SNV commenced operations in Bhutan in 1988. The strategic position and choices for our work are based upon the goals and strategies of the Royal Government of Bhutan, as expressed in its Five Year Plans. As with SNV programmes around the world, SNV Bhutan seeks to achieve impacts in two major areas:
 
Basic Services - with a focus on rural sanitation

Production, Income and Employment – with a focus on smallholder cash crops, non-timber forest products and
pro-poor sustainable tourism.

SNV Bhutan has three offices – one in each Region of the country - with advisors working in every one of the 20 Dzongkhags (Districts). We currently support some 45 clients and 12 other strategic partners. SNV Bhutan employs 35 full-time staff with 26 thereof being national and nine international.

As an organisation that delivers capacity building services we consider our main comparative advantage to be that we are among the few Development Partners with offices outside the capital city. We seek to work with meso-level clients who themselves work with groups at either macro (national) or micro (community) level in the development process. Increasingly, we are developing sectoral or programmatic approaches rather than traditional project methodologies. We attempt to integrate innovative practices into local knowledge systems and we consider local ownership of development to be a critical factor in any sustainable change.