Rob in Malawi

One of the most common myths among people interested in development, especially engineers living in the North, is that there is a “silver bullet” solution to address each development hurdle. For engineers this silver bullet usually takes the form of some technical innovation that, at first glance, appears to be a solution that perfectly addresses the problem. However, the issue of human development is incredibly complex, and for most problems no widely replicable one-time interventions exist.

Take for example the Play Pump, a technology that gained enormous publicity (and funding) in recent years. Basically, the Play Pump is a merry-go-round that raises water from aquifers in the ground as children expend energy spinning around. The water is piped to an above ground tank which has advertising placed on it in order to raise funds for maintaining the pump and water is readily available whenever it is needed. The Play Pump satisfies a large number of criteria for an appropriate development intervention: a onetime installation of infrastructure, its use of children is innovative and marketable, it was developed in South Africa (homegrown solutions tend to equate to appropriate solutions in the minds of many people), and the use of advertising on the storage tank gives the impression of sustainability. Like most technical silver bullets, however, the Play Pump misses the mark.

The first assumption that the inventors of the Play Pump made was that the issue with water access in sub-Saharan Africa is one of effort – that if it weren’t so much work to use a traditional hand pump, access to potable water wouldn’t be an issue. The reality, however, is that the twenty minutes of work required to raise a family’s daily water using a traditional pump is rarely even an issue. More important are the economies of scale to support private sector repair services and spare parts supply chains for when pumps break down, inequitable placement of infrastructure, and the prescription of inappropriate technologies. The list of missteps made in the development of the Play Pump go on: prescription of a complex technology that requires specialist maintenance, a design that satisfies the desire of donors to provide toys for children but overlooks whether or not children are even interested, and an estimate of a community’s water access needs that is wildly out of whack with reality.

The Play Pump, though one of the most visible and talked about failures of the appropriate technology movement, is by no means the worst or the last. Northern donors and the public at large (not just engineers!) love the silver bullet technical solution. These are easy to understand, as they appear to address a problem at the surface while ignoring the complexity that lies beneath. A onetime installation of infrastructure is also easy to fundraise for, as there appears to be a direct impact and the cost can reasonably be covered by an individual or a small group. Most importantly it satisfies the need of people living in the North to apply their technical expertise to the problems of those less fortunate, inevitably resulting in a technical solution to an economic, social, or cultural problem.

The tragedy of the application of technical fixes to non-technical problems is that failure is often ignored, or if recognized, is often seen as being “good enough”. People believe that the Canadian engineer developing an improved cook stove, though misguided, has his or her heart in the right place, and so should be commended for trying to make a difference. However, try relating this attitude to your last coop job. Imagine if you had decided to design a groundbreaking new product that takes advantage of all the latest breakthroughs in your particular field. However, the product is too expensive for anyone to purchase, attempts to replace already established and effective technologies, and requires inputs that are impossible or infeasible for people to acquire. You’d be out on your ass pretty quick!

In Canada we recognize that technical silver bullets don’t exist for the problems we are trying to grapple with. In developing countries, we tend to believe that because the problems seem very basic to us (like getting people access to potable drinking water) our immense technical expertise can obviously mend the situation. This is not the case. It is our responsibility as Canadians, and as global engineers, to apply the same rigor and analysis to understanding and helping to address the issues being faced in the South.

I’m hoping to send this along to the Iron Warrior (UW’s engineering newspaper) so any feedback would be awesome!

cheers,
Rob

Most of my work as a Junior Fellow with Engineers Without Borders Canada was focused on information collection – talking with different stakeholders, and trying to build up a snapshot of how my partner organization had implemented an Operation and Maintenance system for rural water infrastructure. Coming back to Malawi, my work has a similar focus. This time I am still trying to develop an understanding of Operation and Maintenance, but now the scope is larger. I’m looking at three different Operation and Maintenance systems, and the objective is that I’ll be able to compare the best practices of each to form a blueprint of what an Operation and Maintenance system needs to do in order to raise overall functionality of rural water infrastructure. In trying to get to that level of understanding, I’ve been holding a lot of discussions with various people involved in the maintenance of hand pumps (the primary infrastructure for water in rural Malawi). Something that has become incredibly evident over the last few weeks is that the big questions I’m trying to answer require more than just putting out a question and getting a response.

As a Junior Fellow I constantly felt pushed to think about things from a critical point of view. I feel this was both the result of my partner, Macmillan Chikhoza, pushing me to think about things at a higher level, and because I was just beginning to understand water point functionality in rural Malawi. This time, however, I’ve been struggling to tackle the big questions. I’ve just started to explore why this is, but I’ve identified two big areas: my ability to ask big questions, and the limitations of the people that I am talking with.

As someone that speaks just one language (English), asking questions in Malawi is always challenging. That’s something that I understood early on, and that I’ve been able to develop strategies to deal with. For example, making sure that my partner isn’t leading questions when they translate to Chichewa, and making sure I use words and concepts that are easily translatable. However, I’ve recently noticed that the way I ask questions isn’t where it needs to be in order to collect the information I need. In trying to create a question that is understandable, I tend to use a lot of examples. Obviously, this tends to lead the answers that I get, and I’ve gotten locked into a cycle of asking questions designed to affirm my hypotheses, rather than to elicit accurate responses. My weaknesses in this area go much deeper; for example, I am only now realizing that my understanding of Chichewa vocabulary and structure has a long way to go before I can start asking questions that are easily understood.

Despite all of my shortcomings in the asking of big questions, I’m also starting to realize that there are a lot of questions people just aren’t ready to answer. Something that is stressed is engineering education is the ability to think critically. I’ve always felt that engineers give themselves too much credit in this regard, but I’m starting to think that my background leads me to approach problems in a very different manner than most Malawians. Many of the questions that I pose to people elicit little to no response. After clarifying, the result is the same. I’ve started to question whether this is because of my own presence (the NGO worker as a determining factor in how a question is answered), or because the question is simply from a direction that is not readily understood. For example, a question I have been trying to understand is how original implementation of a system ultimately affects people’s willingness to engage in the long term. Despite all of the philosophy touted by development professionals, this is something that is rarely understood or even considered (at the field or project level) beyond the extent necessary to secure funding. I have now started to explore how this affects the ability of other people to answer my big questions, and what I should be doing to get them to a point where they are able to do so.

However, I have had a number of experiences that lead me to believe that the big thinkers are out there, and that I am competent enough to engage in meaningful discussions with them. For example, I have just returned from a visit to one of my host organization’s field offices where I spent a few days working with a field officer. When posed with the question of how to improve project implementation he stated a hypothesis, explained how he was already testing it, and told me how he would follow up and gauge the impact. It is moments like this that make me feel thatmany people are already thinking about the big questions, and developing strategies to answer them for themselves. My next big question is how these people can be given the voice they need to affect change in a system where they are too often ignored.

cheers,
Rob

Last week I spent a good deal of time working out of the BASEDA field office in Nsaru, a trading center in Lilongwe Rural. I spent a couple of long days in the field with the Maintenance Assistants, the field workers that support the project that I’m working on. They’re responsible for providing support and technical backup for those involved in the project – Water Point Committees that manage each community’s water access point (usually a hand pump), Area Mechanics that community’s pay to maintain and repair their water access point, and shop owners that carry the spare parts needed to keep hand pumps working. With the help of the Maintenance Assistants I spoke with individuals from each group, trying to get a feel for where the project is succeeding and where it needs to improve.

On my second day in Nsaru I was speaking with one of the most successful Area Mechanics in the district, Andrea Pathelutu. When it came to the end of our discussion I thanked him for his time, and asked him for any feedback or questions he had for me personally. His response was typical of what I’ve come to expect – “Thank you very much for your visit. Having you come to speak with me has been very motivating, and I am feeling very encouraged in my work.” I’ve heard this response, or something similar, hundreds of times. I’ve always passed it off as politeness and something that is expected when a visitor comes to your home. However, my meeting with Andrea got me thinking about whether it’s actually something more than that. Looking around Andrea’s home, I saw a number of pictures – him and his family, but also quite a few of him shaking hands with people from various NGOs working in Malawi. As he ushered me outside for his son to take a picture of us, he was positively beaming.

When I think about the project I’m working on – a successful operation and maintenance system for rural water infrastructure – I see it from the perspective of someone that has heard a lot about how similar systems in Malawi have been attempted, and how they have failed. I find the project very exciting because it has been so successful, and other people in the water sector are starting to take notice as well. The more that I think about my meeting with Andrea, the more I think that our discussion provided him with some connection to that excitement, and to the interest that is being generated in the sector. Maybe my visit was something more for him than what I had originally thought; recognition of the fact that though he is incredibly strong by the standards of the project, he is truly exceptional within a sector that doesn’t understand operation and maintenance. That the work he is part of is pushing the borders of what the water sector in Malawi has been capable of thus far, and that he as an individual is the perfect example of someone that is creating positive change for people living in his area.

cheers,
Rob