Instituto Internacional de Recursos Renovables A.C.
IRRI´s mission is to ensure positive and sustainable changes in poor and vulnerable communities. Therefore, addressing rural communities including rural indigenous communities is crucial to their approac. IRRI does that through programs and projects of development and transference of ecotechnologies and human and technical capabilities.
IRRI attempts to promote agricultural efficiency, access to sufficient clean drinking water, access to information on sustainable technologies and practices, access to clean and renewable energy sources. In general, IRRI attempts to provide tools for communities for addressing their needs and problems. The needs and problem assessment is done through an active, informed, open and dialogical participatory-process that helps IRRI to build along with the community solid programs and projects. Participatory processes promote the adoption of the technologies and practices.
Another expertise of IRRI is the provision of technical trainings to women and men, ensuring that final users are capable of the full maintenance of ecotechnology reducing the need of external inputs. The reduction of dependency on external inputs has become an important result of IRRI's interventions; as one of the main limitations identified in the rural and rural indigenous communities is the dependency on external inputs and their price variations. For instance, the dependency on wood fuel, gasoline, water pipes, liquified gas, efficient waste management services, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, processed food, among others. Therefore, IRRI's interventions address directly the reduction or total substitution of these external inputs for self-generated inputs, resulting in food and energy security, reduction of households’ economic stress, and empowerment of families. At the same time IRRI considers gender inclusion a high priority topic, hence the provision of technical as well as human capabilities considers women and girls as primary target populations for the development of agents of change in their communities with respect to sustainable technologies and practices.
