There is a school behind me. Some men and women separating plastic and paper from the waste. They are putting it aside and another group is pressing and making bales of it. They are all very well dressed – in smart and expensive dresses. There is a large sign behind them saying ‘sustainable development (we also empty pit latrines)’. It is a bit foggy out there. Then these men loaded the waste in very expensive cars – large BMWs, Mercedes, 4 X 4 Jeeps etc. I am now totally confused – who they are, what they are doing, who owns these cars? Suddenly the school bell rings. In fact it is my alarm clock. I looked at the clock, it is already 6:45 am. I need to change and leave soon for my work. While driving to the office, I am trying to recall the dream. Details are still very patchy – can’t remember all of it.

24/7 involvement in pro-poor development was the very first and perhaps the most important lesson in my life. I remember the words of my teacher, in 1983 – “development work for the poor is a 24/7 work”. You feel it, think about it constantly, reflect upon it and even dream about it. It is like a never ending hangover – said Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan the founder of the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP), who smiled and looked at me. I was not sure about the depth and breadth of this teaching at that time.

Later when I saw John Pickford at WEDC in 1992-93, he was a living example of 24/7. Completely enjoying and absorbed in his work, even in the second year of his retirement. Between 2004-06, I read, re-read and reflected a lot Schumacher’s writings. 24/7 I was fully engrossed in his writings, especially his books – Good Work and A Guide for the Perplexed .

The Observer wrote on these books, “Dr Schumacher demonstrates that small is not only beautiful but essential if our working lives are to have any meanings, any satisfaction, any creative justification”. And New Society said “These books are – A Conclusive Personal Philosophy’.

Practical Action, and its staff, is an important organisational example of 24/7, where staff enjoy and love their work for the larger goals in their lives.

Sometimes in pursuit of more efficiencies and modern management, we forget about the joy of 24/7. Apologies – I need to finish this blog, fill my timesheet for today and change location for my next phase of my 24/7.

Mansoor Ali, March, 2010

My first trip away with Practical Action, to East Africa, has been with a focus on our energy work, and it’s already been quite an eye-opener to the challenges and opportunities for our organisation in the region. 

Practical Action is aiming to develop energy sources that can meet the needs of the very poor, while being affordable and without depleting the already stretched energy resources.  Soon after I arrived at the Nairobi office, located in a building shared with the YMCA of Africa, I was involved in the development of an energy strategy to look at the projects planned for 2010. 

This includes both on the ground projects to develop ethanol from sugar cane residues, new cook stoves that are efficient and reduce the health related problems of smoke inhalation, and work on developing better policies with regional governments that can tackle poverty reduction while addressing the impacts of climate change and deforestation. 

The various meetings included energy experts from Zimbabwe, Hawaii, UK, Sri Lanka, Nepal as well as Kenya, working very closely together to try and develop a strong strategy.

Although it’s been hard work trying to gain a better understanding of the numerous challenges that need to be overcome, including corruption, nepotism, the harsh environmental conditions many of the poor people in the region live in, its also been hugely inspiring. 

Whilst at the Kenyan office I was lucky to be a part of a moving farewell for a colleague who’s just completed a project in the Kiburu slums in Nairobi.  It was moving to hear the passion of her colleagues praising her tireless commitment to Practical Action’s work and wishing her well in her future career.  At the same time interviews were taking place for a new manager for the consultancy arm of the Kenyan office, who will have the responsibility of leading the small team to take the work of Practical Action to other countries in the region including Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

Today I’m travelling overland to Arusha in Tanzania with colleagues from Sri Lanka and Kenya to attend a 3-day meeting on the 5-year Pisces project to improve policy in East Africa and south Asia on sustainable biomass use.  Practical Action is working with organisations in the UK, Tanzania and India to develop vital research which can help decision makers in the two regions to make more informed decisions on using their local resources to sustainably reduce poverty, provide employment and allow people to both adapt to the challenges of climate change whilst mitigating emissions.  The trip will include an update on the work going on in the four countries as well as visits to projects currently being implemented in Tanzania, which I’m looking forward to very much. 

Ewan Bloomfield

Practical Action Consulting

This year, I am completing 25 years working for the poor. My first assignment, as a fresh engineer in 1985, was to survey 80 remote villages in a low income country – villages where 100% of children go to madressahs and 100% of mothers deliver their babies at home. There were no schools, no hospitals, no electricity and no roads.

The government engineers were supposed to build water sources and sanitation services in those villages. This was funded by a UN organization and designed by highly-qualified professionals overseas. The work was supposed to be already completed and my task was to verify this and prepare a report. When I visited these villages, to my surprise not much work was completed and some which was completed was irrelevant to the needs of the poor. Remembering this, it is clear that the poor not only die young but they also suffer most.

The role of young engineers is often more complicated and beyond the physical planning and designs. Practical Action is keen to work with young professionals and aims to build their capacity in pro-poor engineering.

Dr Mansoor Ali
International Projects Manager, Practical Action

Is there a role for external technical support in the Community-Led Total Sanitation Approach? – paper delivered at the Annual Research Conference, Engineers Without Borders (EWB), London

The number of poor people living in urban slums are expected to reach 1 billion in the next 2 to 3 years. These people need basic services, secure tenure and a right to livelihoods.

Practical Action’s programme on improving urban infrastructure and services takes a holistic view on this. We aim to promote technologies and approaches, which increase the employment of the urban poor and enhance their opportunities to work.

Within this context, we would like to congratulate the concerned judge and appreciate the court ruling on not to restrict the number of rickshaw pullers in Delhi, India.

We agree with the view of pro-sustainable transport campaign that rickshaws is an important livelihood asset for the urban poor and it provides a non-polluting means of transport for narrow streets and short distances, especially for women and children.

We believe that sustainable development from the investments in infrastructure and services could only be achieved if it does not reduce the income and employment opportunities for the urban poor. Tell us what you think about this decision! 

We’re delighted to hear Mohamed Majzoub, Practical Action’s Country Director from Sudan, is taking part in Design Triennial, Why Design Now?  with the improved clay stove.

This stove has made a huge impact of the lives of women who daily have to cope with the time-consuming and often dangerous task of collecting firewood. Now, through a combination of using these stoves and fuel saving tips fuel use has been cut in half and the number of violent incidence against women has been significantly reduced.

It’s amazing to realise that a simple technology can change women’s lives so much. We’re hoping that the visitors to Why Design Now? will be equally impressed.

Today we at Practical Action are talking about quite an unusual anniversary, as today marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Thomas Crapper - the man who revolutionised the flushing lavatory.

Yes, we at Practical Action enjoy talking toilets. So the man who invented the ballcock and promoted sanitary plumbing is very exciting to us… and while we all take ‘the toilet’ for granted not everyone around the world is quite so fortunate.

A few years ago I was in Kenya and visited Kibera, Africa’s largest slum. With more than a quarter of a million people living there, it was not unusual to find more than 200 people sharing a pit latrine, which was then often emptied into a river where children played.

The only other alterntive was the beautifully named ‘flying toilet’. Basically this is where people ‘go’ in a bag or on a piece of paper and then throw it out of the home.

When I visted Kibera I was offered their ‘best toilet’ by community leaders, honestly, it made festival toilets seem – and smell – very sophisticated.

The reality though is diseases such as typhoid and cholera thrive in these conditions – children are especially vulnerable with a child dying every 15 seconds from such diseases.

Practical Action has however been working on sanitation for a number of years, and one project which has proved really successful is our shower and toilet block. Basically the waste goes into a thick, concrete chamber, producing methane, which is connected to a water heating system for the showers.

After seeing the ‘toilets’ people were previously using, this was just amazing to see. And one fantastic side effect is because the area is surrounded by a concrete path, the area has become a hive of social activity as women and mothers meet, while giving children somewhere to play.

Ant and Dec visited these toilets when they were in Kenya, you can really see the difference projects such as this make.

Last night I saw on Channel 4, Slumdog Secret Millionaire with my 11-year-old son. Earlier, Channel 4 also showed similar programmes, such as slumming and there was also one on the waste work in slum areas.

While the programme is very well made and brings out some good details, I am not very convinced that it highlights the main causes of such situation in slum areas.

The fact, that millions of people are living in slums in Asia and their number is increasing, is to do mainly with the failure of national and international policies concerned with urban poverty. The main causes may also be to do with the corruption in some countries, poor representation, lack of welfare systems and unequal distribution of powers.

While it is important that Channel 4 viewers are aware of the situation on the ground and motivated to do something directly – such as donate to charity or work for them – it is also important that they understand the links between international development policies, trade policies and the delivery of development programmes. I was expecting that the programme would keep at least five minutes to touch on the larger issues, which may be the causes we need to address in the longer term.

Mansoor Ali
Urban Projects Manager, Practical Action

Further to our earlier reports on the need to rebuild after the earthquake, you might like to know about some direct influence that Practical Action is having in Haiti.

Practical Action Publishing is just about to publish our Emergency Market Mapping and Analysis toolkit (EMMA) – which was commissioned by Oxfam, IRC and InterAction – and is a process adapted from Practical Action’s approach to markets and livelihoods. EMMA was piloted in Haiti in summer of 2008, so is familiar to several agencies there including Red Cross, Oxfam and ACDI/VOCA. One of our early collaborators, Emmet Murphy, is in Haiti (for ACDI/VOCA) and had a narrow escape himself on the road from Port au Prince to Jacmel.

Despite the urgency and desperation around meeting basic survival needs, some agencies are already thinking forward. IRC will be using EMMA to conduct a study around staple food markets and construction materials as soon as is practicable, possibly in collaboration with ACDI/VOCA. Both organisations see a lot of value in the toolkit, and will be putting resources into using it. Mike Albu from our Markets & Livelihoods programme will provide distance-support.

Practical Action technical resources and publications for emergency relief and rebuilding

Haiti is considered as one of the poorest countries in the World and I have been talking a lot about slums in Haiti with our friends in Oxfam.

Practical Action does not work immediately after emergencies. But we have played a significant role in re-building after disasters. Practical Action worked very actively in re-building Sri Lanka after the Tsunami, especially with our owners-driven approach to housing which was adopted by many other organisations. We have been involved in a number of evaluations of post-tsunami work and advised some agencies after the earthquake in Pakistan. Over time Practical Action also developed technical resources, such as earthquake-resistant housing and re-building key services such as water, sanitation and waste collection after disasters.

Recently, we have been working in Zimbabwe to protect people from spread of cholera after rains and floods. Practical Action learnt a lot through this – the approach of supporting and working with others. One of our key pieces of learning is the need to see more clearly the links between disasters and development. Rebuilding efforts, with a more longer term vision could pave the way for a more sustainable development – in this case for millions of poor people in Haiti.

Listening with my family to the news last night we were each touched by the terrible devastation that has hit Haiti and people’s struggle to survive.

My daughter asked if we, Practical Action, were working there? I explained not directly, that our focus is on long term development – sometimes ‘saving lives’ – helping people who maybe haven’t been able to grow enough food or get clean water – but also ‘making lives’ – helping people have the opportunity to help themselves. Indirectly we probably would help in Haiti, providing advice and expertise to the agencies on the ground when they get to the rebuilding stage. Since my language was a bit technical, and even though it wasn’t politically correct, I’m not completely sure she got it! (I haven’t quite mastered teen-speak and in situations like this it is hard to explain.)

One of the realities of international development charities is that the problem is so huge there isn’t enough money to go around.

A second is that news coverage of aid is focused on disasters. Yet, for example smoke, indoor air pollution kills 1.6 million people each year – in tabloid speak, the equivalent of six 2004 tsunamis.

The third reality is that development agencies, surprising to many people, work really well together. We know there isn’t enough money and sometimes we compete to get it but actually, in reality, we value each other’s contribution. Aid is needed desperately for emergencies post-disaster and for longer term development. Practical Action is committed to sharing and we will make sure that our expertise and knowledge is available to those who need it in Haiti and beyond.

Earthquake in Haiti