The self-help approach

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, decades of project-based development assistance have sometimes cultivated a tradition of aid that considers it necessary to provide poor farmers and rural people with material and financial assistance without which the improvement of their living conditions by themselves and with their own resources would not be possible. Inspired by the practices of change within organizations and resulting from the experience of a rural development program in the territory of Idiofa, the self-help approach described in this guide offers a methodological alternative to all organizations that want to work for the social and economic development of the rural poor from a self-help perspective in a socio-economic and cultural context marked by absolute poverty, wait-and-see attitude and dependence.