Appropriate Technology: Technology With A Human Face

Appropriate Technology Technology with a Human Face P.D.Dunn Professor of Engineering Science, University of Reading Prelims ii ©P. D. Dunn 1978 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1978 978-0-333-24206-3 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. First published 1978 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in Delhi Dublin Hong Kong johannesburg Lagos Melbourne New York Singapore and Tokyo British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Dunn, Peter, b. 1927 Appropriate technology. 1. Underdeveloped areas-Technology I. Title 609'.172'4 T49.5 ISBN 978-0-333-24207-0 ISBN 978-1-349-16064-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-16064-8 This book is sold subject to the standard conditions of the Net Book Agreement. The paperback edition of this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Contents Foreword by G. McRobie Introduction Acknowledgements 1 An Introduction to Appropriate Technology 2 The State of the World-The Views of Economists and the Predictions of Futurologists 3 Intermediate Technology and Appropriate Technology 4 Food, Agriculture and Agricultural Engineering 5 Water and Health 6 Energy 7 Services-Medicine, Building, Transport 8 Small Industries in Rural Areas 9 Education, Training, Research and Development 10 Getting Started v Vll XI 1 18 40 55 85 111 133 146 158 174 Appendices I Conversion Factors II Gross Domestic Product, Gross National Product and National Income III Project Proposals by I. T .D. G. University Liaison Unit IV Water-related Diseases V Energy, Work and Power VI Some Educational Statistics VII Official Aid VIII Useful Addresses 183 185 190 192 198 200 References Further Reading Index 203 209 215 179 181 Foreword In the summer of 1965, a group of people in London formed the Intermediate Technology Development Group. They had in common a variety of overseas experience; the conviction that 'development' means first and foremost the development of people; and the knowledge that aid and development as currently practised was bypassing the majority of poor people in the developing countries. Membership and support grew rapidly, and soon the Group had a nucleus of staff and had started work on filling the 'knowledge gap' about self-help technologies: technologies that are relatively small, simple, and capital-saving, and therefore more appropriate to the needs and resources of the majority of poor people in the rural and small-town areas of the developing countries. These modest efforts nearly thirteen years ago have since grown into a world-wide network of people and organisations concerned with the development and application of Appropriate Technologies. There are now many groups-representing various combinations of professional people, universities, industry and govemment-engaged on such tasks as scaling down largescale technology to bring it within the reach of rural people, up-grading traditional crafts to make them more productive and versatile, and inventing new tools and equipment with which the poor can work themselves out of poverty. Work on Appropriate Technology is going ahead in many countries in Africa, in the Indian sub-continent, the Far East, and Latin America; and as I write more are in process of formation. Many of these-indeed most of them-were started by small groups supported by voluntary agencies throughout the w