Rural Development

A large part of the poor population of India and Bangladesh is living in rural areas (75% of the total population). Traditional and partly feudal social structures are wide-spread. Loss of land, unemployment, lack of chances, discrimination of women and social pressure determine the situation and often lead to migration of the poor into the slums of the cities.

Predominant target of rural development is to have poor groups of the population participating in the social decision-making process. With the help of our projects, many women have already been elected members of the village councils. Here, they do have the possibility to engage themselves in favour of disadvantaged groups.

Through formation of self help groups, villagers find the possibility to commonly fight for their rights and to attack unjust structures. In particular the formation of women's groups plays an important role. Further elements like educational measures, credit programmes and income generating measures are helping to improve the economic and social situation of poor families.

Resource Protection  

The foremost of India's environmental problems is deforestation. Erosion, sinking the ground water table as well as climate changes are the consequences. At present, only 10 to 20% of India's surface are covered by forests. This affects mainly the mountainous areas. Violent monsoon rains quickly erode the deforested soil. Water can no longer penetrate the surface and wide stretches of land remain deserted. They are, therefore, no more available for agricultural cultivation, though they constitute the basis for the livelihood of the rural population.

To prevent this process of further degradation of the agricultural base, we support projects in which marginal farmers do take their fate into their own hands: They are discussing which measures should be taken on their fields to avoid erosion and to improve water management (e. g. watershed development: contour-bunding, re-charging water sources, rising ground-water table). In most cases, the projects are combined with other measures in the area of sustainable agriculture and they include reforestation. Pesticides and chemical fertilizers are not used by these farmers but are replaced by self-produced biological alternatives like compost. Bio-gas installations and energy-saving stoves reduce the use of fire wood and contribute to achieve sustainability.

In addition to the periodic abundance and the scarcity of water respectively, the essential environmental problems of Bangladesh are characterized by enormous air pollution in the cities, a progressive deforestation and a dangerous arsenic content in the drinking water of many wells. We support in Bangladesh, in combination with agricultural projects, also reforestation activities as well as the installation of energy-saving stoves.