UPDATED: On the housing and economic development front: Iraq and a host of other countries
A friend of mine recently retired from USAID sent me a link to this website — the outfit makes concrete wall-ties. He’s involved in a couple of developmental projects using this “concrete forming” building technique. Concrete-formed homes are fairly cheap and are comparatively easy to build, which makes them attractive alternatives in the developing world. There are various “model villages” projects –I heard one discussed by the Afghan ambassador to the US a couple of years ago in the Q&A following a lecture in Washington. How do you power the homes? In many places the ideal source would be solar power, a photo-voltaic system that generates and stores enough power to do two things: (1) run a very small refrigerator (to store medicine and keep milk fresh); (2) power one electric lamp for at least four hours in the evening in order to provide light so students can read and do homework. That’s a genuine health and education policy. The cost of photo-voltaic systems is dropping. This power system could also charge a laptop. Add a passive solar heating system for hot water and you get the luxury of a hot shower (assuming you have a water system in place).
My friend also sent me a note about “good news about Iraq you never hear.” He has worked with CHF International on a micro-lending project and wanted me to see the results of its “Access to Credit Services Initiative.” So follow the link and check it out. This is the kind of story that rarely gets any play. That’s sad, for so many reasons. This is a real-world program for encouraging peace.
Here’s a column from 2002 about a micro-lending program in Uganda.
UPDATE: While cruising the CHF site I found this page on a “green” water project in Indonesia.
It’s solar powered. At a developmental aid conference in Honduras in 2003 one of the programs featured a “do it yourself” small village “clean water system” that as I recall could also use solar power (the system was designed to use different power sources– whatever power source was available). A friend of mine in Texas has been involved in water well projects in Malawi. Digging the wells means also teaching locals to operate and repair the systems. The goal is clean water. Dirty water kills — improving health in the developing world means clean, reliable water.
UPDATE 2: The model villages Q&A with the Afghan ambassador took place in 2005– time flies. See Comment 1 on this post and my response to the comment. The commenter links to his site with this developmental package. There are lots of ideas out there, lots of good ideas. The glitch? All developmental aid problems divide into three parts: Money, personnel and political will. This assumes, of course, you have enthusiastic host country agreement, sustained host country political will, and for-real physical security.
I suggested a Neighborhood Development Package in Nov. of 2006.
Maybe you will get more traction than I did.
ED NOTE: Hah. I first encountered a “model village-type” developmental proposal in the 1980s, and it referenced an idea from the 1970s. I know the concept isn’t new. PostWW2 US planned suburbs were “model villages” of a sort. Provincial Reconstruction Teams, particularly in Afghanistan, ought to be making the argument that these inexpensive dwellings (dwellings with solar power and clean local water hookups) are not only the right developmental choice, but the right political choice. (I am guessing the PRTs are involved in projects like this, but I don’t know. I’d like to know.)
Comment by M. Simon — 5/4/2008 @ 1:24 pm
As a professional wet blanket I must point out that the reason that solar power isn’t widely used in the developing world is not the cost of the photovoltaic but their inherent intermittent nature. Even in equatorial areas, solar power randomly stops working. It can’t even drive simple applications like well pumps. People need reliable power when and where they need it. Solar power cannot provide that. Yet.
Model villages also have a long history of failure. We lack sufficient understanding of the organic nature of technology, economy, history etc that all come together to create even the smallest and simplest human communities. Nearly fifty years of attempts to foster nifty technologies and techniques in the developing world have uniformly failed.
I think that we should concentrate on small, proven technologies that the local culture can support.
Comment by Shannon Love — 5/4/2008 @ 5:45 pm
Here’s an aspect of the problem with surprisingly wide implications: cheap lighting. Check out lutw.org , an outfit that specializes in distributing white LEDs and battery and generating tech suitable to the most basic environments.
Comment by Brian H — 5/12/2008 @ 10:49 pm