People in developing countries, poor and oppressed population groups, require partners to participate in their processes of development and liberation. Groups and organisations in their countries, and where necessary in richer industrialised countries, offer bold and enduring partnership.

Primary health care Rural development Urban development  Human rights  Gender relations

Measures On the basis of such partnerships, MISEREOR has succeeded since 1959 in promoting over 80,000 development projects which were planned and implemented under the responsibility of national partners, the legal holders of the projects, with the participation of the population. MISEREOR appraises the eligibility for promotion of project applications; it supports projects through financial assistance to the legal holders of the projects, and where necessary through advisory inputs, and the financing of human resource inputs (development workers) provided by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Entwicklungshilfe e.V. (Association for Development Aid, regd.) or "AGEH" for short, which is based in Cologne.

MISEREOR receives about 4,000 project applications a year. In 1999, for example, it was able to pledge a total of around DEM 276 million for some 1,700 new projects. This assistance is distributed more or less evenly between the continents of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Having said that, the majority of aid goes to the poorest countries.

The main partners in Church-related development cooperation are the sister Churches in project countries themselves, and their bodies and organisations in charge of development work. However, MISEREOR also supports non-Church-related partners with close links to the poor, especially in cases where the Church herself would have only very limited access to the poorest of the poor. What is crucial is that the poor themselves harness their own capabilities to become the real actors and agents in development, shaping themselves all development processes and projects affecting them.

Development projects cover a wide variety of relevant sectors:
Basic education conveys basic skills such as reading, writing, self-expression, and thus strengthens the ability to learn, which often means the ability to survive. At the same time it also transmits fundamental values such as tolerance and community spirit. The poor organise themselves to create access to state elementary schools, and local communities and institutions develop basic education programmes for all, designed to prepare students for local real-life needs, and not for migration to the big cities or to advance the career prospects of the children of the well-to-do.

Primary health care

Primary health care promotes health consciousness among the people, providing basic preventive and curative health care services for the most common health problems and diseases, in particular those which are poverty-induced. As community-based health care, these services may be organised by the people and local communities, and supported by the government or non-governmental partners.

Rural development

Rural development activities integrate a number of sectoral approaches: agriculture and animal husbandry are improved, taking into account both economic and ecological criteria. Access to natural resources such as water, land and forests is improved, or rights are allocated more fairly. People's long-term security and sense of responsibility towards the natural resource base on which their lives depend increase if and when they also have access to markets, to credit and savings programmes, to basic health services, to basic education, and to extension inputs. They also increase where people are able to build resources and form capital themselves, rather than always losing it as a result of inappropriate agricultural policies, overindebtedness, environmental destruction, or displacement etc.

Urban development

Urban development is facilitated by community organisation in slum areas, the basic right to a small piece of land on which to live, a will on the part of people to help themselves and organise self-help structures, the provision of basic education, vocational training relevant to existing employment prospects, assistance for the setting up of small businesses, and social and health care services. Also conducive to urban development are the provision of help and protection to urban migrants, especially cultural minorities, as well
as women and girls, and the promotion of rural development and settlement. 

Human rights

Gender Relations

Holistic development also requires that due attention be paid to gender relations: women must be able to enjoy the same dignity and the same participation in development as men.

Measures

In all the various types of project, the aim is to translate the project goal and objectives into reality through appropriate measures ranging from construction measures via the provision of materials and equipment through to the provision of human resources and advisory services.

We also see development projects as presenting opportunities to learn how development processes might perhaps be more effectively and appropriately influenced in the next project.