Our Approach

BDCP utilizes its independent and non-governmental status to bring innovative management and technical support to grass-roots sustainable development projects. It serves as an intermediary institution forging equitable partnerships between tropical countries and often inaccessible developmental agencies.

Sustainability, capacity building and self-reliance are the underlying tenets in all BDCP projects. The programme adopts a bottom-up approach in its efforts to enable rural dwellers to derive maximum benefits from their environmental resources and their labour.
Science and technology are viewed as useful tools to be adapted to the cultural framework of productive activities, not as modern alternatives to the contributions of members of the community.

Biodiversity Conservation

We have established a variety of long-term conservation projects, from small-scale community tree planting to internationally-sponsored biodiversity monitoring plots. From these projects, we gain not only an understanding of African forest biology and ecology, but also information on the relative abundance of economically valued species. This information helps us to decide which species to put into production and which to protect or cultivate.

Capacity Building

Through equitable partnership arrangements with western-based institutions, we are enhancing the technical and scientific capabilities of in-country communities, universities and industries through infrastructure enhancement and training programs. The goal is to enable these organizations to study their own environments and develop ways of adding value to their natural resources. For example, standardized herbal medicines created in Africa will bring in far greater income from the world market than the raw plant materials from which they are made.

Bioprospecting

BDCP has developed innovative and successful methods of biological prospecting for medicines, cosmetics and crop protection agents which are based on leads from traditional ethnobotanical knowledge and ecological indicators. Our major in-country focus is on the development of cures for malaria and other tropical diseases. We have also developed partnership arrangements with developed countries which include the search for treatments for cancer and AIDS. In these projects, full recognition and compensation is given to the sources of knowledge and raw materials.

Information Exchange

BDCP has developed respectful, productive avenues of communication between people of widely varying backgrounds who share an interest in sustainable development. We work equally with traditional healers, community groups, western-trained scientists, other NGOs, private sector interest groups, policy makers and international funding agencies. Crucial to developing these associations are the many training courses, workshops and congresses which we sponsor as well as our international database on African plants.