in Germany as part of his doctoral thesis (cf. Khizanishvili 2016).³² He studied the practical design of the social market economy in Germany during a research stay sponsored by the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) at the University of Tübingen in 2010 and later with a KAAD scholarship at the Ludwig Maximilian University in 2015. In the process, he developed the idea that single aspects of the German social market economy could also be transferred to Georgia’s economic policy. He sees a social market economy as a possible approach to solve economic problems in Georgia, which he relates to an “American-style turbo-capitalism” that spread rapidly in Georgia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and quickly led to a crisis with high unemployment and enormous national debt in the mid-1990s. In his view, the Georgian economy is in a better position today than it was in the 1990s, but there are still huge income disparities and widespread poverty – especially in rural areas. He pleads for more social justice in Georgia and makes this clear using the example of the winegrowers³³:

Georgia needs more social justice. For example, wine farmers earn less than 100 euros per month, even though the big wine companies, which have bought many small farms in recent years, earn several millions through exports, including to the European Union. (Interview with a Georgian alumnus in Telavi, Georgia, 2016)

Interestingly, he further notes that principles of the social market economy are already integrated in the Georgian constitution (including employee protection and a stable social security system), but that they are not implemented by policymakers. This also motivated him to write a book in Georgian on the basic principles of the social market economy and how they can be implemented in Georgian economic policy. The book is intended not only for students and researchers, but also for policy makers. He sees the social market economy a success story and refers to the economic theoretical writings starting with Alfred Müller-Armack and Walter Eucken,³⁴ their practical implementation from the 1950s under the former German Minister of Economics Ludwig Erhard, to the economic policy writings of the present. Topics such as employee protection, antitrust regulations, environmental protection, guidelines for foreign trade, etc. are all covered in the book. The alumnus is convinced that an economic policy oriented towards the social market economy – which he also calls the “social democratic way” – will also bring more advantages for Georgia within the framework of the free trade agreement with the EU – which has been in force since summer 2016 – and will lead Georgia more quickly into the EU.³⁵ He justifies this, among other things, with the prevention of wage dumping and better social security for workers. As an economist at Telavi State University (in eastern Georgia), he also offers lectures and seminars on this topic (interview with a Georgian alumnus in Telavi, Georgia, 2016).

Finally, it is worth mentioning another KAAD alumnus who is a Catholic theologian and rector of the KAAD partner university Sulkhan Saba Orbeliani University of Tbilisi, a university which was recently founded under his patronage and which has a special role as the first Catholic university in Georgia. He is also the Chairman of the KAAD-partner committee and a member of the KAAD Alumni Board in Georgia and supports KAAD in the selection of suitable scholarship holders and in the support of returning alumni in Georgia. In 2014, he was awarded the prize of the “KAAD Foundation Peter Hünermann” in Bonn for his longstandig engagement. In addition to his office as university rector, he researches topics of Christian fundamental theology and works on new didactic methods in religious studies in Georgia. His special merits will be discussed in the following chapter, which concludes the results section.

5.6 General Aspects

5.6.1 Contributions to the Scientific Systems

In all case study countries, we were able to observe overarching aspects of knowledge and information transfer, regardless of the particularities of each country. This includes the fact that we were able to observe an influence of former KAAD scholarship holders on the respective science systems in each country, as many of the scholarship holders are scientists or some of the scholarship holders remained in academia after their studies. In this respect, we also spoke with many alumni who, after their study or research stays, brought new teaching and/or research methods back to their countries of origin and now pass them on to their students. There are many examples of this. A Colombian KAAD alumnus, for example, who earned his doctorate in banking law in Germany and was appointed to a professorship at the law faculty of the renowned Universidad Nacional in Bogotá shortly afterwards, introduced “Capital Market Law in Latin America” as a new teaching focus in Colombia.

The above-mentioned KAAD alumnus from Ghana, who develops new research methods for water quality in rivers and lakes at the University of Kumasi, learned the basics for this during his studies in Germany. Another Ghanaian alumna of KAAD at Legon University in Accra founded the research focus “Agriculture and Gender”, which was unknown in Ghana until then. She came across it during her doctorate in Germany and after her return she has been offering these kind of seminars regularly.

Other alumni have built networks between their countries of origin and Germany. The Indonesian lawyer mentioned above, for example, who earned her doctorate in Germany with a KAAD scholarship and is now vice dean of the Law Faculty at KAAD’s partner university Atma-Jaya in Indonesia, has built up a dense research network between Europe and Asia. For this purpose, she visits Europe on a regularly basis, most recently for a 2-year postdoctoral stay in Belgium, where she worked on competition law in Western Europe. She currently works with Japanese and Korean colleagues on a comparative study of competition law in Asian countries. Another alumnus from Palestine, who is now a professor of clinical psychology with a focus on therapy research at Göttingen University of Applied Sciences and Arts, and conducts research in the field of anxiety therapy and the treatment of trauma in refugees, tries to establish a research network with universities in the Middle East. The main aim is to strengthen the still young branch of psychological therapy research in the Middle East.

German universities and research centres also use international students and researchers to establish new partnerships, open up new fields of research or carry out international research projects. One example of this is a Colombian KAAD alumna who, during her doctoral studies in Germany, received an offer from the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (HGF) for a research project on pesticide use in agricultural in Colombia. She came to the attention of the HGF not only because she was doing her doctorate in this field, but also because she knew the research conditions in Colombia well. As part of the project, soil samples are now being taken in Colombia and analysed at the HGF research centre in Germany. This has led to a close cooperation with the partner university in Medellin. Similarly, a Colombian KAAD alumnus initiated a partnership between a German university and the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá. Another KAAD alumnus from Palestine was instrumental in a partnership agreement between the Biology Department of Bethlehem University and the University of Leipzig. Another alumnus set up a chemistry laboratory at the Universidad Javeriana, a KAAD partner university in Bogotá, which is one of the best in Colombia. To this end, he raised funds from the Colombian Ministry of Education. In addition, private funding institutions helped to endow the laboratory with research equipment from Germany. During his KAAD-funded research stay in Germany, he had familiarised himself intensively with this equipment. The German-Colombian peace and conflict research network CAPAZ (Instituto Colombo-Alemán para la Paz) mentioned above was also co-financed with research funds from Germany (from the DAAD), among others.

The most outstanding example, however, is certainly to be found in Georgia, where the former KAAD scholarship holder just mentioned was key in founding a university, namely the aforementioned Catholic Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani University in Tbilisi. Since 2008, the alumnus has also served as the rector of the university. In this function he implemented many elements he experienced during his study and doctoral period in Germany into the new university. Thus he introduced elements of the study of theology offering colloquia and seminars in addition to classical lectures to deepen the subject matter and encourage active participation by the students. In the meantime, other KAAD alumni have been appointed as professors or lecturers at Orbeliani University who develop their own curricula for their subjects. In addition, central theological writings and textbooks (mainly from German and English) are being translated into Georgian. The first of three planned volumes on fundamental theology in Georgian has already been published. This is a pioneering achievement for theological teaching in Georgia (KAAD 2013) (Picture 5.5).

Picture 5.5

Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani University in Tbilisi. (Source: Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani University Tbilisi)

5.6.2 Challenges in the Re-integration Process

A second, important, overarching finding of the study is that, despite all the success stories, many alumni had difficulties during the return and reintegrating process into their country of origin. Many even said that it was even more difficult for them to get used to life again in their country of origin after returning than it was to get used to life in Germany at the beginning of their studies. The return was often described as a “second culture shock”. In our online survey, almost 60% stated that they had experienced problems after returning home. One Ghanaian alumnus commented:

It is hard for returnees to settle back in Ghana. It’s very stressful and frustrating that nothing works. They are not used to that anymore. In Germany most things work. In Ghana, everyone is late and nothing happens for a long time before things finally get going. That’s frustrating, but slowly we’re getting used to it again. (Interview with a Ghanaian alumnus in Accra, Ghana, 2018)

Air pollution, traffic jams in the big cities and long distances to the workplace were also mentioned as major problems in the reintegration process. An alumnus from Indonesia commented as follows:

It was really a culture shock at the beginning to be back in Jakarta after several years in Germany. For me, everything was much too loud at the beginning, the city was so dirty and the traffic was also unbearable for me at the beginning. I was no longer used to that. I actually wanted to go back to my small and quiet Karlsruhe right away. I was completely overwhelmed at the beginning and didn’t know how to adjust to the change. That only settled down after several months. (Interview with an Indonesian alumnus in Jakarta, Indonesia, 2017)

An alumna from Ghana made similar comments:

It took me a long time to get used to the slow life in Ghana, and especially to the fact that the travel routes in Ghana take so long and are exhausting. In this respect I missed Germany a lot in the beginning. It took me a few months to get used to it again. (Interview with a Ghanaian alumna in Accra, Ghana, 2018)

In addition, dealing with social inequality in the countries of origin was also a major challenge. During their studies in Germany, many alumni learned to appreciate values such as the protection of religious and social minorities and the social equality of men and women. A Colombian alumna commented as follows:

When I came back to Colombia, it was difficult at first. I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of things. It was difficult. […] The biggest problem here, and I didn’t perceive it so strongly before my time in Germany, is the image of women. There is a lot of machismo here. And that can make it very difficult to work here as a professor or lawyer or judge, because the men don’t take you seriously. It can be very difficult. I still have to learn to deal with it. It’s harder to make a career here as a woman. (Interview with a Colombian alumna in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

Almost 30% of the respondents in our online survey also stated that it had taken them a very long time to find a job that matched their qualifications. Some have therefore decided to become self-employed (around 5% in our online survey). This concerns, for example, the above-mentioned doctors in Palestine as well as entrepreneurs in Indonesia. An Indonesian alumna who studied veterinary science in Germany had been looking for a job for almost 2 years after her return. After that, she only found a job as a saleswoman in a pet shop in Sumatra, where she worked for about 3 years before she was fired again. Today, she is unemployed again. A Palestinian alumna who studied health management in Heidelberg searched for almost a year for a job after returning to Israel, until she found a job as a nurse in a Jewish hospital in Jerusalem. A Colombian alumnus described his job search problems as follows:

I had already applied from Germany for various jobs at universities in Colombia, but unfortunately didn’t get one. When I and my family returned in September 2011, I hadn’t found a job for several months. It wasn’t until January 2012 that I got my job as an assistant professor at Rosario University in Bogotá. I have been working there for almost six years now. (Interview with a Colombian alumnus in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

However, almost three quarters of respondents in our online survey said that they are satisfied with their job today. At the same time, however, 63% of respondents were dissatisfied with their pay. This is particularly true of those who work in academia. One Indonesian alumnus lamented:

I work full time, sometimes more than 50 hours a week, but I earn too little to manage my life. Here at the university, I only earn a little bit more than 300 euros. This is not enough for me and my two little children. My wife has a small job, and earns about 150 Euros. We cannot afford a car, so I have to take the public transport system here in Yogyakarta. This takes a lot of time, and sometimes I feel I spend more time on the bus than at the university, or with my family. I don’t see that this situation will change in the near future, or that I will earn more money. It is really difficult. (Interview with an Indonesian alumnus in Jakarta, Indonesia, 2017)

The low level of research funding is also a major problem for the scientific work of alumni. An alumnus in Colombia criticised:

The biggest challenge for me is to build up a good research team and to get research funding for my projects. In Colombia, it’s not like in Germany. You can’t just apply for money at the university or at funding agencies in Colombia. There is not so much money for research here. One of the few ways to get money is to work with international researchers from Germany or the US. They can apply for money more easily in their countries and we can also benefit from that, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to work in such an international research team yet. […] It is also difficult to find good researchers in Colombia with whom you can work well and who have learned how to conduct good research. (Interview with a Colombian alumnus in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

Bureaucracy and corruption pose further challenges. This was mentioned particularly frequently by the Ghanaian alumni:

Working in Ghana is a challenge every day, especially because the government authorities are always suspicious of new ideas and have to put obstacles in your way first. (Interview with a Ghanaian alumnus in Tamale, Ghana, 2018)

A very important project to secure a KAAD alumna’s job in Ghana failed almost completely due to Ghanaian bureaucracy. She said:

We had to fill out a lot of paperwork. And just to get our plane to Ghana and use it in Ghana, we needed three approvals, namely from the Civil Aviation Authority, the National Security Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It took a total of over three months to get all the approvals. That was very frustrating […] A big problem of the bureaucracy here in Ghana are the long official channels: you have to go from one pre-office to the other instead of getting an appointment with the person who is directly responsible for the processing. You also need an appointment with each person. This can take a long time and also cost a company a lot of money. (Interview with a Ghanaian alumna in Accra, Ghana, 2018)

Other Ghanaian alumni are also troubled by the sprawling bureaucracy:

It is really difficult to get projects done on time because of bureaucracy. You need papers for everything, and it can take a long time until the responsible agents make the final decision. That’s true for business, but also for academia. If I get funding for a research project from an international research foundation, I also need written agreements from the government and from my university. That can take a long time. (Interview with a Ghanaian alumnus in Kumasi, Ghana, 2018)

In addition, institutional discrimination against religious minorities was also a problem for alumni. This applies to all countries of origin in the case study, but was mentioned in particular by the Indonesian alumni. In Indonesia, where the Muslim majority society has become increasingly radicalized in recent years, intolerance towards religious minorities in the country grows also with political and legal institutions. A KAAD alumnus who is a Catholic stated:

Joko Widodo [President of Indonesia] is a beacon of hope for me. He is also Muslim, but he is not responsible for the radicalization of Muslims in Indonesia. It’s more the local politicians and courts. Widodo’s influence in this is very limited, because of the separation of powers here in Indonesia. That’s good, but the courts sometimes hit the wrong end of the stick. They make wrong decisions that discriminate against Christians or other groups. These are tough decisions and I’m sure Joko doesn’t like it. But I think he’s doing his best. (Interview with an Indonesian alumnus in Pontianak, Indonesia, 2017)

For over 42% of the alumni surveyed in the online study, the lack of reliability or unpunctuality of others is also a problem (n = 212). Almost 36% of the respondents also stated that the different working methods of their colleagues posed a problem for them. One Columbian pointed out as follows:

People want to do many things at once here. It’s hard to focus on one thing here. In the end, many things are done at the same time, and nothing is done really well. Often things are not finished at all. (Interview with a Colombian alumnus in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

In Colombia, problems between employees are often not addressed directly and cnflicts are avoided. A Colombian alumna said about this:

I have no problems working with Colombians, generally there are no problems. My advantage is that I am very direct, I always have been. I say when I don’t like something. That can prevent a lot of problems at work. In Colombia, you’re not used to that. People don’t address problems directly here, but try to get along with each other in some kind of silence. But I think that causes more problems. That’s why I speak directly about it. Not always easy, especially as a woman in this macho country. (Interview with a Colombian alumna in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

The different ways of working can also stress alumni who want to initiate positive changes after their return. An example from Colombia:

I have many challenges here. My life is made up of challenges, I like that a lot. Here’s the thing: I first had a good academic challenge at university. I wanted to be in Colombia. It was my challenge. I wanted to exercise my professorship as it is in Germany. That is, that I can do a good research as a professor, and that the students can really be academically educated and can start to think and work scientifically. That was my challenge. I didn’t succeed, unfortunately. I was there very alone and it is not so easy here in Colombia. My challenge in professional life now is to build and manage an excellent law firm. I will soon hand over the reins to one of the associates. But to build a really good law firm that can last long. I hope that this law firm will always exist, even in 100 years’ time. (Interview with a Colombian alumnus in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

More than 90% of the alumni surveyed are nevertheless satisfied overall with their decision to return to their country of origin.

5.6.3 Changed View of the World

As already indicated, in our study we also asked the international students and alumni what “global justice” means to them and how their fundamental “view of the world” had changed as a result of their studies in Germany and the general experience of migration. The central, overarching answer to this question was that they had gained a new, global and more comprehensive “view of the world” through their study abroad. Thus, studying abroad not only trained their academic and professional skills (see above), but also sensitized them to global contexts and challenges, especially with regard to the relationship between the Global North and the Global South, the development of the Global South, and their personal understanding of “justice”, “development” and “faith”.

Interestingly, many alumni saw the countries of the Global South as bearing greater responsibility for their development. The North should give them more freedom and opportunities for participation, but the initiative has to come from the countries of the Global South themselves. In this context, the majority of them certainly accept their role as “engineers of development”, “mediators between the South and the North”, “bridge builders” or “change agents”. One scholarship holder said in this context:

Leadership training. Africa lacks local leaders like a Martin Luther once in Europe or Martin Luther King in the US who can take our communities and change people positively. I don’t want to compare myself to the greats, but we need to think in this direction. We have the education and the potential, and we know the history. And we have experience in Germany. We have to start small and change the communities, we actually have it in our hands. And through this we also become more self-reliant and independent. (Interview with a Ghanaian scholarship holder, Skype, 2017)

With regard to the concrete approaches, the answers vary greatly depending on the development priorities of the individual countries. Ghanaians pointed out the importance of the environment and the development of agriculture in their country. Palestinians were concerned about peace and health and social care. Indonesians referred above all to the opportunities for economic development, especially in the technology sector, but at the same time called for reforms with regard to environmental protection. Georgians considered the democratic and legal development of the country important, and for Colombians the peace process in their country was central. A Colombian alumnus said:

The most important thing for Colombia now is that the peace process becomes stabilized […]. Without peace and free coexistence in the badly damaged villages, there will be no development in Colombia. Only when peace is secure will Colombia be able to develop well. (Interview with a Colombian alumnus in Bogotá, Colombia, 2017)

It also became clear that not only the South benefits from the accumulated knowledge of the alumni – as described in detail above – but also the North can learn from the South through the scholarship holders and alumni. According to the alumni and scholarship holders, these include more spontaneity, composure, friendliness and a stronger emphasis on family and social interaction as a whole. An alumnus from Ghana explained:

There are also things that Germany can learn from Ghana. For example, Germans could take more time for leisure and their friends. Not always only for work, but also to do things together. That would strengthen the social system in private, not only in public. We were also shocked how little people care for old people in Germany. In Ghana the young family members take care of the older family members. We live together with the grandparents until they die. […] Germans have no idea about art, they could learn that from us as well. We Ghanaians know how to make music, to dance and to make beautiful clothes, figures and masks. (Interview with an alumnus in Accra, Ghana, 2018)