Mission

DWF's stated mission is as follows —

• to contribute to the capacity of the community to provide for its basic needs, specifically in the context of human settlements: housing, construction, planning, upgrading, urbanisation, rural development, and related fields, with particular emphasis on developing countries;
• in connection therewith, to initiate and undertake any research, education, design, planning, project implementation and other activities related to the above issues.

In addition DWF is:

• committed to long-term and sustainable development - programmes develop over years with local partners in the community;
• mindful of the value of indigenous knowledge and expertise; our projects respect traditional values and ways of working and take these as a starting point for meeting new challenges using realistic resources, working directly with local stakeholders - families, communities, and local organisations;
• decentralised, with project decision making and responsibility developed locally, and the setting up of local NGOs and CBOs actively encouraged and assisted;
• a recognised leader in pioneering innovative strategies and learning from this experience to improve practice and to capitalise on lessons learnt.