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Development cooperation needs to be reconsidered from a holistic standpoint focusing on people and their empowerment.

Traditional development cooperation, whether bi- or multilateral, has become fragmented into a myriad of sector-specific interventions. Although these can generate impact in an isolated manner, their results are usually incremental and short lived. More importantly even, they often fail to trigger the type of dynamics whereby it is the empowerment of people  that drives the development of the private sector, the improvement of public services and the enhancement of government and business accountability.

At Future Horizons, we are convinced that sustainable development is the result of the empowerment of people and, among them, particularly that of women, children and youth, and vulnerable groups. It is people's empowerment, not foreign aid and technical assistance, that creates the type of social context in which cooperation gradually replaces domination, and in which both the private and public sectors can thrive.

Development cooperation can, however, support people's empowerment. We help development cooperation agencies and partners replace people and their perspectives at the center of their interventions. In our analysis of programmatic approaches, we place particular emphasis on integrating people's voices and on opportunities to generate sustainable impacts through local ownership.

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