What does ICON do?

What kind of services do we offer? The role of a private consulting firm in development aid programmes does not need to be explained to any industry insider. But if you are looking for a more general understanding, our specific environment needs a few words.

We compete in international tenders for development projects or programmes. Each time our bid wins, a national or multinational donor organisation contracts us to implement a particular project in a developing country they support.

The more successful our projects, the more frequent the invitations to tender for new ones. Of course, we do not always win, but the constantly growing number of staff in our Cologne office proves that we are doing a good job.

Today over 60 employees in the Cologne headquarters ensure competent and co-ordinated project implementation world-wide. They provide professional and administrative support to the permanent employees working on site, to the contracted international experts and the continuously increasing number of local experts and staff.

We do not set geographical priorities, nor do we focus on any individual clients. Our core competence is in organisation and the development of human resources related to specific sectors of the economy and of society.

The following chart highlights our target sectors.



The sectoral strong points of the whole company are reflected in the structure of the ICON-INSTITUTE holding. Each specialised institute has access to the resources and staff required to ensure competent implementation of their specific projects.