This study responds to two demands. First, a demand by policy makers and technical staff in partner countries, many of whom seek to know more about and better understand some of the key features of Germany’s decentralized and federalized system, and the workings of its local governments. Second, a demand articulated by German development policy experts regarding the usefulness, applicability and transferability of some of German federalism’s underlying principles and practices for policy advice and for on-going decentralization reforms in partner countries. To illustrate some of these features, selected lessons from development practice in partner countries (Bolivia, Ukraine, Pakistan and Zambia) are added.