Partnership and Action in the Developing World

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Partnership and Action in the Developing World

• Engineers Without Borders University of
  Cincinnati
• Dan Divelbiss and Andy Schriner

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Global Challenge

• 1.2 billion lack clean water
• 2.4 billion lack adequate sanitation
• 2.4 billion are at risk with malaria
• 35,000 children die from hunger DAILY
• 1.1 billion overfed vs. 1.1 billon underfed
• 1.2 billion lack adequate housing
• 1.8 billion live in conflict zones, in
  transition, or in situations of permanent
  instability
• 4.2 billion are unable to read

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Poverty

• Relative Poverty
• Basic needs met but below national standard
• Moderate Poverty
• Basic needs barely met
• Extreme Poverty
• Basic needs are not met

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Poverty Trap
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Growth of Household Income

• Saving
• Trade
• Technology
• Resource Boom

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Decline of Household Income

• Lack of saving
• Absence of trade
• Technology reversal
• Natural resource decline
• Adverse productivity shock
• Population growth

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Why the poor stay poor?

• Poverty
• Physical Geography
• Fiscal Trap
• Government Failure
• Cultural Barriers
• Geopolitics
• Lack of Innovation
• Demographics

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Poverty

• Low human capital
• Lack infrastructure
• Natural capital is depleted
• No margin of income above survival

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Physical Geography

• Location and regional geography
• Available natural resources

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Fiscal Trap

• Low to no tax revenue
• Debt servicing

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Government Failure

• Corruption
• Failure to recognize development needs
• Unable to maintain internal peace and justice

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Cultural Barriers

• Institutionalized Racism
• Institutionalized Sexism

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Geopolitics

• Trade barriers - It takes two to trade

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Lack of Innovation

• Ideas and inventors ARE there
• No means to profit from methods

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Demographics

• Family size and fertility rates
• Get figure from p 65

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Poor education

• Short sighted vision
• Children miss school
• Intellectual capital depreciates

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Poor health

• Sickness leads to inability to work
• Inability to work leads to low income
• Low income leads to malnourishment, inability to
  pay for health care, etc
• Leads to sickness

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High birth rates

• Children are seen as labor, and a way to ensure
  care when one gets older
• Leads to high birth rates
• Children as capital
• Children work, dont go to school
• Leads to uneducated, unskilled workforce
• Poor families cannot feed lots of children

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Subsistence living

• With less than enough to survive, families cannot
  save
• Since they cannot save, they cannot make
  investments in their future
• Leads to continued resource depreciation

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What can we learn aboutthe poverty cycle?

• Its one complex SOB
• No easy answers or quick fixes
• Solution requires a multidimensional approach

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Breaking the Poverty Cycle and Ending Poverty
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In the next two decades, almost 2 billion
additional people will populate the earth. This
growth will create demands on an unprecedented
scale for

• Food supply
• Water preservation
• Health Care
• Waste Disposal
• Environmental Cleanup

• Suitable living conditions
• Infrastructure
• Materials handling
• Land Stabilization
• Transportation Demand

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UN Millennium Development Goals

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal health
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Develop a global partnership for development

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International Aid

• Breaking the bank?
• How much?
• Will that happen?
• .. Why wait?

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Direct Action in the Developing World (AKA Point
of Use Justice)

• Entrepreneurial Micro-finance loans
• Community based building projects
• Doctors w/o Borders, Builders w/o Borders,
  Potters for Peace..
• More..

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Micro-finance Loans

• "Poverty is not created by poor people. It is
  produced by our failure to create institutions to
  support human capabilities."
• -Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank
  of Bangladesh and internationally known for
  extending micro credit to the poor

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Micro-finance Loans

• Effective and flexible
• Sustainable
• Capable of massive implementation
• Business advice and counseling
• Ex Heifer International, Village Phone Project

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Self Sustaining Enterprises

• Based out of Mason, Ohio near Cincinnati
• Microfinance loans
• Boarding schools
• Clinics

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Engineers Without Borders

• Mission EWB-USA partners with developing
  communities to improve their quality of life
  through the implementation of environmentally
  sustainable, equitable, and economical
  engineering projects while developing
  internationally responsible engineers and
  engineering students.
• Vision EWB-USA's outward vision is a world
  where ALL people have access to the knowledge and
  resources with which to meet their basic human
  needs and promote sustainable development.

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Goals

• To create a system to empower developing
  communities
• To build relationships to meet the needs of a
  community
• To develop a new generation of globally and
  environmentally aware professionals
• To Preserve, learn from, and disseminate
  information on sustainable engineering practices
• To develop a sustainable organization

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Professional Challenge

• Training of individuals
• Who have the skills and tools appropriate to
  address the issues that our planet is facing
  today and is likely to face within the next 20
  years
• Who are aware of the needs of the developing
  world
• Who can contribute to the relief of the endemic
  problems afflicting developing communities
  worldwide

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Clean water

• 1/5 of the world population (1.1 billion) lacks
  access to safe drinking water
• http//www.unicef.org/wes/index_31813.html

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Water Treatment and Irrigation Projects

• Lead directly and indirectly to reducing poverty
• Improved general health
• Reductions in water and vector-borne diseases
  such as
• Polio
• Schistomsomiasis
• Onchocerciasis (river blindness)
• Guinea worm

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Water and Irrigation, cont

• Benefits of irrigation projects include
• Higher crop yields
• Increased food supply security
• Surplus produce to generate income

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Water and Irrigation, cont

• Indirect benefits of water treatment and
  irrigation projects include
• Time saved for women and children
• Decreased tension and conflict in homes
• Increased community unity and self esteem
• Source WaterAid

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Water in Nigeria

• 27.4 have access to pipe-borne water
• 15.41 have access to bore holes
• 27.62 have access to wells

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UC Nigeria Project

• Kissaghyp, Nigeria
• Outside Jos, capital of Plateau State
• Approximately 2000 people
• Agricultural community
• Crops are millet, maize, gillet corn, rice, but
  mostly TOMATOES

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Tomatoes

• During growing season, everyone grows tomatoes
• Floods market

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Dehydrator
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Clean Water

• Bore holes
• Deeper
• Cleaner

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What we hope to achieve

• Reduce disease, especially diarrheal diseases
  which lead to malnourishment
• Provide irrigation to extend growing season and
  ability to generate income from produce
• Build a relationship with the community
• Give them a hand up to the development ladder

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Previous EWB Projects
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Santisuk, Thailand
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Santa Rita, Peru
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Muramba, Rwanda

• Video http//ceae.colorado.edu/ewb/rwanda_docs/ewb
  .avi

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Get Involved

• www.uc.edu/groups/ewb-ucin
• Everything without Borders
• Talk to people
• Fight complacency
• Poverty can be history..
• Make poverty history

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• The significant problems we face cannot be
  solved at same level of thinking we were at when
  they were created.
• - Albert Einstein

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References

• Sachs, Jeffery. End of Poverty Economic
  Possibilities for Our Time. Penguin Press. New
  York. 2005
• http//www.gfusa.org/
• WaterAid
• World Health Organization
• The World Bank
• http//library.advanced.org/25009/causes/causes.cy
  cle.html