Poverty alleviation measures are intended to foster the productive and creative potential of the poor and to enable them to create conditions by their own activities under which they can progress. At the forefront of these efforts are structural economic and social reforms which facilitate and stimulate the realization of human potential. Projects are designed to have a beneficial effect on poor groups in the population. Participation and self-help are the guiding principles of poverty alleviation.

Particular importance is given to self-help projects towards poverty alleviation where the poor have a direct role in planning and designing measures. Such projects are intended to have a broad impact and to lead to structural reform in state and society. Over the last few years, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development has continuously increased the proportion of this type of project which demands high personnel and conceptual input. Poverty alleviation covers a broad spectrum of measures. These include market reforms, the promotion of private-sector initiatives, job and incomecreation through individual entrepreneurial activity in agriculture, small-scale industry and trades as well as the creation of savings and credit groups.

Environmental and resource protection as the second focus of Germany’s development cooperation aims to preserve vital natural resources, shape economic development in our partner countries in an ecologically sound manner and put them in a position to participate in global endeavors to protect the environment. This takes place in the form of support for national environmental policies, programs and projects in our partner countries which serve to protect resources, by participating in international initiatives to protect particularly endangered ecosystems and by designing all aid projects in an environmentally sustainable manner. In the context of environmental protection, it becomes particularly clear to what extent Germany’s development policy contributes to reducing global threats.