Voices from the Margins

Roger Lewins, Stuart Coupe, Francis Murray

Describes the work of Practical Action in introducing consensus-based planning approaches in villages that are poor even by Bangladesh standards, where 90 per cent of people live under the poverty line and over 60 per cent are illiterate. These methods work on raising the voice and confidence of the...

Water Supply and Sanitation Services for the Rural Poor

Pamela Keirns

Safe drinking water near to the home and adequate household sanitation save poor households time, reduce illness and increase a sense of well being and dignity. Gram Vikas, a non-government organization working in one of the poorest states in India, recognized this key role and encouraged villages t...

What's Wrong with Microfinance?

Thomas Dichter, Malcolm Harper

Microfinance has been a long-lived development fashion and in 2005 it enjoyed the accolade of a UN International Year. Many of the world's biggest multinational banks are now eagerly committing quite substantial sums to it, for business as well as public relations purposes. However, there are some i...

Where There is No Artist

Petra Rohr-Rouendaal

A simple to use catalogue, containing a wealth of illustrations, with a unique combination of written text and visual aids.Visual aids can provide information, provoke discussion and discovery, and make difficult ideas easy to understand. They can also improve the accessibility of a book or a poster...

Capacity Building for NGOs

Rick James, John Hailey

Capacity Building for NGOs is for anyone interested in capacity building with NGOs and other civil society organisations. It provides an overview of trends and current thinking about NGO capacity building, the challenges and constraints. It also addresses the difficult issue of why, despite all our...

Solar Photovoltaic Energy

This Technical Brief looks at the background of solar photovoltaic (PV) energy (in which sunlight is directly converted into electricity), the design of PV cell, modules and arrays, and configuration of PV systems.

Mushroom Growing

Developing commercial cultivation of mushrooms is growing throughout Africa. This brief focuses on this practice in Zimbabwe.

Solar Drying

Drying using sunshine - a brief description of the basic principles behind it and how to determine the rate of drying.

Ginger Processing

Ginger is valued for the dried ginger spice and preserved, crystallised ginger.

Drying of Foods

The drying of food results in longer preservation and ease of transport (lighter). This technical brief describes some of the requirements for food drying to retain maximum nutrients and aesthetics, and summarizes information on the various drying equipment.