Activity Description: Tools for Self Reliance is a UK-based charity that aims to empower artisans working in developing countries so that they can better participate in the development of themselves and their communities. To achieve this, TFSR works with local partner organisations to provide tools and skills training, thereby increasing self-reliance, diversifying incomes, and improving livelihoods.

Recognising that tools are only a small part of the answer to the problems facing the poor, TSFR works with local organisations to take an integrated approach to meeting the needs of rural crafts-workers , such as ensuring availability of credit to crafts-workers, teaching tool-using and repairing skills, as well as business and enterprise training.

Activity Description: As part of its mission to demonstrate and advocate the sustainable use of technology to reduce poverty in developing countries, the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) has introduced a small electric grinding mill for the production of peanut butter.

Activity Description: The Chilli Pepper Company is a for-profit enterprise that helps sustenance farmers in rural Zimbabwe to grow and market chillis. The company was created in 2000 by the Elephant Protection Development Trust (EPDT) as a way to resolve conflict between farmers in the Zambezi River valley and elephants. Both compete for resources and water, but farmers face additional hardship because they must protect their crops from being eaten or damaged at night. The farmers selected by EPDT are also among the most disadvantaged people in Zimbabwe, have little access to draught power and only grow small plots of cotton for cash. The yields for food crops such as sorghum, maize and millet are highly variable.

Activity Description: DireqLearn is a private company whose goal is to promote the use of information technology in education. It currently has operations in Western Africa, Eastern Africa, and Southern Africa. DireqLearn seeks out underdeveloped markets for its low-cost education solutions, and is able to make a profit while serving some of the most underdeveloped countries in the world. Services offered by DireqLearn include consulting and project management, content, alternative connectivity, and technology platform solutions.

Activity Description:

EnterpriseWorks (formerly Appropriate Technology International) is a non-profit organization that fights poverty in the developing world through business development programs that allow small agricultural producers and other entrepreneurs to increase their productivity and incomes, pursue sustainable business opportunities, and create jobs that benefit their families, communities and regions.

EnterpriseWorks has successfully assisted the creation of small-scale food and oils processing and garment making businesses, implemented irrigation to help productivity, created farm cooperatives, and managed many other entrepreneurial initiatives.