Other issues

Environment, democracy and human rights, children and youth and reconciliation and dialogue, are other cross-cutting issues, which should be considered in applications to DMCDD:

Environment
The environmental aspect is an issue, which DMCDD will give a high priority. Within educational, health and civil society sectors there are many possibilities of incorporating an environmental aspect as a cross-cutting issue.

• Within health, an intervention could be to find ways to dispose medicine waste in respect for the environment
• Within education, tree planting and environmental information could be a possible activity
• Within Strengthening of Civil Society/Local Communities, income-generating activities as fuel-saving stoves or sustainable agriculture could combine local mobilisation and progress with protection of the environment

Democracy and Human rights
DMCDD stresses the importance of promoting human rights and democracy in the process of improving conditions of vulnerable groups. The rights-orientated training has been used frequently in previous DMCDD programs, however even more progress can be made.
It is important to strengthen the individual’s capability to influence the debate and political system at all levels. DMCDD therefore aims at ensuring a greater participation in the political decision-making at all levels.

Children & Youth
The majority of people living in third world countries today are children and youths. However, these target groups are often neglected as beneficiaries in many projects in spite the fact that they are the future stakeholders in development processes. DMCDD strongly encourage partners and member organisations to actively look out for these target groups when preparing development interventions.

Download: Guidelines on children and youth projects.

Reconciliation and Dialogue
History tells us that Christians have been responsible for destructive conflicts between different denominations or towards adherents of other religions, especially Jews and Muslims. However, many churches and Christian organisations have also worked for peace, justice and reconciliation respecting the integrity of God’s creation. Through support to dialogue and common projects and programs DMCDD wants to contribute to inter-religious and inter-cultural understanding and cooperation across geographic, ethnic, cultural and religious boarders, which will benefit all human beings belonging to the local, national, regional and global community.