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International cooperation organizations working in developing countries usually intervene in: - Emergency situations (natural catastrophes especially drought, wars resulting in the displacement of people who become refugees, accepted to a greater or lesser extent in the receiving countries, etc.);
- Situations where there has been serious degradation of the natural resources, with the aim of rehabilitating the soil by various means with a certain degree of help from the local people who, if asked to participate, will usually do so especially when they receive food aid in exchange;
- When the actions most frequently involve sectorial projects (reforestation, cash crop production, intensification of agricultural production, creation or rehabilitation of an irrigated area, rehabilitation of a protected area, water and soil conservation, etc.). In recent years we have been able to witness a movement towards greater pluridisciplinarity and a better understanding of the needs and desires of local peoples. This is particularly true for land management projects, natural resource management projects, and local development projects. But these projects are often run in difficult situations, where unsuitable practices have undermined the production capacity of the local environment and where the people concerned find themselves in increasingly precarious conditions.
We may certainly wonder why it is necessary to intervene in situations where things are going rather well! Nevertheless, these systems are often threatened by numerous elements which may vary from one situation to another. Examples of development drivers and challenges are: - population and urbanization
- natural resources and climate change (mitigation and adaptation)
- science and technology
- markets and commercialization
- policies out of step and institutions
- information and knowledge
- globalization and migration
- land degradation
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