Development

Poverty isn't just about how much money you have, or how much food, or how healthy you are, it's also about options - or the lack of them.

If you can work but you have no seeds or tools how can you get them. If you have money but nowhere to buy food the money doesn't help much. If you have food but still get ill how do you get the right medecine?

If it takes two weeks to walk to the nearest health post, and you are chronically malnourished, underweight, and the head of a household at the age of fourteen how do you escape the poverty cycle?

There are unfortunately no simple answers, but we can make progress by linking people together - by improving access. If seeds and tools can be taken to villages then people can use them to grow food. They may even be able to grow enough to have a surplus, or by using better techniques have time to grow cash crops.

Better access to markets allows that surplus to be turned into money, and at better prices, which means people can afford to send their children to school, or they can buy a mosquito net which will help to stop their children getting sick.

If a teacher knows they don't have to spend half their salary just getting to the place they are actually paid every month, there is more chance that teachers will be able to work in remote areas. And one of the best ways of breaking the cycle of poverty is through education.

If an aid agency knows it doesn't have to spend half it's budget on transport, and that a health worker won't have to waste three unproductive days in a landcruiser for every day long clinic they run, there is more chance the NGO will send the health worker.

HoverAid tries to improve access.

To start with this means helping aid organisations, NGOs, Government organisations and Missions to get to people they can help.

Our aim is to enable other organisations to to what they do best in the communities that need help and support the most.