Shit Matters

Lyla Mehta, Synne Movik

Sanitation remains one of the biggest development challenges of our time, and a long neglected issue associated with taboos and stigma. Despite growing attention and efforts, many top-down approaches to sanitation have failed, reflecting that simply providing people with a toilet does not necessaril...

Technical Guidelines for Gravity Goods Ropeway

A rope based transport system for mountainous regions.

The Construction of Timberless House Model

The conflict in Darfur, which most analysts judge to have started in 2003 has had a devastating effect on the region. Many of the internally displaced people (IDPs) who were forced to flee their homes have ended up living in make-shift camps around the major cities such as Alfashir, Algenenina and N...

Seed Multiplication of Improved Open-Pollinated Varieties

Community-based seed multiplication of open-pollinated varieties (OPV) can mitigate against hybrid seed unavailability and its soaring cost thereby increasing access to standard seed for communal areas, especially in drought prone areas.

Wheelbarrow

Engineering drawings detailing how to make a wheelbarrow.

Deconstructing Development Discourse

Andrea Cornwall, Deborah Eade

Writing from diverse locations, contributors critically examine some of the key terms in current development discourse. Why should language matter to those who are doing development? Surely, there are more urgent things to do than sit around mulling over semantics? But language does matter. Whether...

How Africa Works

Deborah Bryceson

Occupational change is generally assumed to accompany ‘development’ and to be a necessary part of achieving improved standards of living. But occupational change goes beyond individuals’ economic activities and income-earning to redefine their social identity and contribute fundamentally to the reco...

Seeds and Synergies

Yiching Song, Ronnie Vernooy

Farmers and researchers too often live and work in different realities. Researchers breed plant hybrids in the laboratory that are successful only under ideal conditions, requiring just the right inputs of water, fertilizer, and pesticides. For resource-poor farmers, however, such conditions simply...

Capacity Development for Scaling up Decentralized Energy Access

Elisabeth Clemens, Kamal Rijal, Minoru Takada

Micro hydro power is ideally suited to meeting the energy needs of remote communities.A national micro hydro programme has been operating for more than a decade in Nepal. Similarly a fuel-wood-conserving cooking stoves programme has been operating in Nepal for decades. Capacity development for scali...

Construction and Maintenance of the Solar Fish Drier

This fact sheet details materials, equipment, and basic construction techniques needed for the solar fish drier.