Many successful development projects showed innovation in creating resources out of materials formerly thought to be waste, or creating a skills base in the village out of 'non-trainable' people. Resource development of this kind does not enter into most conventional macro-economic calculations, yet these innovations may be the most feasible ways for local villages to move toward self-dependence. Houses can be build for a fraction of the normal cost A using waste materials. The Greenbelt Movement, a project in Kenya for soil conservation and reafforestation, uses handicapped people and school children as the human resources for its efforts. A health project in Mexico makes teaching materials out of sticks and pieces of old rubber tyre. UNICEF and WHO report how diarrhoea can be treated in the village with water, local salts and a natural sweetener.
The right to draw upon the wealth and resources of the natural economy is held by the local residents, a right which is balanced by an equal responsibility to act as caretakers of that natural wealth.