Mashav started as a modest program, focused on grassroots-level human capacity building at a time when Israel itself was still very much a developing country.

[citation needed] MASHAV grew gradually and organically in response to repeated requests on the part of the peoples that freed themselves from the yoke of colonialism and were seeking practical and political means of ridding themselves of poverty, hunger and disease that was the heritage of that era.

Mashav promotes the centrality of human resource enrichment and institutional capacity building in the development process – an approach which has attained global consensus, and implements this principle by offering professional training courses in Israel and in host countries and short and long-term professional consultations.

[citation needed] By 2010, Mashav had trained a quarter of a million students, predominantly African, from the developing world in education, health, science and agriculture,[9] cooperating with over 140 countries.

[10] The expertise and technology acquired in cultivating areas such as deserts affected by water scarcity has underwritten many projects.