technology empowering people to improve their health and quality of life - especially women

Please excuse this being copied from another group forum - it's an idea I'm trying to turn to action. Chris
Having worked for governments, health services and universities I've continually found that "How can we help these people" rapidly turns into "What we do to these people". The results are just as described in the group description. Top down does not work. One can be cynical about motives and objectives, but really it seems that well meaning people feel the need to drive projects rather than being mentors because this gives a visible and quick result. Whether this is a good idea in the long term is dubious. Here is one idea that I've tried to promote, but has been rejected by those who feel the need to be drivers or see themselves as donors. Please comment or contact directly if you want me to do something.

The Millennium Development Goals call for reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water, but we know that safe drinking water on its own makes a limited difference. Many poor countries have focused on providing community-level water systems but there is little evidence that providing community-level rural water systems alone substantially reduces diarrhoeal disease or that this infrastructure can be effectively maintained. However, for many countries (including some in Europe) there will be no choice in the foreseeable future. There is a need for a community level water, sanitation and hygiene organisation.

There are three legs which must exist together if the death toll and the loss of productive life due to diarrhoea is to be reduced. With safe water, safe sanitation (toilets) and the equipment and knowledge to maintain hygienic habits (washing hands) then perhaps up to 80% of this waste and suffering can be eliminated.

We have the UN Commission for Sustainable Development and numerous other bodies from governments to charities giving money, time and effort to governments and large water organisations. The politics and wisdom of this may be debatable, but for work in larger urban areas, large scale engineering may be the only possibility and our interests here avoid these areas, so the basic idea is that major towns or conurbations are dealt with by governments or NGOs because they are large scale enterprises.

Many villages do not have clean water, good sanitation or basic hygiene (hand-washing) facilities on a permanent basis. Many charities and NGOs have tried to deal with this problem and there are great successes, but overall the scale of the problem is increasing and the techniques used to finance or provide these facilities are often inappropriate. A number of charities send people (usually at the individuals own cost) to direct operations and take part in well construction etc. and I’ve been a member of charities doing exactly this. This is good for the conscience but is not cost effective and can only occasionally provide a long term stability (there are noticeable exceptions). It is not uncommon to find that money has been raised for a specific purpose, such as providing a borehole, which uses inappropriate technology. Job done, the well-meaning people then leave having spent £1K on the well and £10K on travelling. Sometimes local officials are left to look after the completed work without finance or access to information or spares. The remaining two legs are not provided. This not only creates a problem, but teaches local people that they cannot do things themselves.
There are millions of hard working, peaceful people who do not need people from rich countries to rush in and “help”. They need empowerment which includes finance and access to appropriate technologies and the advice necessary to choose the most appropriate must be readily available. These technologies must be linked together, to the situation and to the local culture.
It needs a linked system which could draw on the experiences of a wider range of activists in the field, be that a contractor or a single cottager in Argentina or Zimbabwe.
This suggests a triangular system;
A local 'water' business
Sources of knowledge.
Communication

The local business would be run by an entrepreneur, a village council, a school, a church etc. The business would finance the provision of a borehole/well, pumps, etc and would maintain the system. They would also be the source of local information on sanitary facilities and hygiene.
This raises the question of how the business can maintain and manage their three-legged sanitary system. The answer has to be the use of micro-finance / community banks. By setting up a business, owned by an individual or group, the company could manage, maintain the structure by selling the water, retailing soap, washstands etc. The experiences of guaranteed repayments as used in Bangladesh shows that these are generally financially safe loans. The source of finance could be via a community bank, perhaps based in a local town. Donations could be made by charities, NGOs, governments etc to the bank to help stabilization and kick start projects. The total amount of money released to the bank and kept in its hands would never be large so avoiding the problems of corruption and theft on a large scale. There is a problem in that some people have no cash at all and there needs to be a free quota (50l/day?) plus a cap on charges, but this agreement is feasible as a consultation.
The sources of knowledge would be worldwide. Much would be adapting universal ideas to local problems, but few things are unique in the world. The adoption of a single type of pump for example means spares or tools are cheap, rarely needed and always available. Knowledge from around the world would make sustainability a reality as it would be possible to maintain the water supply and link with composting toilet and urine diversion systems There are numerous special sites, but a forum would probably be necessary and volunteers to moderate and carry out searches in areas where village people would feel excluded such as academic journals. People like myself are numerous and would surely join in. There would also be scope for searching for best prices on equipment, transport etc. Locations can be linked to geo-human information and GI systems. The potential here is enormous, but there will soon arise a need for careful political considerations, but nothing which cannot be overcome.
Communication is the key. It will be years before most villages have internet, but already very large areas of the world have mobile phone (cell phone) services and this is rapidly expanding. No great education is needed to use the technology, so given a phone with a solar/wind charger, people can get information from anywhere in the world. Normal voice use is expensive, has language problems and requires the user to remember information exactly. On the other hand, text messages can be bought bulk at very low cost (again an area where outside bodies could provide help). Text to base station which could be university, NGO, etc – internet to advice – advice to base – text to village. The basis of such a system exists with Ushahidi and Frontline SMS (independently or together) in communicating. I’ve swopped a few e-mails with Ken Banks in Cambridge UK and Nda Masuku in South Africa, who introduced me to Frontline, but have been too busy until now working as a lecturer in environmental health. Now I’m free.