Dr E F SCHUMACHER’S revolutionary book SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL: Economics as if People Mattered explained the concept of Intermediate Technology to a worldwide audience. That was in 1973. Since then, while the three word prefix has become a ubiquitous cliché, the expression ‘intermediate technology’ has had a more modest profile. However, the idea that relatively simple and reliable technology - specifically designed for use in less developed and less resourced environments - could be a better generator of jobs, incomes, products and self-reliance than spin-offs from the rich world’s high-tech industry has been very successful. Parry Associates have never tired of the Schumacher ‘brand’. Intermediate technology is a concept still with a million miles yet to run.

The Parry Associates motto ‘Actions speak louder…’ is a reflection of Schumacher’s concern that in the overseas development field it is too often words that pay! A recent study by the charity Action Aid found that some 40% of the international community’s $50bn overseas aid budget is spent on consultants! (How much did it cost to do the research to find this out?)

Charitable fund raising is an art in itself, sometimes only loosely connected with the final charitable objective. At the moment, £25 cheques are being sought (not by us!) to provide soft harnesses for donkeys being trained to pull ploughs. Just as rain drops converge into rivers, lots of little cheques will generate really useful untied funding, even if donkey-training is hardly an example of the liberating technology envisioned by Fritz Schumacher. But intermediate technology as an approach is actually a really big idea, one which is at present changing the lives of 100,000 adults and children in Malawi, for example (see story): more livelihoods and better schools through IT methods of building. Repeat this story a thousand times – which we think easily possible – and a hundred thousand becomes a hundred million beneficiaries. Small is Big.

If ever there were a circumstance where words are no substitute for action, it is the aftermath of the December 2004 tsunami. Full marks for the immediate, short term response by the international agencies. Tents, blankets, bottled water, body bags were on site in a matter of hours. Fewer marks however for what is being achieved in reconstruction. Why all the delay? Because rebuilding towns and villages is difficult. With one or two exceptions, the majority of the staff of international charities and official aid organisations have little experience either of manufacturing or construction. Faced with demolished buildings, altered geography, fragmented communities and thousands of local government officials missing or dead, they are stumped. But for the press it is local administrators who take the blame: bureaucrats insisting on planning procedures, customs officers wanting import duties paid, and private contractors raising their prices in response to the demand.

It is hard to criticise the humanitarian enthusiasm of the giant aid agencies, but virtue marches with the vice of pride and the borderline is easily crossed. Functionaries have to do their jobs and contractors seek their livelihoods but the agencies expect the world to conform selflessly to their purpose. They work ‘not for profit’ and distance themselves from collaboration with business-based providers. But the task now is to channel the tsunami appeal funds into action, not the discussion of action. And first we must somehow escape from the aid industry’s familiar stereotypes of grinding poverty reaching out begging hands. This is not the relationship on which to base the reconstruction of communities of working people struck by sudden catastrophe.

The tsunami event struck rich and poor alike. Survivors, including western holidaymakers and local residents, behaved like good neighbours. Speedily implemented acts of reconstruction resulted from person-to-person help: businessman to local school, guests to hotel and restaurant owners, etc. Many small acts: big results and much satisfaction on both sides.

It is with these thoughts in mind that a new humanitarian group is taking shape (see story) which sees business differently from the ‘rat run’ image portrayed by the voluntary sector. The new organisation will work with business providers as important sources of the skills needed for self-sustaining productive activity. And there should be benefits at both ends, as UK companies’ staff involved in projects return with richer knowledge of their partners’ needs and capabilities – and of themselves.

This is the spirit of co-operation of which Schumacher wrote. So don’t put intermediate technology on the shelf. Build IT.

Cradley Heath, July 2005

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New Schools Across Malawi

Mkwalawanjobvu Primary School, Ntchisi District (Photo courtesy of DfID)

NEWS HAS BEEN RELEASED from the education office at DfID Malawi describing the amazing progress being achieved constructing classrooms for the Malawi Ministry of Education. These are now being completed at a rate of 30 per week. Established building methods had been based on the use of corrugated metal sheets which are imported into the country, noisy in rain and uncomfortable to work under in hot weather. The programme managers decided to introduce local manufacture of the alternative micro concrete roofing developed by Parry Associates in the 1980s and already in use in several other African countries.

Three consignments of production equipment were despatched to Malawi in 2003-4 and a further order of £78,900 was placed in May this year.

How Parry roofing benefits 100,000 Malawians – and could reach over 100 million people worldwide.

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Your Starter (Home) For £500
The prototype HIGH AND DRY building skeleton. Floors, supports and roof allow walls to be finished with materials available to hand. Total material cost for 18m² of living space: £500 See also Technical News.

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'We love our new school' Children and staff outside the new Mkwalawanjobvu school African children studying hard under cover of a Parry-tiled roof

THE DECISION in May 2005 by the Malawi School Building programme to order ten more production plants from Parry Associates confirms the success of the decision to go for local manufacture and to favour lightweight micro concrete material over metal sheeting. The description by the Education Office of a ‘quiet roof that lasts’ alludes to the loud noise which previously stopped teachers from teaching during heavy rain and inevitable deterioration due to corrosion of corrugated iron in a damp climate. At the onset of the hottest part of the year in October, buildings with metal roofs also ‘heat up like an oven’. But under micro concrete roofing, conditions are much cooler and the material does not rust. A typical school classroom arranged for modern methods of teaching may have four or more large, rectangular tables, around each of which sit up to 16 eager-to-learn children. A block of three classrooms can provide accommodation for nearly 200 students, sometimes attending in two ‘shifts’.

With the education sector alone set to improve the teaching environment of over 100,000 children and adults, discussions are taking place into how to spread the benefits of the better roofing into other sectors: health and private housing, for instance. This in due course could result in half a million Malawians having better quality roofs supplied by a new ‘potentially lucrative local industry’. Parry Associates see close economic and cultural parallels in other African countries, such as Mozambique, and Tanzania – both with much larger populations than Malawi. This small southern African country, like the Gambia in West Africa, may be pointing the way to introducing roofing material manufacture from local resources which could expand ten-, 100- and ultimately 1000-fold. JPA has always been ambitious: 100 million potential customers can’t be bad.

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School Roof Construction In The Gambia Speeds Up

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The directors of Cambrick Ltd (left) being shown a new staircase system (under development at Cradley Heath) by Festus Vandi, a trainee from Sierra Leone

A NEW CUSTOMER arrived on Parry Associates’ doorstep in May 2005 from Cameroon in West Africa. Cambrick Ltd is made up of people with a trading background who see opportunities in their country’s growing building sector for a provider of high quality building materials. Having checked out the Parry Associates website, Mr Eric Tandoh arranged for the manager–designate of the new venture, Doris Ndifongwa, and a colleague, Felix Tandoh, to visit the UK to see the products and processes. As a result the venture has set aside about £7,000 for an initial consignment of equipment to get the business started.

In the great ‘Poverty Debate’, business start-ups are not a factor of any importance to the political figures, popular celebrities or leaders of charities to whom the public look for guidance. But this is exactly what is needed: grassroots initiatives based on the natural entrepreneurship of people responding to the growth of urban settlements. Spontaneous economic activity will create the healthy prosperous neighbours that the nations of the world hope to see in Africa. Parry Associates believe that everything possible should be done to help such ventures succeed.

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Tramway Track Innovation Support At Last
JPA leads consortium to loosen cost stranglehold on new construction

THE CIVIL ENGINEER of Croydon Tramtrack has criticised over-engineering on UK tramways, compared with overseas practice.

JPA is only too aware of the fact that savings in vehicles count for little if the tracks on which they run are built uneconomically.

Therefore, JPA, HoldFast Level Crossings, the WTB Group, Baggeridge Brick, Glendenning Plastics, Heath Lambert and Mostyn Estates have submitted a proposal for a 12-month project under the Department of Trade & Industry's Collaborative R&D scheme. Outcomes include modular products, results from full-scale trials and conclusions on legal, planning and cost advantages.

An approach has also come from a Europe-wide scheme led by Transport for London. Phil Hewitt, Head of London Trams, has written that ‘at the UK Tram Steering Group on 20th May (attended by the Department for Transport) it was agreed that London Trams would, on behalf of the UK tramway industry, submit proposals for further design, development and site testing of the modular trackform to the EU for development funding’. This follows previous interest from London Trams (see Parry News 38).

Once the concept of modular tramway infrastructure has been proved, it will be commercialised by HCT.

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Political Support For Transport Innovation Grows
UK parliament hears powerful criticism of failure to implement Stourbridge trial operation

RECENT MONTHS have seen repeated reference to the barriers to innovation found in the British transport industry. Criticism of past performance has come in the form of a number of reports from the House of Commons Select Committee on Transport, as well as in speeches in both chambers of the Palace of Westminster.

Back in January, Ross Cranston - then Labour Member of Parliament for Dudley North - praised the achievements and potential of the PPM concept in the Commons debate on Community Railways: ‘The forms of light rail carriages that have been developed have great advantages. They cause less pollution, use less energy and have high-performance acceleration and braking systems. They do not have to be segregated from the surrounding environment with, for example, fencing and are less costly to run’.

‘Innovative thinking urgently needed’

In March, representatives from JPA and HCT gave evidence to the cross party Transport Committee (see Parry News 41). The resulting report, Integrated Transport: the Future of Light Rail and Modern Trams in the United Kingdom,

summarised the lengthy process to operate a trial PPM service at Stourbridge succinctly: ‘Although the vehicle had been passed as safe by the Railway Inspectorate in 2002, after four years the company remained in negotiations to allow it to run its vehicle ... We can say definitively that an answer should have been given years ago. Delays like this are not only frustrating, but they put at risk the commercial partnerships set up to support such innovation’.

Shortly before, the Transport Committee had produced another report on Rural Railways. Included in the recommendations was this statement: ‘Some innovative thinking about the rolling stock market is urgently needed. In the longer term the Department for Transport must start planning for new trains for community railways, possibly building on light rail technology’ - a clear call for concepts like Community Light Rail, championed by PPM, to be rolled out in order to provide high quality transport in rural areas.

The most recent references to PPM's developments were heard in the House of Lords on 24th May. In a debate in response to the Queen’s Speech, peers of different political persuasions, Lords Snape and Bradshaw, both picked up the theme of how valuable innovation has been prevented from proving itself in practice.

Describing the benefits of the Community Light Rail approach, Lord Snape emphasised that ‘if community railways are to be segregated from the main network and their lower speeds and perhaps lighter rolling stock are to be complemented by, we hope, less demanding regulatory standards, we need to look at new kinds of vehicles for our railway industry’ and cited PPM. However, he then criticised the fact that the Stourbridge project - intended to demonstrate the usefulness of the concept - had not commenced twelve years since the first approach was made from Centro to JPA.

'A train’s weight of paper'

Lord Bradshaw, transport spokesman for the Liberal Democrat party, was even more critical. Referring to the length of time elapsed since the Stourbridge project was first proposed as ‘a monument to the regulatory constipation we have in this country’, he went on to suggest (not unreasonably) that ‘the amount of paper that has been generated weighs more than the train itself - it is as bad as that’.

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Parry Associates To Join Industry-Oversea Aid Collaboration
Build IT International: concerns over effectiveness of existing approaches stimulates a new initiative for making UK industrial competences available to developing countries

RECENT HEADLINES indicate that the normal goodwill of journalists to the efforts of Britain’s overseas aid industry is being replaced by some scepticism.

‘Tsunami Victims still wait for Aid to Arrive’

‘What has happened to the £1.75bn pledged in charity aid?’ asked the Daily Telegraph on 20th May 2005.

On 4th June the same newspaper reported the results of a YouGov poll indicating that 83% of British people think ‘Africa aid is wasted’.

Two days before the Evening Standard included a hard hitting article by Will Self, ‘Why I won’t be squandering any more money on Africa’.

The Observer newspaper meantime carried the story in its 29th May 2005 edition that ‘Consultants pocket $20bn of Global Aid’ - equivalent to 40% of the total.

This sudden swing from unrealistic acceptance to destructive scepticism will not help the cause of relieving African poverty or rebuilding in Sri Lanka’s coastal villages.

There will soon be a way, however, to channel some of the goodwill into programmes supportive and executed by the most capable of people who know how to get things done.

A group of British and Irish firms in the construction and building materials industry have agreed to join forces to create a special purpose organisation called Build IT International Ltd. The firms will allocate a proportion of their executive time and some funding in order to enhance the construction element of humanitarian and development programmes overseas. These will include the rebuilding of some coastal towns and villages which were severely damaged by the December 2004 tsunami.

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Seeking Funds For Crusher Development
Major charities unprepared to support concept for constructive disposal of tsunami rubble along Asian coastlines

IT SEEMED SO OBVIOUS at the time of John Parry's January visit to the tsunami-struck areas around the Indian Ocean (see Parry News 41).

Tens of thousands of tons of rubble from demolished buildings spread along a thousand miles of coast, combined with the prospect of severe shortages of gravel and building sand for the reconstruction work. Why not break down the rubble - comprising burnt bricks, cement mortar and concrete blocks - into sand and gravel suitable for use in the rebuilding work?

The problem that stood in the way was that — although it is very common to see low income people squatting by the road side, crude hammers in hand, ‘napping’ riverstone (or burnt bricks in Bangladesh) to produce building aggregate — this is not a process that the humanitarian charities see any reason to upgrade. Meanwhile, injuries to fingers and eyes of ‘nappers’ are common and productivity is low - a classic case for devising an intermediate technology tool. Specification: make the job quicker, safer and more congenial without involving the use of fossil fuel or investment which can never be paid back by the workers themselves.

A modest contribution by a charitable organisation to develop a new technology will result in safer working conditions, higher income for workers and better supply of raw materials for local construction. The benefits will be felt far beyond the tsunami-affected zones, as similar activity is undertaken throughout the less-developed world.

In March 2005, Parry Associates determined that a simple, safe rock and rubble crusher could be designed. It would follow the principle of the successful pendulum clay crusher, developed and patented by the company in the early 1980s, which processes materials which are more friable than stone.

Yet despite explaining the case for developing the rubble crusher and offering free licences for local manufacture, none of the major development charities which were approached were interested in supporting the development of this machine.

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BACK IN JULY 2004 an order was received from a church fellowship in Leeds for tile making machinery for a church in Ghana which had been destroyed in a wind storm and needed to be rebuilt. The project had been initiated by a young VSO volunteer, Andy Empson, who was from Leeds and was working in Kaleo. Ghana customs insisted that import duty was due, despite the machinery being a charitable gift to the people of Kaleo.

Box of Parry equipment is unloaded in Kaleo

Despite a lot of paperwork being generated, in order to avoid further delays it was decided it was best to pay the duty and get the crates transported up to Kaleo, where an experienced Parry-trained technician, Abou Manneh, would be on hand to commission the plant. A Sunday school has now been built under supervision from Abou and work has started on the main church.

Commendable aspects of the Kaleo project include the goodwill of the folk in faraway Leeds to help their Ghanaian neighbours, and the keenness of a young Muslim technician to ensure that ‘if the church was for God it must be well designed and constructed’. Even staff at Cradley Heath with no religious inclinations admit to being quite inspired by this story.

The production equipment is blessed before use for the Kaleo Sunday school and church

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JPA HAS RECENTLY received an approach from a commercial company in Harare regarding the situation following the forced demolition of thousands of shanty town houses in the capital and elsewhere.

The firm reports that where homes once stood there are now just tons of rubble. along with other employers it is considering construction of ‘humanitarian housing’, schools and medical centres for staff.

Parry Associates have not engaged in business in Zimbabwe in recent years due to the political situation, but is responding to this request, which includes the disposal of hazardous asbestos amongst the debris.

The need to address land tenure will also be emphasised, including the possible use of two-storey construction (see story) to maximise living space on smaller plots.

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DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC of CONGO

The Fondation Hanns Seidel has ordered a further vibrating table and associated moulds and equipment. The previous shipment of Parry products is busy producing roof tiles.

LIBERIA

Our agents Petico report an order on the way for building materials plants. This coincides with enquiries from a German missionary organisation.

SRI LANKA

JPA's Sri Lankan agents HDL have been busy with potential projects for Parry technology to help in the reconstruction after the tsunami and for general development.

THAILAND

Four Parry production plants have now been shipped to Thailand and are starting to help rebuild the south of the country after the Boxing Day tsunami.

VANUATU

A micro concrete tile production plant and extra moulds have been ordered by Habitat For Humanity for a project in the Pacific island state.

YEMEN

A new export agency, the Zacrafa Consultancy, has been set up by Mr Nu'man Wahid to establish a market presence for JPA in the Yemen.

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Lightweight tiling being installed over upper floor

THE HIGH AND DRY exercise started out with the challenging objective of creating two storeys of dwelling space robust enough to withstand an earthquake, a cyclone or a tidal wave but with a materials budget of less than £500 (see Parry News 41). JPA’s building materials technologists needed to draw on 30 years of international experience, including that of associates and collaborators from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone, the Gambia and the Sudan, to devise the best specification to combine economy with performance. The foundations comprise pads to spread the load at the base of the columns and anchor the reinforcement running up the corners of each column. These are hollow and continue though the intermediate floor level slab. The ground floor surface has ‘flexible paving’ with 25mm thick ‘quarry’ tiles laid on a compacted clay and sand base. The material-saving coffering of the 150mm thick upper floor is achieved with reusable shuttering of square plastic moulds mounted on a steel framework. This is made to vibrate using portable DC electric Multivibe units. For maximum economy in building the roof, Roman II micro concrete tiles are used with double fixing points to stay in place during winds which would rip off metal sheets. At 8mm thick, this tiling provides a material-saving cladding weighing only 24kg/m².

Since the preliminary announcement of the HIGH AND DRY method of frame construction, responses indicate that the need to conserve land is as important as providing a robust structure with high level floor areas.

In post-tsunami Sri Lanka, there are official concerns over rebuilding too close to the shoreline, but the Army Engineers have said that they are keen to install a prototype HIGH AND DRY building on the basis that ‘seeing is believing’.

In every case the concept of reducing the quantities of materials used by introducing coffered lightweight floors, hollow columns and roof cover based on micro concrete tiles is proving to be of great interest.

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THE AURA MOONLIGHT solar-powered street light (see Parry News 41) has reached the stage of complete assembly and service testing, and a provisional specification has been issued. The unit comprises twin clusters, each with 28 light-emitting diodes. The solar panel features thin-film amorphous silicon plate with a rated power output of 10W. The battery is of a maintenance-free, spill-proof gas recombination type with safety valve and has a design life of five years. The design assumes a management system with accessible air switch for manual on/off control.

Prices of units in quantities of one, ten and 20 are available, as is the cost of the Parry kit for production of lamp post elements for at-site construction, including special scaffolding. A full manual will be supplied.

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JPA HAS APPLIED for a patent covering the use of flywheel-powered bogies on rail vehicles. The key innovation is the ability to fit an entire driveline into the bogie itself. Conventionally, traction equipment on trains and trams is split between the bogie and either the underframe or the roof. Bogie-fitted PPM vehicles will not require any passenger space to be sacrificed to house powertrain equipment: a virtue of the compactness brought about by the use of energy storage. This further design advance is being licensed to PPM for use in larger railcar and tramcar designs, such as the Wensleydale Community Railcar.

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