Home How To Authors Credits Replicating Success Targets ACAP Project Description Principles Franchise Examples   Targets   - General targets Please click on examples and choose a chapter (e.g. plantation, village sanitation improvement etc.) to write your comments General targets The broad goal of development is to improve the quality of life. As poverty, degradation of ecosystems, social anomalies, disintegration of norms and values are closely linked problems, improvement in the quality of life can only be reached by integrated conservation and development programmes. In the recent decades most underdeveloped countries have experienced rapid declines in mortality rates which were not accompanied by declining fertility rates. This imbalance created pressure on the natural resources base which was not matched by the expansion of production capabilities through new technologies, investment or efficiency through specialization and reorganization. Poverty coupled with population pressure is the most prominent factor contributing to environmental degradation. If the poor find no alternatives, they will use natural resources like land, water or forests in ways which will impair the future productivity of these resources. Therefore, to attain sustainability, the most pressing actions to be taken are: Limit population growth Alleviate poverty and reduce income disparities Maintain ecological balance Avoid irreversible changes in the environment Since nearly all underdeveloped regions in the world have the same basic needs, it makes sense to look for experience, to find good practices of conservation and development and to standardize solutions.