Unlike many textbook projects, the BLM Initiative is not directly involved in the production of textbooks. Instead, it makes a broad range of services available to the participating countries to develop the national capacity necessary to undertake this task.

The services include:

• advice in the formulation of book policies and the drafting of corresponding legislation;
• support to strengthening or establishing national co-ordinating mechanisms in the development of the book sector as a whole;
• assistance in upgrading national capacities to design, produce, publish, assess, select and distribute educational materials and other reading materials;
• facilitation of an inter-country cooperation network;

The BLM Initiative is also untraditional in the sense that it is not a project as such, but a programme that provides assistance to countries upon their specific requests. For each country, the take off point of programme implementation has been determined according to the needs identified by the principal public and private sector players in the book chain, enabling the programme to be more responsive to country specific situations. In line with the UNESCO/DANIDA Co-operation Agreement, under which the BLM Initiative falls, the programme has attempted to "…ensure that the development assistance is based on a dialogue with the beneficiaries and is in accordance with their own priorities and development plans".