Development Alternatives Group
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| Founded | 1982 |
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| Type | Social Enterprise (Not-for-profit) |
| Focus | Sustainability, Environment, Development |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Employees
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340 |
| Mission | To create sustainable livelihoods in large numbers |
| Website | www |
The Development Alternatives Group is an organisation based in New Delhi, India that works to address the issues of sustainable development of institutional innovations, combining social and environmental objectives with business-like approaches, bringing together research and technology development establishing a "practice to policy” connect.
The Development Alternatives Group comprises the not-for-profit flagship Society for Development Alternatives (DA), the business-oriented incubator Technology and Action for Rural Advancement (TARA), and its commercial subsidiaries, which include TARA Machines and Tech Services (TMTS), TARA Environmental Services Pvt Ltd (TARAenviro), TARAhaat Information and Marketing Services Ltd (TARAhaat), TARA Nirman Kendra (TNK) and DESI Power Orchha Pvt Ltd (DESI Power). While the focus of DA is on innovation and policy outreach, the mandate of TARA and its subsidiaries is to set up mechanisms for the large-scale delivery of goods and services that are essential for sustainable human development.
The Development Alternatives Group works at local, national and global levels. Its partners and clients include village households and communities, civil society organisations, local and state governments, agencies and ministries of the Government in India, multilateral agencies and private sector institutions across India, and a growing number of partners in South Asia, South-East Asia and Africa.
Vision "A world where every citizen can live a secure, healthy and fulfilling life in harmony with nature."Mission "To create sustainable livelihoods in large numbers"
Strategy
The Development Alternatives Group focuses on empowering communities through strengthening people’s institutions and facilitating their access to basic needs; enabling economic opportunities through improved technology and support for skill development for green jobs and enterprise creation; and promoting low carbon pathways for development through natural resources management models and clean technology solutions.
TARA was set up at the same time as the parent institution Development Alternatives. As an “incubator”, TARA takes the innovations of Development Alternatives through the rigorous stages of technology field-testing, proving, productionising and packaging to make these innovations ready for the market. As the ”aggregator”, TARA bundles the technology packages with the necessary support services, and makes them available to its subsidiaries (see below) who then market these to local, usually small, enterprises in rural markets to enable them to make and market basic needs products commercially to local consumers.
TARA also helps large corporations explore new markets and aggregates the output of local producer groups including micro, mini and small enterprises. It connects these groups to market opportunities for pyramid access and market development for ethical products and services. Governments, large Corporations and Civil Society networks benefit from TARA's expertise as a 'manager' of large awareness creation, environmental action, community development and service delivery programmes in areas such as affordable housing, renewable energy, water management, sustainable agriculture, waste management and recycling.
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