LUNCHTIME TALKS

Chaired by Geoff Catchpole unless stated

Practical Answers to Poverty:

The work of ITDG

Donald Lovell

BRLSI Member

11 December 2003

The Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) is based on the philosophy of Fritz Schumacher, who quoted the proverb: ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for life.’ in Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1966). The Group’s Mission is to help eradicate poverty in the poorer countries by developing and using technology, demonstrating results, sharing knowledge and influencing others.

Since 1966 there have been changes in climate, trading conditions, technology and population size in the 60 countries in which they work so their approach has widened from just increasing food production to water storage, electricity, food processing and marketing and other fields. But in all of them ‘People First’ means they concentrate on Lucia and her family spent 125 hours a week – 5 people, 4 hours a day, 6 days a week –searching an area up to 3 hours walk around their village for wood and to collect water. With a UPESI cooking stove (Fig 1) they saved 40% of the fuel. A UPESI stove costs the equivalent of a chicken and can be made from local clay

Food production in some places like the Sudan is limited by water shortage. Northern Dafur had a heavy shower – 40 mm (1˝ inches) of rain in two hours – the only rain that the year. (England gets 30 times as much over the year and still we water our gardens). ITDG suggests appropriate ways of storing rainwater and generally leave well digging to Water Aid and other charities. There are three ways: tanks, dams and ploughing.

Tanks to collect the rain falling on the house roof can be made from chicken wire and cement and are used in Sri Lanka where rain falls from October to January and is required in the summer.

Damming a stream in a valley stores a lot of water but takes a lot of work to build. Crescent Terraces are easy to make on hillsides and remains of medieval examples can be seen in England. ‘Wadis’, earth basins – the inverse of the raised beds we build – prevent drainage.

Ploughing has been a great success in Northern Dafur: hundreds of ploughs are in use. The metal plough can be made locally from scrap to a design provided by ITDG that is suitable for local soil conditions; donkeys are commonly used to carry goods and can draw the plough using a homemade harness. One entrepreneurial resident, Amona, (fig 2) bought a plough in 1993 through a revolving credit fund; increased productivity by 300%; grew cash crops and became a crop trader; opened a shop and bought her home.

fig.2

One entreprenurial resident, Amona.

Having cultivated crops, including fish farming in Bangladesh, cashew and peanuts, honey, vegetable and fruit, and cheese in various countries, ITDG teaches people how to process it to increase its value. They also get involved in engineering and manufacturing of textiles, bricks, paper and other products.

All these activities require energy so local generation of electricity is an important subject that also provides light to houses so that children can study and adults work in the evenings. The systems are owned by the villages, not a landlord, and maintained by a villager trained by ITDG.

Microhydro-electric schemes for small rivers operate in Kenya, Peru, Nepal and Sri Lanka. If no stream is suitable, wind power, solar cells or a couple of cows are used.

To allow people in remote areas to get information on techniques from ITDG on markets for their products and to trade, ITDG are providing satellite communication systems and components, for example, in Peru.
All this work is funded by an income of around £14 M (31% from individuals) of which 1% is spent on administration, 11% on fund-raising and 63% on technology programmes.

For further detail see: www.itdg.org

Donald Lovell