Office for International Relations

Dortmund is an international city in which people from more than 180 nations have made their home. The Office for International Relations of the City of Dortmund is the point of contact for questions (and of course solutions) in the fields of international and European affairs and sustainable development coming from the city society or from within the city administration.

We work with commitment and joy in the fields of international affairs (who thinks globally and acts locally is just right with us), European affairs (yes, we love Europe) and see it as our responsibility to make globalisation fairer in terms of sustainable development (“Westphalian stubbornness as earliest form of sustainability”, former Lord Mayor Ullrich Sierau).

Guidelines for our work are Dortmund’s four-pillar sustainability strategy: economy, ecology, social affairs and civil society as well as the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Especially in times of crises it is important to rely on international cooperation.

Picture (Licence/photographer/designer): Stadt Dortmund / Roland Gorecki

And now, in a nutshell:

The Office for International Relations of the City of Dortmund

• coordinates the international, European and sustainable work of the city’s administration,
• manages international project partnerships,
• strengthens the municipal exchange of knowledge and know-how through thematic project partnerships and city networks,
• coordinates the city’s activities in international networks, participates in them and contributes to their committees and working groups,
• is point of contact for national and international (non-governmental) organisations and institutions,
• co-organizes and initiates international events in Dortmund,
• is responsible for maintaining international contacts of the City of Dortmund,
• works together with civil society actors as experts on development policy issues,
• strengthens Dortmund’s position with the European institutions,
• fosters European cohesion and the European values in Dortmund,
• coordinates the sustainability process, connects actors from civil society and administration,
• supports projects and ideas on sustainable development and cooperates with regional and supra-regional institutions.

What and how we do all that is available to you on the following websites of our office. We look forward to the exchange with you.

Your team of the Office for International Relations.