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aed (Agency for Economic Cooperation and Development) is an Austrian, semi-public, not for profit association founded in 2003. It promotes sustainable international relations, advises donors and beneficiaries and acts as a partner in the implementation of international projects. As a service provider for the Austrian Federal Government, aed represents Austria's interests in projects financed mainly by the EU and thereby supports the Austrian government in achieving its goals in the field of international cooperation.

Objectives
To meet the high international demand for Austrian know-how from key and future markets, aed is dedicated to export best practices from the Austrian public administration and economy, often realized through international donor projects. aed is a recognized expert institution with the full backing of the Austrian government to execute sustainable bi- and multilateral reform projects.

''At a national level, the primary objective of aed's initiatives in project implementation is to strengthen the sustainable perception of Austrian interests in politics, business, and industry. By successfully exporting best practice solutions for reform projects, aed sensitizes the beneficiary countries for Austrian services and products. The close cooperation resulting from the best practice transfer process will provide Austria with superior inside knowledge of the policy and market conditions of the beneficiary country. This insider knowledge and the tightened bilateral relationship will give Austria the competitive edge in laying the foundation for large scale follow up projects with international donors.''

At a european level, aed aims to strengthen Europes competitiveness in the global company, by eliminating structural deficits in the public administration of individual EU, EU neighborhood and EU preaccession countries. Each project of aed is an EU funded investment designed to support the job creation, administrative efficiency and sustainable growth of the beneficiary countries with the longterm aim to increase the financial revenue stream to the EU. With access to experts in the fast-growing industries such as E-Health or Digitalisation, aed is committed to equip the beneficiary countries with the relevant know-how to face the big challanges in the area of digital transformation and industry 4.0.

Tasks
aed acts as the central coordination body and one-stop-shop for the consortium, the beneficiary of the project, the EU delegation and further stakeholders in the reform project process. The agency is responsible for the successful implementation of the projects by a clear allocation of tasks between the expert team from the beneficiary administrations on the one side and aed on the other. Thereby aed is responsible for the overall contract management and the financial and logistical implementation.

aed also steers the agreed processes of the consortium in its cooperation and concludes relevant and detailed consortium agreements prior to project start to safeguard that each partner has a clear understanding of its duties within the project (technically as well as administratively). Each expert, irrespective from which consortium member he/she originates, is fully serviced by aed in regard to the day-to-day management, flight and hotel bookings, financial monitoring including invoice review and expenditure tracking, payments, reporting, rules and regulations, change management etc.

Members
The members of the association are the Austrian Federal Chancellery, Austrian Federal Ministries, public and semi-public bodies and interest groups.

Statutes
According to the Austrian law on Associations, the statutes determine the tasks and duties as well as the organisational structure of aed. The original version derives from the General Assembly of May 2018.

Amongst others the aed statutes foresee the following organs of the association:


 * the General Assembly
 * the Board of Directors including the Management Board
 * the Control Commission and
 * the Arbitration Court

The General Assembly has the following exclusive duties:


 * appointment of honorary members, withdrawal of honorary memberships and expulsion of founding members
 * election and voting out of the president and up to two vice-presidents, with participating federal ministries entitled to propose either the president or one of the vice presidents with a simple majority of votes
 * election and voting out of members of the Board of Directors and the Management Board
 * appointment and revocation of the members of the Control Commission
 * establishment of an advisory board on the proposal of the Management Board
 * election of the annual auditor or accountant at the suggestion of the Board of Directors – in case that a Control Commission has been established, the proposal is made by a federal ministry participating for the Federal State.

Area of expertise
With access to numerous experts within the Austrian public administration, aed develops and implements reform projects in the following areas:


 * European integration
 * Democratisation and administrative reform
 * Human resources
 * Infrastructure development
 * E-Government and digitalisation
 * Public finances, taxes, customs
 * Justice
 * Anticorruption and procurement
 * Home affairs
 * Migration
 * Education, science and research
 * Social affairs, employment and health
 * Regional development
 * Environment and energy

Geographical Focus
EU-member states

EU-pre-accession countries

EU-neighbourhood countries

Technical Assistance
Guidance for governments, institutions and companies on initiating and implementing reform projects

Implementation
Competent logistical and financial execution of projects

Networking
Interface between the public administration and the private sector