Development studies
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Introducing Technology Justice
As national governments, development actors, and businesses negotiate, commit to, and begin to implement Sustainable Development Goals for the next 15 years, Practical Action makes the case for Technology Justice to inform their actions and ambitions. This briefing paper introduces the arguments and...
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Participation Pays
The processes of international development often mean that beneficiaries have pre-designed programmes imposed upon them. Even the most well-intentioned development projects are often constrained by funding requirements from fulfilling their vision of social justice, with the result that poor, margin...
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Commercial and Inclusive Value Chains
Malcolm Harper, John Belt, Rajeev Roy
In spite of the current wave of globalization, the majority of the world’s people remain poor, excluded from economic development. The aim of this book is to show that disadvantaged smallholders and other poor people can be included in modern integrated value chains, which are profitable for them, f...
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From Infrastructure to Services
From Infrastructure to Services reveals important breakthroughs in country-led and country-wide monitoring of rural and small towns water supplies; ICT for monitoring sustainable service delivery; monitoring the finance needed for service delivery; monitoring for sanitation and hygiene; and building...
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The Energy–Water–Food Nexus at Decentralized Scales
The Energy–Water–Food Nexus at Decentralized Scales uses Practical Action’s experiences with micro-hydro schemes to connect global nexus debates to the experiences of and solutions for remote off-grid communities and smallholder farmers. Through examples in Peru, Nepal, and Zimbabwe it exemplifies t...
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Le nexus énergie-eau-alimentation à des échelles décentralisées
Ce document s’appuie sur l’expérience de Practical Action en matière de programmes de microcentrales hydroélectriques et vise à établir un lien entre les débats mondiaux sur le nexus (liens) et les solutions et expériences des communautés isolées hors réseau et des petits exploitants agricoles. Par...
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Compost Bin Manufacturing
This technical brief describes the process of construction of home composting bins.
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Quality Assurance Guidelines for Building Construction
This document is intended to assist building workers (carpenters, masons etc…) in maintaining reliable standards in carrying out their respective work on a construction site.
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Small-scale Rural Biogas Programmes
Renewable energy is becoming crucially important, as concern over burning fossil fuels is increasing and the price of oil continues to rise. Biogas technology has undergone great developments since the first designs in the 1970s. Large national projects are working very effectively in countries such...
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The Business of Doing Good
Anton Simanowitz, Katherine Knotts
Why is it that so many organizations, seeking to do good in the world, miss opportunities to do so – and indeed sometimes exacerbate the very problem they seek to address? The Business of Doing Good reveals six insights for microfinance and other social purpose organizations using the marketplace to...