7.5.1 Appropriate Technology

 

 

Extract from an essay by Michael Clifford, a researcher and lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nottingham. Reproduced with permission.

Opinion is divided on the best route to alleviate poverty, but it is clear that technology has a part to play. Often, Western attempts to impose solutions on less developed countries have failed for a variety of reasons. These include lack of training, poor communication with those who will use the technology, lack of understanding of the problem, suspicion on the part of the users and poor support – inability to obtain spare parts for tractors for example. An alternative approach was proposed by Schumacher. In his ground-breaking book, Small is Beautiful (Schumacher, 1999), he suggested that the use of technology in any culture should be appropriate to the needs and resources of the community it is intended to serve.

The precise definition of appropriate technology varies from author to author. One definition suggests some general characteristics that tools and techniques must possess to be in keeping with Appropriate Technology including that it should be low in capital costs, use local materials wherever possible, create jobs, employing local skills and labour, be small enough in scale to be affordable by a small group of farmers, and can be understood, controlled and maintained by rural dwellers with agricultural skills and non scientific technological education. The technology should bring people together to work collectively and bring improvements to local communities, involve decentralised renewable power resources and be flexible so that it can continue to be used or adapted to fit changing circumstances. Finally, it should not involve patents, royalties, consulting fees or import duties (Willoughby, 1990).

Schumacher described such technology as vastly superior to technology of bygone ages but at the same time much simpler, cheaper and freer than the super technologies of the rich. He also called it “self help technology”, “democratic or people’s technology”, or “intermediate technology” describing the concept as technology to which everyone can gain admittance and which is not reserved to the rich and powerful.

Schumacher’s vision has been interpreted in many ways. Some advocates of developing world interests have baulked at the idea that appropriate technology might mean denying people the right to develop, and have seen the philosophy as a convenient device to perpetuate the rich-poor divide, with some countries locked into an inferior second division of low productivity and drudgery (Emmanuel, 1982). However, the concept of appropriate

technology is more about fostering a responsible attitude to the use of technology than restricting it to a particular level (Black, 1991).

If technology is to be used to help to alleviate poverty, it is vital that engineers work closely with communities where the technology will be used rather than impose Western solutions without a thorough understanding of the problem and the capabilities of those using and maintaining any machinery. The appropriate technology approach ensures a participatory process of consultation, discussion, implementation and feedback, allowing maximum use to be made of inventiveness and resourcefulness of village communities and outside engineers.

Clifford [see reference 15]