Sectors

SNV focuses its work on issues to food, energy and water - three huge global challenges that strongly impact the poor and are closely linked to climate change. Therefore, SNV will solely focus on the sectors most relevent to these issues which are are Agriculture, Renewable Energy, and Water, Sanitation & Hygiene. SNV will make significant investments to live up to its aspiration to be a 'partner of reference' in these sectors.

Agriculture:

• Smallholder cash crop value chain development: SNV helps to ensure that the underprivileged benefit from agricultural production by developing business services and strengthening the primary value chain which brings products from conception to consumption. We also address agricultural policies in order to create an enabling environment in which the rural poor can prosper.
• Inclusive business in agriculture: We promote entrepreneurial initiatives that alleviate poverty by integrating low-income communities into the value chain as suppliers, consumers or distributors, creating a win-win situation.
• Timber and NTFP value chain development: SNV is promoting timber value chain development by linking smallholder plantations with fast-growing species to the high-end timber markets and promoting the certification of forest products as means of reducing poverty and supplying the market without destroying forests. In NTFP value chain development, we work largely in bamboo, increasing the income of poor households by connecting them to growing national and global markets. SNV is also developing
  specific value chain development strategies for other NTFPs with limited geographical distribution, like amla and pipla in Bhutan.
• REDD: SNV’s work in REDD seeks to integrate REDD mechanisms with forest governance reform processes that aim to clarify and secure the rights of forest-using communities, facilitate the equitable sharing of benefits, promote the sustainable management of forests, and provide alternative livelihoods for local communities.

Renewable Energy:

• Domestic biogas: Since 1989, SNV has been working in Asia to install biogas plants that help reduce global warming while providing safe, affordable sources of fuel. SNV and our partners have established biogas programmes in seven Asian countries, improving lives in 300,000 households. SNV also leads the Asian Development Bank’s Energy for All Partnership working group on domestic biogas. Through this initiative, the completion of an additional one million biogas plants is planned by 2016.
• Carbon financing: SNV has helped secure carbon financing for 20,000 biogas units in Nepal and 5,000 units in Cambodia. In Lao PDR and Nepal, SNV carbon finance advisors are working with local governments to strengthen their Kyoto Treaty compliance expertise and to promote pro-poor carbon financing.
• Improved watermills: This project uses simple techniques to increase the efficiency of traditional Himalayan watermills in Nepal, reviving a centuries-old craft which can boost local incomes and halt the spread of polluting diesel mills.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene:

• Sustainable Sanitation & Hygiene for All Rural Areas: aiming for district wide sanitation coverage and access to hygiene promotion, through community-led action, strengthening of sanitation supply chains, WASH governance and innovative behavioural change communication.
  Sustainable Sanitation & Hygiene for All in Small Towns: aiming for town-wide sanitation coverage, hygiene promotion and environmentally safe disposal of septic waste through the promotion of hygiene behaviour change, improved governance, regulation and compliance in relation to septic waste and the development of sanitation services value chains.
• Functionality of Rural Water Supply Services: aiming for sustainable access to water services for rural communities in the face of new environmental, social and economic challenges, through improved local planning, monitoring and investment practices, as well as multi-stakeholder learning, institutional support mechanisms and benchmarking of both implementing agencies and operators of rural water supply services.

WASH governance, gender and social inclusion are cross-cutting areas of our work.