ISA Agent - Applied AI for international cooperation

Where can AI genuinely help development cooperation?

We are two development-cooperation consultants combining sector experience with software engineering and applied AI.

We explore where AI can improve established methods, demanding workflows, and the use of institutional knowledge, without replacing professional judgment or ignoring the realities of implementation.

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Our premise

AI is not the starting point

Development cooperation already has established methods, institutional responsibilities, and extensive sector knowledge. The relevant question is not how to apply AI everywhere, but where it can improve a specific task or process.

We therefore start with real workflows, users, data, and constraints. Sometimes AI may support a better tool or way of working. In other cases, clearer processes, better data, or conventional software will be the more appropriate answer.

What we explore

Where AI might be useful in practice

Supporting established methods

We explore how AI can support established approaches in development cooperation, for instance, in project management, stakeholder analysis, planning, and monitoring.

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Improving demanding workflows

We look at document- and data-intensive tasks such as tender preparation, project analysis, reporting, and working with large or fragmented datasets. The aim is to identify where AI can reduce repetitive work or provide a useful first structure.

Making institutional knowledge more usable

Development organisations hold extensive knowledge across projects, reports, evaluations, and teams. We explore how AI can help identify relevant experience, connect related work, and make existing knowledge easier to find and reuse.

Our focus is on GIZ programmes and project teams, as well as other development programmes, implementing organisations, public institutions, NGOs, foundations, and advisory teams working in international cooperation.

Prototype case study

Capacity WORKS Suite

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The Capacity WORKS Suite automates three core analytical tools from GIZ's Capacity WORKS management model. Upload a Terms of Reference document, and the platform extracts strategic intelligence to populate each tool — saving days of manual analysis.

Users review, edit, and export every result.

Tool 1

Map of Actors

Identifies stakeholders and their relationships from your project documents.

Tool 2

Steering Structure

Maps governance levels and feeds from the Map of Actors.

Tool 3

Plan of Operations

Generates implementation plans informed by governance levels.

Who We Are

Complementary perspectives

We are two independent consultants working across development cooperation, climate resilience, agriculture, software engineering, and applied AI.

Felix Beck

Felix is an entrepreneur with more than ten years of experience in international development cooperation, including work with GIZ, where he held positions as specialist planner and head of project, and GFA Consulting Group. His work spans climate-risk assessment, adaptation planning, programme development, and multi-stakeholder processes, including the mobilisation of more than EUR 10 million for climate-focused initiatives.

After an MBA at the TU Munich he co-founded the agricultural technology start-up Karevo, where he leads AI model development, data systems, and operations. At ISA Agent, he brings together development practice, entrepreneurship, product development, and applied AI.

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Dr. Sven Willner

Sven is a climate physicist with more than twelve years of experience in climate research and advisory work for governments and international organisations, including UNDP, GIZ, and ADB. His work as a consultant covers climate-risk assessment, adaptation planning, sectoral vulnerability analysis, and decision-support systems for complex institutional settings.

He has undertaken research and technical work at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. At ISA Agent, he brings scientific rigour, policy experience, and a focus on translating complex evidence into practical methods and tools.

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Work with us

Let's start with a concrete question

We are interested in speaking with development organisations, public institutions, practitioners, and technical partners across sectors who are exploring where AI may or may not be useful in their work.

We are open to collaboration, independent consulting assignments, workshops, and small pilot projects. This could begin with a document-heavy workflow, an institutional knowledge challenge, an established method that might benefit from better digital support, or an AI idea that needs a critical review.