With a foreword by Ernst J. Kerbusch. International cooperation with trade unions and the promotion of economic and social development have been and continue to be cornerstones of the international work of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES). In the early 1960s, the focus was on bilateral cooperation with individual partners in the Third World. Today, it is about cross-border responses to global challenges, the central theme of international politics worldwide. For over 50 years, the foreign work of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) in developing and emerging countries has been represented by the FES. The contribution to trade union cooperation has successfully highlighted the interdependencies between the international politics of trade unions and the foreign work of the FES. In economic and social development, the FES initially promoted small-scale initiatives.