More than half of the South Asian population of 1.7 billion people live in rural areas and many of the poverty problems of the region are in the villages. Sustainable development in the villages has the potential to enhance the living conditions and to reduce rural distress and poverty-induced migration to cities. To develop villages in sustainable ways, a number of issues need to be addressed and adequate solutions supported. This includes energy access, sanitation and safe drinking water, access to information, improved health care, and others. When the solutions are sustainable, local and reduce poverty, they are effectively leading to “eco-village development (EVD)”.