Hot climate news from the Bali bloggers

The importance of energy

2012-02-09T10:52:52Z

During my research with the PISCES programme in Kenya I investigated the benefits of biofuels for development, and difficulties and politics associated with it.

Working with such a controversial topic, I have learnt that the challenge for development is not only about providing energy, but also about developing knowledge and facilitating policies that ensure technologies will benefit those who need it most. I have seen, for example, how farmers can gain an income and a fuel for lighting from their jatropha plantations, or how ethanol is changing the lives of women that can now cook with a clean, affordable fuel: I have learnt that energy is about livelihoods, possibilities and freedom.

Hanna produces jathopa oil on her farm in eastern Kenya

The Kenyan experience demonstrated the importance of energy, reaffirmed by the UN declaration of 2012 as the ‘International Year of Sustainable Energy for All’. Energy affects all aspects of life and development: livelihoods, access to water, agricultural productivity, health, population levels, education, and gender-related issues. Considering that wood smoke is a cause of 1.5 million deaths a year is enough to realise these strong links. Moreover, the estimation that 900 million people will not have access to electricity by 2030, helps understanding how energy access is also linked with inequality.

Energy goes through all our development work, affecting people from their participation in markets to reconstruction efforts. Thinking about energy in this holistic way places energy access as one of the main challenges for development. Providing energy is not only about delivering appropriate technologies, but understanding needs and facilitating long lasting solutions that can boost development and growth in those places in the world that need it most. Practical Action’s work on energy and the Poor people’s energy outlook 2012 constitute big steps towards a sustainable energy future.

A handbook for building resilience

2012-02-09T00:14:00Z

Promoting resilience is a growing area of interest in development. The UK Government’s Humanitarian Policy ‘Saving Lives, Preventing Suffering and Building Resilience’, puts resilience at the heart of their approach. Building on this, DFID have committed to embedding resilience building in all of its country programmes by 2015 and integrating resilience into all of their work on climate change and conflict prevention.

So what is resilience?

Practical Action sees resilience as the ability of a system, community or society to resist, absorb, cope with and recover from shocks and stresses. A resilient community is one in which people can manage risk and recover from shocks such as floods, droughts and violent conflict. It also means people have the ability to adapt to long term trends such as climate change in a timely and efficient manner without undermining their wellbeing.

So how do we achieve resilience?

How to operationalise concepts of resilience is a challenge for many organisations. Practical Action has developed an approach called From Vulnerability to Resilience (V2R). This is a framework that analyses the causes of vulnerability and how disaster risk reduction, climate change impacts, governance and livelihoods interact and affect resilient outcomes.

The handbook

This new handbook is aimed at practitioners who seek examples of how the V2R framework can be used in practice, based on examples from Nepal. It offers a step process, workbooks and tools. It includes guidance on how to include long-term trends in programming with a focus on climate change.

It is essential that organisations working on poverty reduction take into account the impact of climate change on the communities and sectors where they are working. In so doing, they will be better able to support community members and government officials to adapt to the adverse effects and take advantage of any opportunities presented. This requires a detailed analysis of the impacts of climate change at the local level in order to build adaptive capacity to withstand both sudden shocks and incremental changes in the climate. Participatory tools have been updated for use of uncovering community perceptions of changes, alongside identifying historical climate data.

Download it here.

Sustainability or quick fix?

2012-02-06T12:49:08Z

Temporary restrictions to energy supply, nationally or internationally are a frequent occurrence. I can recall energy shortages caused by striking miners in the 1970s, the OPEC embargo of 1973, the Iran/Iraq war in 1980, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and last year’s Fukushima nuclear reactor shutdown in Japan to name just a few.

Renewable technologies use freely available resources such as wind, water and sunshine and are not dependent on the fluctuating world price of carbon intensive fossil fuels. It seems an obvious solution to focus our investment on these.

But the prevailing wisdom amongst developed countries is that quick fix high tech ‘geo-engineering’ solutions will solve the problem of global warming.

There is a history of environmental disasters associated with meddling with our planet’s ecosystems in unproven ways. Cane toads were introduced to the sugar plantations of Queensland, Australia in 1935 to control a pest called cane beetles. Over the years, with no natural predators, these toads have become a much greater pest than the original beetle. The Nile perch was introduced into Africa’s Lake Victoria for food and sport fishing. It has already eaten its way through 200 native fish species, and is still going. I could go on….

Developed countries already make too many demands on the resources of our fragile planet while a third of humanity lacks access to modern energy. We should surely be concentrating our scarce resources on improving this situation rather than lavishing time, money and scientific expertise on unproven vanity projects. Practical Action has a wealth of experience to show that small scale renewable energy drives development.

2012 is the UN year of sustainable energy for all – we must ensure that is exactly what is does.

Ecological sanitation for sustainable sanitation

2012-02-04T11:15:26Z

2.6 billion people in the world do not have access to improved sanitation facilities. Most of them are from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

In the race of accessing the facilities, a lot of pit latrines or improved pit latrine have been constructed behind they are cheaper ,thus easy to promote in low income areas. However, there remains a high potential risk of contaminating the ground water which is source of drinking water for millions.

Practical Action Nepal is therefore promoting ecological sanitation (ECOSAN) toilets in its EC supported project, Strengthening Water, Air, Sanitation and Hygiene Treasuring Health (SWASHTHA). The project is taking place in 21 communities targeting urban poor of four municipalities (Bharatpur, Butwal, Gulariya and Tikapur) in Nepal. The primary objectives of promoting ECOSAN toilets are:

1. Reducing the health risks related to sanitation, contaminated water and waste

2. Improving the quality of surface and groundwater

3. Improving soil fertility

4. Optimising the management of nutrients and water resources

The collection system of ECOSAN toilet is different with the other conventional and modern flush cistern toilet. In this toilet, faeces and urine is collected separately.

Ecosan toilet with different collection areas for urine and faeces

Urine collection tank

Nutrients in the urine are easily assimilated by plants and vegetables. However, the urine is diluted by adding water so it doesn’t burn the vegetation.

Using diluted urine to provide nutrients to crops

Similarly, faeces contains nutrients but there is a high risk of the presence of pathogens. Therefore, faeces can not be used directly as urine. Elimination of harmful pathogens in the faeces can be achieved by dehydration. That is why the importance of diverting the urine is dominant here. The entire process of dehydration of faeces takes about six months to one year. Then it can be used as compost.

It was believed traditionally that faeces has more nutrient value. However, the analysis of urine and faeces reveals that urine has significantly more nutrients than faeces. Urine is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and can be used in agriculture as well as horticulture. The amount of urine collected from one person during one day is sufficient to fertilize one square metre of land. Urine collected from 30 persons for one year is sufficient to fertilize one hectare of land.

Description	Unit	Urine	Faeces
Volume	Litre per person per day	1.4	0.15
Nitrogen	Gram per person per day	11	1.5
Phosphorus	Gram per person per day	1	0.5
Volume	Litre per person per year	500	56

Advantages of ECOSAN:

1.It requires less water than in the flush cistern toilet, where flushing is necessary after each urination and defecation.

2.It does not contribute to pollution. Both urine and human faeces are collected safely. It pollutes neither surface water nor ground water.

3.Separately collected urine and human faeces can be used as natural fertilizer. These natural fertilizers can be easily assimilated by the plants.

4.Improvement of health due to safe and hygienic sanitation.

There are a few limitations in promoting ECOSAN, however:

1.Users need to be aware how to use ECOSAN toilets. Faeces needs to be kept dry as far as possible.

2.People have to handle faeces. Therefore, people need to be educated that faeces is not waste but is a useful resource. Further, people need to be aware of using the compost of faeces and the proper use of urine.

3.The faeces compost needs to be handled carefully for health reasons.

4.There is a cultural barrier in terms of handling human waste

Material cost of an ECOSAN Toilet up to plinth level or pan level is about 8000 rupees (£64). The structure of the toilet can be built with locally available materials like bamboo, wood, boulders, mud etc.

What’s the link between climate change and periods? Read this.

2012-02-02T15:51:21Z

I’ve just returned from a meeting with Grace Mukasa, the regional director of Practical Action’s Kenyan office. Grace is an inspiration to me; a visionary leader of her team in Kenya and a champion for the most vulnerable people living on the very fringes of Kenyan society – forgotten pastoralists in the north, and the urban poor in the country’s cities.

We talked about how the security situation in Kenya is worsening – there have been several terrorist attacks over the last few months, and as I write this Kenyan and Somali troops are fighting. But in spite of the increased tensions, Practical Action’s work is going well.

Grace updated me on the progress of all the projects I visited during my time in Kenya: the work to help nomadic farmers in Mandera become more resilient to climate change, the fantastic project in Kisumu which ensures communities can get access to clean water and a decent toilet, the team who have trained women on how to make and sell fuel efficient stoves which emit less toxic smoke, and the construction of the nearly finished library in the slums of Kibera.

We also discussed women, and the injustices that women face, particularly in Kenya. Women are far more likely than men to live a life of poverty because of the discrimination they face in education, health care and employment.

Grace told me that from the age of 16 to 40 a woman’s freedom is massively curtailed. Before she is married there is the risk that she will pursue sexual relationships outside of wedlock. After she is married there is the worry that she will commit adultery. And her husband will often use polygamy as a threat – “if you don’t behave yourself I’ll marry a second wife.” From the age of 40 things may get a little easier. She’ll have had children, and her husband may have more trust for her. Her children may be able to support her a bit more.

This description of a woman’s life saddens and angers me – but it is something I have heard before. But the next thing Grace said was new to me.

In Turkana, in northern Kenya, most people don’t have toilets. In fact, nearly 85% of households don’t have one because the construction costs are simply too high. So people usually just relieve themselves outside in the bush. The lack of proper sanitation facilities causes even more suffering for women and girls when they are menstruating. A girl will often skip school while she is on her period, and on average she will miss six weeks of education every year.

That’s awful.

We’re working with neglected pastoralist communities in Kenya to help them deal with the brutal effects of climate change. Hygiene education is part of that. Please support our work here.

Ensuring the drought in East Africa is not forgotten

2012-02-01T21:16:04Z

I have just returned from 9 days travelling with Grace Mukasa, Director of our East Africa Regional office, to meetings in London, Brussels and Bonn, to ensure that politicians and policy makers are fully aware of the link between changing climate, high greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries, and the dire situation of millions of people, whose livelihoods depend on water and pasture for their livestock.

We had a very lively discussion at an event in the house of Commons on Tuesday, and supportive meetings with MPs Anne Maguire and Martin Horwood. On Wednesday last we held an event with our partners Climate Action Europe, in the European Parliament in Brussels, where a number of MEPs and their staff attended – people who rarely get the chance to hear directly about what is happening on the ground. Later, we had an encouraging meeting from the Director General of the Secretariat for Africa, Caribbean and Pacific, Dr Chambas.

Grace speaks at the House of Commons

In Bonn we had a fruitful discussion with the German Ministry for Development Cooperation, and a couple of radio interviews with Deutsche Welle. On Monday and Tuesday we attended the third Bonn Development Policy Conference, where the focus was sustainable consumption to ensure sustainable development. Grace spoke in a workshop about education for sustainable development, giving her views on what education should focus on in Africa, to help people adapt to a future with climate change.

It has been great to find so many people interested in our work, and the East African situation, and we have many leads to follow up for future partnerships.

Making Markets Work for the Poor

2012-01-30T08:47:11Z

Woman selling milk to a collection centre in Nepal

I returned from a visit to our Nepal programme last week and so thought I’d use my next couple of blogs to provide some news from there.

In a previous blog I have talked about our work with dairy farmers in Nepal – helping small farmers increase milk yields through improved animal health and nutrition. In Nepal there is, in theory, a huge opportunity for small farmers to earn income from milk sales as there is a national ‘milk deficit’ with very large quantities of both fresh and powdered milk being imported from India to meet the demand of urban centres.

For increased yields of milk to lead to higher incomes for farmers however, improved technology and technical knowledge is only part of the changes that have to occur. The technical side of ensuring access to improved feedstock, the services of vets, cooling facilities to allow milk from lots of small farms to be bulked up and stored until collection by dairy processors etc is all very important. But often there are other problems in the way market chains work which can prevent small producers from realising the potential value of their produce. That is why Practical Action works not just on the technology but also on making markets work for poor people.

I saw an example of the latter on my first day in Kathmandu, when I attended a seminar on barriers to small holder farmers’ engagement in the dairy market, hosted by Practical Action. It was held under the auspicies of a Practical Action dairy project (funded by UK AID) and was part of the process of bringing key market actors from across the dairy market chain together to discuss policy blockages to further expansion of smallholder dairy production. The seminar was attended by about 100 people including small farmers, private sector dairy processors and government officials. The latter included the Minister for Agriculture, the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture and the Director General of the Livestock Department of the Ministry of Agriculture. A representative of the UK’s Department for International Develoment was also present as a speaker.

The workshop was good evidence of our Nepal office’s convening power, in this case bringing together and facilitating discussion amongst the whole range of different players that make up the dairy market chain in Nepal. The first part of the morning included speeches by the main guests and a key note speech identifying some of the main problems in the dairy market chain today that hamper dairy businesses from operating efficently and which prevent small farmers from obtaining the best value for their milk. The principle problems listed were: limitations on the ability to improve the quality of livestock (because of an embargo on cross border cattle movement from India and very limited artificial insemination facilities), limited access to credit for small holder farmers, and the depressing effect on supply of the price fixing system used by the Government’s Dairy Development Board.

The meeting went on to 4pm in the afternoon, 3 hours after its due closure time, because of the intense interest of the participants in the discussion. One outcome was that government officials agreed to look into the possibility of an official visit to India to, amongst other things, hold discussions on cross border cattle movement.

This sort of meeting is part of a participatory market mapping and facilitation process that Practical Action has developed over the past few years to help all actors in a market chain better understand how a market works and what could be done differently to improve the value to all participants but, in particular, to make markets work for the poor. For more information see our website at: http://practicalaction.org/markets-2

Poor Peoples Energy Outlook – making friends and influencing people

2012-01-27T17:50:29Z

Earlier in the week I went to the launch of the Poor Peoples Energy Outlook. The report’s produced by Practical Action and the launch was hosted by DFID in their offices in London. I sat next to people from The World Bank, talked to a guy from GIZ (German government), said hello to friends from IBM and chatted to some people from Oxford University.
You get a sense of the gathering.
What struck me was the high regard in which Practical Action’s held and the breath of our energy work. Plus our real efforts to try and make a difference in the world – even if it means moving outside of our comfort zone – in my case talking with posh people! Ill confess to being much more at home chatting with villagers or project workers.
The question some of our supporters may ask is ‘why bother’. The reality is that the UN have launched 2012 as the year of Sustainable Energy for All and at Rio +20 in June the Secretary General will make a call to see this happen. We want to see this succeed but we also want it to build on the lessons we take from our work (it seems silly to have to learn them all over again and a waste of vital development effort) – for example
• The importance of working together with people rather than imposing solutions or dumping kit
• Thinking of energy in a holistic way – for cooking, lighting, clinics, hospitals, powering businesses
• That much as energy is vital – without it sustained poverty reduction is a hundred times more difficult – it isn’t enough on its own you need to think about business, helping people skill up, education and so on
• The vital role small scale renewable solutions can play
• The importance of appropriate finance systems – and for the most vulnerable clever subsidies – so decent energy can be affordable to all

Creating energy access will be one of the great challenges of this century, as we face the reality of climate change there is the opportunity for transformative leadership and transformative energy supply.
But as much as Practical Action can ‘play with the big guys’ our heart and overwhelming focus remains in our projects and with the people in the communities where we work.
“I used to spend all day looking for firewood and cleaning pots and pans. Those days are now gone! Now it’s cheap and easy to cook rice, lentils and vegetables for my seven people family, When my neighbours saw that I had more time for other chores, they decided to install their own biogas plant too!” Mahesh, Nepal
Let’s hope the Secretary Generals call is heeded for Mahesh’s neighbours in Nepal and poor communities around the world.

UK needs scientific research into agroecology – not GM

2012-01-26T16:11:36Z

The greatest challenge facing agricultural scientists is how to work with farmers producing more ecological and healthier food – not GM, argues Patrick Mulvany, Senior Policy Adviser, Practical Action and Chair, UK Food Group

At the start of 2012 we should be energised by the news that BASF, the German chemical and seeds giant, has decided to pull out of genetically modified plant development in Europe. This is testament to the effectiveness of public pressure and “ another nail in the coffin for genetically modified foods in Europe ,” as Adrian Bebb of Friends of the Earth said.

But beyond successes in GM skirmishes, we should remind ourselves why we should be optimistic about the defence of the food system which feeds most people in the world, and thus be clearer about the research policies and practices needed to enhance it.

The dominant food systems in the world are local, small-scale and organic food webs, not giant supermarkets chained to industrial commodity production that is destroying livelihoods, local markets and the environment. 70 per cent of the global population eats local food grown and harvested mainly by small-scale farmers, gardeners, livestock keepers and artisanal fishers – and they do this mostly without recourse to proprietary chemicals and seeds.
There is a rising tide of support, backed by the International Agriculture Assessment ( IAASTD), for more ecological, environmentally-friendly and health-enhancing approaches to food production that will enhance agricultural biodiversity, soils, water and climate. It’s matched by an equally strong rejection of corporate control over, and speculation in, food, production and landgrabs.
European and international debates on the food system are raising awareness and increasing pressure for political accountability in: changing Europe’s CAP Common Agriculture Policy); enforcing global environmental governance at Rio+20 and the climate change and biodiversity conventions; defining a Global Strategic Framework for securing future food by the renewed UN Committee for World Food Security ; and resetting priorities for global agricultural research at GCARD2012 (Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development).
The International Peasant Farmers’ Movement, La Vía Campesina, and related social movements, which represent the views of the world’s small-scale food providers, have a well-developed policy framework, Food Sovereignty. This would secure future food if their more ecological production systems can be supported and protected and if they are decisively involved in setting priorities for resource use, investment, markets and agricultural research, development and production.

They know what needs doing and how to do it.

Yet, it seems the research establishment, in hock to Big Agriculture, is blind to these needs and opportunities. The Financial Times reporting on the BASF decision to relocate its GM research to the USA quoted a senior researcher in biosciences, Professor Jonathan Jones from the Sainsbury Lab in Norwich as saying: “ The psychological damage is that it will tell the next young people who might want to go into plant science that they can’t bring anything exciting to market… and it also discourages government support if [GM technology] is not going to be deployed in Europe.”

He may be correct with his second point if UK government priorities are still wedded to promoting GM technologies – perhaps some neo-colonial dream in which the UK fixes a new world order that will secure commodity supplies from other countries using their cheaper labour and our (proprietary) technologies and knowledge.

But ‘ psychological damage of young people’ ? Isn’t this more likely to be the result of the ‘cognitive dissonance’ caused by such an extreme mis-match between what is needed to feed the world and what they are being asked to do by Big Science?

Today, there can be no greater scientific challenge in the food system than how to shift it towards a more ecological and healthier form of production and consumption that can be controlled locally. These systems are more productive per area of land or drop of water – and more sustainable, carbon neutral, biodiverse, resilient and locally determined – than industrial commodity production. Science should embrace the challenge.

A new generation of agricultural scientists could be encouraged, building on the example of many pioneers, to work with knowledgeable small-scale food providers to enable that shift to take place. Using improved tools for analysing biological, economic, legal and social systems they could enrich understanding, enhance local knowledge and practice and strengthen local communities’ and social movements’ control over the use of their common resources for securing localised food systems.

Big Agriculture and Big Science won’t like this – it won’t enrich corporate coffers – but the majority will.

We should build on the energy generated by the food sovereignty movement that calls for public support and better governance to transform the food system.

Now is the time to keep up the momentum and to gather enthusiastic young people into democratically controlled agricultural research, development and production systems fit to realise food sovereignty.

Also posted on the Ecologist, 25th January 2012

www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/other_comments/1218848/uk_needs_scientific_research_into_agroecology_not_gm.html

Global skills essential for a global economy

2012-01-25T12:54:07Z

¾ of businesses think we are in danger of being left behind by emerging countries unless young people learn to think more globally

That was one of the main findings of The Global Skills Gap, a report by the British Council and Think global in December last year. The report also found that 93% of businesses think it is important for schools to help young people develop the ability to think globally.

Practical Action’s education work supports that need for students to be more globally aware and able to identify with global issues. Our activities promote awareness and understanding of issues such as climate change , the importance of energy access, and technology justice (Where technology is used for the benefit of all, ensuring poor people have simple, affordable and sustainable technology to improve their lives)

Students whose education has included a good global perspective have already been shown to go onto lead more sustainable lifestyles and are more likely to be supportive of the work we and likeminded organisations do. The fact that this report shows they are also potentially more employable adds weight to the value of our work to the students themselves and to society as a whole.

‘’what global companies look for are people who we think can take a global perspective. Students are well placed to do this if they have opportunities to widen their cultural perspective’’

Sonja Stockton, Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Everything was in the dark

2012-01-24T19:21:43Z

Yesterday’s launch of the Poor People’s Energy Outlook 2012 began with Stephen O’Brien, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development, briefly describing his journey to Ghana. He explained that when the sun went down, “everything was in the dark”.

His objective is clear; we need to ‘help the poor in developing countries work their way out of poverty’. What Practical Action’s report will do is deepen our understanding of how energy access can do this. His statement that the UK government will be held accountable if progression does not materialise, should be sufficient in believing this campaign will make things happen.

When Mr. O’Brien left, Grace Mukasa, East Africa Regional Director for Practical Action, detailed the importance of energy access. This proved to me just how important some of the projects Philips Lighting have been involved in which have brought lighting to otherwise ‘dark’ places. The effect this has on the community and enterprise and profound.

Simon Trace, CEO of Practical Action, then explained that the definitions and models we have today regarding energy access are not good enough and far from realistic. And this is also what the report hopes to achieve.

‘When there’s a will there’s a way’.

Finally, the ongoing Malawi project was illustrated, which is examining exactly how we can supply an energy access eco system at national level and help move from a project approach to a system basis. And this is where sustainability is really achieved. But first, we need to fully understand a countries policies & regulations, the flows of finance and the gaps and opportunities. From there we can progress.

Making water safe

2012-01-24T22:13:05Z

Globally, a significant proportion of disease is due to unsafe drinking water. This accumulates further in absence of better sanitation and hygiene.

In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that almost one tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving water supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources. The same report said that 10.6 per cent of deaths in Nepal are WSH (water, sanitation and hygiene) related. It also reported that 14,700 people die each year due to preventable diarrhoeal disease.

Although the Department of Water Supply and Sewerage claimed that 80 per cent of total households in Nepal have access to improved drinking water (DWSS 2010), water quality is a major challenge. As more than 50 per cent of the population defecate in open spaces, drinking water contamination is a common issue.

Water is a major medium for faecal oral transmission, causing millions of deaths globally and thousands in Nepal.

A water safety plan is a tool that ensures the delivery of safe drinking water from its catchments to consumers (“in Nepali Mul Dekhi Mukh samma”).

Water Safety Plans (WSPs) has been taken as a new concept and tool for managing risk in assuring water quality in water systems from source to the consumers. WSPs offer the most cost-effective and protective means of consistently assuring a supply of safe drinking water. WSPs operate through ‘catchment to consumers’ risk management approaches based on sound science and supported by appropriate monitoring. It can be applied across a wide range of situations from household solutions to community water supply schemes to large water supply utilities. WSPs identify the possible hazards in a water supply system with the level of risk, how it can be controlled and the actions required for hazard control.

For further information on our work in Nepal on safe water, sanitation and hygiene, go to http://practicalaction.org/region_nepal_healthy_homes

The wind of change – decentralised energy system in remote village, Nepal

2012-01-24T08:40:58Z

“Our children now even do their homework in the evening and we do our household chores” – “we do not have difficulties moving around the village in the night with provision of the street light” – “we now have televisions in our village – this has improved our access to information and children can enjoy the entertainment programmes”.

A view of the wind-solar hybrid system in Hurhure Dada

These are some quotes of our beneficiaries in Hurhure Dada, Nawalparsi – West Nepal where I recently visited. This village was declared as a Renewable Energy Village by Practical Action and provided various energy options to the villagers. The Dada top of the hill is a windy hill – Practical Action captured all year wind data of the Dada and installed five small scale wind turbines together with some solar PVs with support of Livelihood Forestry Programme of the DFID. The system provided solar lantern charging facility to the villagers. Earlier the villagers were depending on kerosene wick lamp for lighting which was unsafe and hazardous for health. Now, the village has 24 hour dedicated grid electricity supply covering 46 households from the wind-solar hybrid system. The windy Dada now has two 5 kW turbines and 2 kWp solar panels, which is first of its kind in Nepal. Although I was in remote village the 24 hours electricity supply made me happy since Kathmandu the capital of the country is under huge power cut (14 hours) in a day. This follow up project was implemented by the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC) of the government of Nepal with technical assistance of Practical Action and financial assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

With facilitation of Practical Action the villagers are organised and establishing a cooperative to run this renewable energy system sustainably. The user group has already identified two individuals as operators who are currently under on-the-job training. The enthusiastic villagers are planning further to use the electricity for the productive end use during the off load time. This demonstrates the success of decentralised energy system and possibility of community managed wind and solar power harnessing in Nepal.

Does the call for responsible capitalism include responsible technology?

2012-01-20T17:27:38Z

Unless you have been on a different planet this week you cannot have escaped the rhetoric around responsible capitalism. If you don’t know what this means try “googling” “responsible capitalism”; I have just tried that and found over 13 million hits, many of them within the last 24 hours. So certainly we have a public relations success. Still wondering what the term really means?

The core idea appears to be that fairness matters. In other words inequalities in society such as high salaries and the bonus culture amongst failing non-profitable banks is being recognised as challenging most people’s concept of fair. High on the political agenda in the UK is the rhetoric around making markets work for all. Basic notions of “justice” in most people’s minds is based on equal treatment of people. Indeed thinkers like Sen go further and claim justice is about what is reasonable. He further argues against parochialism, saying that we must adress global injustice.

For those who care about equity in the wider world these are exciting times. But the debate needs to be broader than the somewhat narrow economic definitions of markets and capitalism. Injustice is something we can come together and fight against. One of the less obvious sources of injustice in the global society is the way access to technologies is limited. Among the key questions we need to ask are:

How do we address technology injustice?
What is a reasonable and fair access to technologies such as clean water and sanitation?
How can we deliver access to energy services to more than 1 billion people who lack them by 2020?

Let us know what you think about the technology injustices that are current in our global society. Join in the conversation…remember we can only change the world one conversation at a time.

Farmer to farmer knowledge sharing

2012-01-17T00:02:47Z

The mission of Practical Answers is to contribute to the improvement of livelihoods, by providing knowledge services and facilitating sharing of technical knowledge relevant to development processes and poverty eradication.

Based on this mission, Practical Answers in Nepal, in partnership with READ Nepal, has been working with communities to establish knowledge nodes - places where people can get information, such as a room in a village that has an internet connection.

There are more than half a dozen ways of providing technical information people, particularly to the poor communities who can use such information and knowledge to improve their livelihoods.

Farmer to farmer knowledge sharing is one such model. People who are skilled and trained through Practical Action’s projects respond people who contact Practical Answers with an enquiry. The limitation is that only enquiries related to the training will be responded through the farmers to farmers model. However, there are other responding models such as interactions between community and experts, animal health camp, radio programme, linking the enquiries with related government agencies in district and local level to respond the broader enquiries.

Market Access for Smallholder Farmers (MASF) is a project Practical Action has been implementing in four districts of Nepal.

Nirmala Bogiti and Shanti Parajuli have been trained through the MASF project in basic animal management, fodder/forage management and they have participated in workshops on livestock health.

In the process of collecting enquiries through Practical Answers in Chitwan and Nawalparasi we found some of the communities wanted to know how they can keep their livestock healthy, for example, how they can prepare balanced diet.

Based on the enquiries, knowledge nodes organised a- farmer to farmer knowledge sharing practical interaction in a few communities to test how effective this model would be to implement in other communities.

Nirmala and Shanti shared their knowledge and taught Practical Answers enquirers how they can prepare mineral blocks using local resources, what the ingredients are and what the benefits are for the livestock to keep them healthy.

The model was very effective as enquirers directly ask many more questions related with dairy farming with the trained and skilled farmers like Nirmala and Shanti. Nirmala and Shanti are among the successful farmers of the MASF project who have significantly increased their income through dairy farming. While they shared their experience and stories on how they became successful farmers, they inspired the enquirers who asked for information on dairy farming and also received practical information from them.

The knowledge sharing process doesn’t end here. While farmers received knowledge from leader farmers, they apply it for themselves and pass on to other farmers who are in need for such knowledge. While Karnakhar Acharya from Nawalparasi received practical knowledge to prepare mineral block from Nirmala then he has been supporting other farmers in his communities who ask him about the mineral block.

2012 – A sparky year for your students?

2012-01-16T11:58:46Z

If one of your new year’s resolutions is to introduce new ideas into your lessons, then you might want to link into a big issue that might spark your students interest.

As many of your students will have new electrical gadgets over the Xmas period, spare a thought for the 1.4 billion people worldwide have no access to electricity and 2.5 billion still rely on collecting fuels like firewood for cooking and heating.

2012 is the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All, so Practical Action will be focusing more of its efforts internationally to improve energy access to many communities who we work with.

We want to share our stories with as many people as possible – so please have a look at our range of Sustainable Energy activities with your primary and secondary students, ranging from Moja Island a renewable energy activity to a hands-on Windpower challenge.

Think Global have developed a great site which shares education materials for teachers from other organisations working on the International Year of Sustainable Energy.

Wind power in Sri Lanka; children in Sri Lanka show their delight with wind power

STEM everywhere at the ASE conference

2012-01-11T16:50:36Z

Arriving at the ASE conference last week, with my umbrella turned inside out by the blustery weather, I expected to meet a lot of great teachers, and I wasn’t disappointed. What I perhaps didn’t expect was to meet so many other interesting, passionate people in the education sector. Anyone else notice that there has been a huge increase in the number of people with STEM in their title recently?! STEM ambassadors, STEMNET, STEM centres, and teachers with responsibility for STEM clubs.

What was great from our point of view was how the ‘STEM’ people were so impressed with our resources. It is great to meet new people who haven’t heard of you before and see their interest fire up as you talk about your ‘squashed tomato challenge’ or the ‘Small Is…challenge’. Equally though it is inspiring to hear others tell you how they have used your material with their students and how they are keen to find out what’s new from Practical Action this year.

Two of our new resources we were telling people about are the global CREST challenges and our STEM careers material, which includes a free poster. The CREST challenges have been produced to give students a starting point for projects in international development as part of the British Science Association’s CREST awards and have been really welcomed by science teachers.

Conferences are very tiring, and by the end we were dead on our feet , but it was really worth it as it confirmed to us that the education work at Practical Action is hugely valued by teachers and others who inspire the next generation. I am confident that working with others we are having a significant impact on developing global awareness, encouraging engagement with global issues and organisations like ours, and changing the behaviour of students.

Loos and luck

2012-01-06T12:49:31Z

I really need the loo. I’ve been at my desk for well over three hours and so far have filled my body with two cups of tea, one cup of coffee and a fair amount of water too. But I have the misfortune of working on the very top floor of Practical Action’s head office, which means that a trip to the loo involves climbing all the way downstairs. And I’m so engrossed in my work (and also a little lazy – it is Friday, after all) that I really can’t be bothered….

I’m currently writing a proposal to fundraise for a hugely exciting new project that Practical Action is embarking on in Zimbabwe. We’re working with rural communities in the southern provinces of Gwanda and Mwenezi, endeavouring to reach out to 200,000 people to improve their access to clean water, ensure they have adequate sanitation and reduce their health risks from poor hygiene. The figure is massive. 200,000 people is over double the size of my home town!

Most of these people currently live several kilometres away from a safe water supply. The task of collecting water usually falls to women and children who will spend whole days carrying up to 80 litres of water. The journey can be dangerous – these women are vulnerable to mugging and rape; and the water they do collect often isn’t fit for human consumption anyway.

Furthermore, many families in Gwanda and Mwenezi don’t have toilets in their own homes as they can’t afford to build them. This means that people usually just relieve themselves outside in the bush. This morning I’ve read stories from women and girls who describe the complete loss of dignity and embarrassment they feel while doing this, especially when they’re menstruating.

Suddenly my reluctance to walk down a flight of stairs to go to the toilet demonstrates not only laziness, but complete ignorance of how fortunate I am. Wherever I am, it only ever takes me a few minutes to fetch a glass of clean water or go to the loo.

I am lucky. But it shouldn’t be about luck. Having clean water and being able to go the toilet without putting your safety or health at risk are basic human rights to which people everywhere are entitled, whether you live in Warwickshire or Gwanda.

Now I really must go – I’m desperate.

An era of innovation for the poor?

2012-01-06T09:10:27Z

In the 19th Decmber 2011 issue of the magazine New Statesman, Bill Gates authored an opinion piece on why he believes that “the world is on the cusp of finally unleashing innovation for the poorest”. As evidence he cites a number of examples including the development of new varieties of maize that can be 50% more tolerant of drought, a breakthough last year in the development of a more accurate and simple TB test, the Serum Institute of India releasing a low cost vaccine for meningitis A, and recent examples of technology transfer from Brazil and China.

Bill Gates has, in recent years, consistently raised the issue of a ‘tragic misallocation of resources’ in global technology research and development, complaining in an often referenced TED talk a couple of years ago that more money is spent annually on research a cure for male baldness than for a vacinne for malaria. He is absolutely right to raise this as an issue and a barrier to the poor having access to the technologies they need to achieve a reasonable standard of living.

But the New Statesman article reads as if technological innovation is all that is needed to end poverty (e.g. “Yes we have a global food crisis. But with innovators all over the world focussed on the problem, we also have a good chance to fix it”). But its not. Many of the technologies poor people need already exist, and in some cases have been in existance for centuries. Its their inability to access to them that is the core issue – due to a assortment of barriers ranging from simple affordability, to the poor having no voice in decisions around allocation of investments for basic services.

We need innovation not only in technology itself, but also innovation to over come the social, political and economic barriers that prevent poor people from accessing existing technology and that prevent innovation really focussing on the interests of the poor. So, for example, we need innovation to help utilities in urban centres in the developing world overcome their reluctance to provide water, sanitation and electricity supplies to the residents of informal settlements and shanty towns, which often make up half or more of the population of developing country cities. And, in an era where governments have largely handed over resonsibility for technology R&D to the private sector, we need ways of sponsoring research and innovation into knowledge which cannot be commodified but which is never the less helpful to the fight against poverty – for example research into improving the productivity of traditional agro ecological forms of agriculture.

Like Bill Gates, I too am an optimist. I believe this is possible and that a growing number of people are beginning to understand and respond to the challenge.

Technology everywhere…but will it reach the poor?

2012-01-03T15:21:31Z

As dawn breaks in 2012 we enter the season of technology forecasting. What will new technologies bring us in 2012 and beyond? Most of these forecasts seem to dwell on the fortunes of the developed world. What about the majority of humanity (4 billion people live on less than US$5 per day)?

IBM put forward five forecasts for 2016, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16302566) one of these is that the digital divide will end. Whilst it is likely that more people in Asia and Africa will be able to own a cell phone or connect to the Internet it would be stretching credulity to suggest that these same people will have a similar level of affordability of digital technologies as those living in the developed world. Currently, in India there are 1.2 billion people who are not connected to the Internet. Most of these people live in rural areas where there may be a lack of ability to pay and a lack of access to electricity. So the digital divide in terms of affordable, accessible and appropriate devices is unlikely to be at an end by 2016. More needs to be done on energy access and on education to build the capabilities needed to use the technology.

In remote rural areas of developing countries few people have access to electricity. So ownership of a mobile phone might be a measure of “connectedness” or even of “progress” but if the phone can only be charged after a walk of 10 kilometres we may argue that there is a lack of appropriate accessible technology. A second important prediction relates to bio fuel cells (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15305579) reported by the BBC as “power from the people”. Perhaps that could be re-phrased as “power to the people”. Yet, in all likelyhood the applications of this new technology will be in medical appliances in developed countries. What if resources were put into developing this technology as an alternative, local power supply for rural communities in developing countries?

Technology will likely bring much that is new and exciting in 2012 and beyond. What can we do to increase the probability that these technologies will be applied to real need in developing countries? We need to work together with scientists to ensure that technologies are accessible, affordable and appropriate to the needs of people. Only then can we approach a state of technology justice in the world.