Our Story
Who we are
Action Network Worldwide (ANW) functions as the network’s digital backbone: a platform used by multiple social-profit organizations and practitioners to exchange opportunities, coordinate learning and matchmaking of resources, and collaborate across borders. ANW supports locally led development and climate action by:
building practical competence (training and mentoring),
structuring cooperation networks (alumni, experts, institutions, initiatives),
improving access to resources (opportunities, fundraising readiness, and platform tools).
Mission
ANW’s mission is to strengthen locally led social and environmental initiatives by enabling the people who can operate across contexts, especially international students and alumni from the Global South who study in Europe and Germany and remain connected to their home regions. In practice, this mission is implemented through three service pillars:
- Training: workshops and coaching in project planning, monitoring and reporting, and applied methods that are often missing from standard university curricula.
- Networking: structured linkages among students/alumni, technical experts, institutions, and local initiatives, to support collaboration and reduce duplication of efforts.
- Resource mobilization: support that improves access to funding opportunities and increases readiness to apply, partner, and implement.
Vision
We envision international cooperation systems in which:
- communities retain decision-making power over priorities, methods, and implementation, and
- transnational networks function as durable cooperation infrastructure (knowledge, trust, and resource pathways), not as one-off projects.
- Become a network of networks, a hub of hubs, a super connector hub and hyperlocal implementer.
Values
Why alumni and diaspora networks are central to our Theory of Change Many cooperation initiatives struggle with predictable bottlenecks: short project cycles, weak continuity, and limited context translation between institutions and local realities. ANW’s Theory of Change prioritises alumni and diaspora as “bridge capacity” because they are uniquely positioned to
translate institutional opportunities (funding, standards, networks) into locally workable steps,
remain accountable to local stakeholders through long-term relationships, and
reinforce continuity beyond a single grant or project period.
Milestones
Weltweit e.V. founded in Germany by an international team with experience in international cooperation.
Launch of longer-format online academies and applied project planning / monitoring training formats.
Expansion of thematic workshops (e.g., project monitoring, storytelling, partnership management, sustainable finance).
Launch of the Action Network Organizations Alliance.
ANW reaches 895 members and 56 thematic spaces.
ANW continues growth to 1,016 members
ANW rebirth of platform with full suite of tools for professionals and orgs.
About Weltweit
Weltweit – Gesellschaft zur Förderung lokaler Initiativen e.V. is a German non-profit association (founded in 2014) that supports international cooperation through a practical, locally anchored approach.
We operate with an explicit emphasis on self-determination: communities define priorities and methods; our role is to provide enabling infrastructure (skills, connections, and access to resources), not to prescribe solutions.