Rural Development

We offer our expertise in sustainable development of rural areas to programs and organisations. This includes advice on issues of sustainable agriculture, drinking-water supply and water management, access to affordable and reliable energy, cooperation of consultancy-service providers and producers (and their organisations) as well as the strengthening of self-help initiatives and groups.

A few projects we have successfully supported:

• On behalf of the Ugandan Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development we implemented a rigorous monitoring of investments in rural electrification to trace their impacts on households, businesses, schools and health centres. This involved biannual extensive surveys, the results of which were presented in stakeholder workshops and culminated in a comprehensive final report.

• We supported the BMZ-funded research project on rural transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa by facilitating scenario-building workshops in Ethiopia and Zambia. These served the assessment of long-term impacts of business-as-usual scenarios, the development of visions of environmentally and socially sustainable rural life, and the identification of levers to change courses of action for achieving these visions.

• We provided extensive consulting services to GIZ’s support of the Congo Basin Mission, which aims at harnessing river navigation and water resources for regional development. This involved organisational consulting, capacity building, and project management support.