Promoting Human Rights and Peace

EED supports partners in the countries marked above in blue.

• Are involved in rural development and sustainable agriculture
• Support peace promotion and conflict solution
• Promote equal opportunities for women and men
• Strengthen the responsibility of poor and disadvantaged people for their own lives
• Stand up for human rights.

South Asia

In South Asia, EED is involved in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The focus country for support is India. Receiving over € 10 million per year, the country is the most significant recipient of EED/BMZ funding in the world. Around 80 per cent of the funds for the South and Central Asia region go to partners in India. The proportion for Bangladesh is around 10 to 12 per cent. The rest is divided roughly equally between Nepal and Pakistan. EED supports only small projects in Sri Lanka. However, Bread for the World is intensively involved in the island nation.

The key problems in the region are

• Poverty
• Low levels of education
• Inadequate nutrition
• Poor health standards in the population
• Violent conflicts with an ethnic or religious motive
• Suppression and exploitation of women
• Violations of human rights
• Undemocratic structures

• Rural development, sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty
• Peace promotion and conflict solution
• Human rights work
• Strengthening democracy and civil society
• Equal involvement of women in socio-political processes and equal sharing in economic resources.

Furthermore, EED works together with its South Asian partners in selected cross-cutting themes. The aim is to

• Improve approaches to and concepts for work
• Develop joint strategies
• Encourage exchange and networking – if possible, also with partners from Southeast Asia-Pacific, Africa, Latin American and Eastern Europe.
• Help to influence the policy of governments and international institutions, such as UN organisations or the WTO.

Major interdisciplinary areas for EED in South and Central Asia are:

Peace promotion and conflict solution

This subject continues to be of high importance for the partner organisations in the region. There is a continuous need to strengthen the partners’ expertise, to make development work more conflict-sensitive and to qualify and intensify lobbying and advocacy activities on the subject of peace and development.

An exchange on various approaches in analysing conflicts and dealing with them in development, human rights and peace work has started across the whole of South Asia. Nine key partners from the region cooperate in order to strengthen peace-promoting approaches in development work (“Local Capacities for Peace/Do No Harm”). Furthermore, a training manual on strengthening the joint cultural heritage in mixed ethnic and mixed religious community life has been developed. At a learning workshop in Germany in October 2005, the South Asian partners met partner organisations from conflict regions in Africa in order to evaluate the experience to date and to further develop their strategies and methods for peace-promoting development work. The publications People Building Peace and Developing Better Prospects for Life, which can both be ordered at EED, have been informed by these exchange and learning opportunities.

Promoting food sovereignty

Globalisation and the industrialisation of agriculture, international agreements and the advance of agro-genetic engineering endanger the food security of the poor. In the South and Central Asia region, which is largely rural, many partner organisations have been involved with this matter for many years with grassroots programmes and lobbying activities supported by EED. Since 2002 EED has been working on this issue with partners from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe as part of a “One World Project”.
You will find the positions, strategies and action plans developed to date in the Hyderabad Declaration and the Bonn Declaration.

Empowerment of women and gender mainstreaming

All projects and programmes work towards implementing strategies for gender equality. The perspectives and interests of women should be brought to bear in their concepts and measures. Women should be involved equally at all levels. EED specifically supports women's organisations and networks that stand up for the rights and concerns of women.

Strengthening the independence of partner organisations

Various approaches, strategies and instruments to strengthen the independence of non-governmental charitable organisations are examined and evaluated in a dialogue and study process with partner organisations from various countries in the region. The results were presented in the form of a partner consultation and made available to the public in a publication.

HIV/AIDS

Within the context of a special programme, approaches to work from partner organisations were evaluated and discussed in a consultation. Recommendations for the further development of these approaches were adopted jointly.

Southeast Asia, East Asia and Pacific

The work focuses on the following

• Strengthening the responsibility of poor and disadvantaged people for their own lives, in particular by means of rural development, basic social services, improving income opportunities
• Involving the population in social decision-making processes: promoting the rule of law, democratic control, forming civil society networks, south-south exchange
• Implementing political, civil, economic, social and cultural human rights
• Promoting equal opportunities for women and men: overcoming domestic violence, micro-loan projects for women
• Promoting peace and overcoming violence, including by means of inter-religious cooperation
• Conserving the natural foundation of life and traditional knowledge: agriculture adapted to the location, sustainable forestry, supporting indigenous peoples
• Establishing specialist and advisory capacities among the partners and training local staff. The goal: to diminish dependency on finance and expertise from the North.