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Connecting Simple Technologies with Last Mile Communities

23 Apr 2014
Toshi Nakamura, Kopernik Co-founder & CEO,
Toshi Nakamura
Simple technologies have tremendous potential to improve the lives of people in remote, developing communities, especially children. Water filters, solar lights and clean cookstoves make daily tasks easier and less taxing on health, time, or household budgets, while simple educational toys can inspire children to continue their studies. Yet connecting these devices with the vulnerable and isolated villages most in need is difficult because of awareness, cost and distribution challenges. Leveraging existing local networks is a powerful solution.

Striking examples from technology distribution projects demonstrate the impact of simple devices on the everyday activities of last-mile communities.

In places where water is not safe to drink, a simple water filter can transform health and education. In Desa Ban, Indonesia, children were able to drink only one or two glasses of water a day, often after a long walk to school, because their families were trying to conserve costly clean water.1 Simple water filters now provide abundant safe water at a fraction of the cost of boiling water or buying bottled water. Using gravity to push water through a ceramic filter lined with silver and activated carbon, the devices remove solids, chemicals, and micro-organisms. Students can now drink as much water as they want. Teachers report that students are concentrating better in class, and are less likely to miss school because of diarrhea and other stomach problems caused by dirty water. Interest has spread beyond the classroom as parents and village leaders have gained trust in the water filter technology.

Education, hindered by darkness in communities lacking electricity, can continue after sunset with handheld solar lamps. Through a solar light project on the small island of Atauro, Timor-Leste, teachers are now able to continue working on lesson plans at night and children gather in brightly lit homes to complete assignments.2 Families are saving significantly on kerosene, and are able to meet more of their basic food needs and invest in their children’s studies. The health problems associated with kerosene fume exposure, which are especially severe among children, no longer plague households. Unlike kerosene lamps or candles, the solar lanterns do not pose the risk of tipping over and igniting thatched homes.

Poor families living in deforested areas can save time and money, and improve their health, using a fuel-efficient cookstove. In Madhya Pradesh, India, women spend a great deal of time cooking slowly on traditional chulha stoves. Women and children are responsible for collecting large quantities of firewood to fuel these stoves. This practice not only drains precious forest resources, but also causes respiratory problems from the large amount of smoke produced. With efficient, clean cookstoves fueled by biomass, women have been able to recycle agricultural waste, improve their families’ health, cook food faster, and spend less money on fuel.3 Their most commonly reported benefit was increased time, as these safer stoves could be left simmering while the women bathed, swept, or engaged in income-generating activities like tending to crops.

Finally, very simple educational toys can inspire a love of learning in children in under-resourced schools. Less than half of Indonesia’s workforce has studied beyond elementary school.4 Recent projects in Indonesian schools sparked students’ interest in learning by providing simple microscopes, telescopes and math-testing gaming devices.5 In a school where previously the only microscope was kept under lock and key, too precious to be used by students, now an entire class can use microscopes at the same time. Stimulated by the process of observing the moon, more students expressed an interest in astronomy after using the telescopes. By making an entertaining competition out of arithmetics, the gaming devices greatly improved maths scores. Compared with peers who learned by traditional paper methods, the gaming students calculated much faster. With very simple toys that made learning much more engaging, schools are taking a step towards improving the country’s educational lag.

As these examples illustrate, simple devices - water filters, solar lights, clean cook-stoves, and educational toys - are effective tools in developing communities, and often the most appropriate technology for those beyond the current reach of electricity or water infrastructure. However, there are three major challenges in connecting these simple technologies to the people who need them the most.

First, people do not know about them. Inventors tend to develop the technologies in urban centers far from impoverished, isolated communities, creating a geographic obstacle to awareness. Technology producers may market to a much more local or affluent target than small subsistence villages on another continent. Even when a technology producer envisions global distribution with social impact, their target consumers are largely beyond the reach of conventional marketing channels.

In places where people are aware of solutions, products are frequently too expensive. The individuals who need them most - such as female heads of households, orphans, and disaster victims - are also among the most economically vulnerable. Although many simple technologies have been designed for extreme affordability in production, international distribution is costly. This is especially true in access-challenged locations where complex transportation costs add up, such as port-less islands and mountain-top villages. Among the most common feedback from last-mile customers is a desire for cheaper versions of the same product.

Thirdly, users often do not have enough cash to pay up front. People often express great interest in simple technologies when they are first introduced to them, but fail to translate into consumers if the option to pay in installments is not available. Surveys and rapid impact assessments show that although potential technology users understand and appreciate the long-term savings of investing in a solar light or water filter, the upfront cost is a major deterrent. The people who could most benefit from the device, such as subsistence farmers, simply lack adequate savings.

Therefore it is important to address the distribution challenges of awareness, cost, and payment system by leveraging existing local networks. Local entrepreneurs, women’s groups, cooperatives, and shops know the needs of the community. They can introduce relevant technologies, provide flexible payment terms and offer after sales service in the local language. Several distribution projects in Indonesia have successfully engaged small village shops as water filter re-sellers, simultaneously marketing the product’s benefits, making the filters easily accessible in the community, and increasing the shop owners’ income. Another project in Indonesia trained female heads of household and members of a women’s cooperative group in entrepreneurial skills and technology maintenance, enabling them to sell solar lights, clean cookstoves and water filters in their community without taking on financial risk.6

By offering the building blocks for a brighter future, simple technologies are tangibly improving lives in remote communities across Asia and Africa. The most effective way of connecting these technologies with people in the last mile is by collaborating with organisations and individuals who are already trusted by the local community. The practice of leveraging existing local networks to distribute simple technologies should be an integral part of the technology-for-development dialogue.

Sources:

1- Rara Sekar Larasati. Kopernik Field Visit Report: Clean Drinking Water for Balinese Schools. Desa Ban, Kecamatan Kubu, Kubapaten Karangasem, Bali, Indonesia: May 2013.

2- Lincoln Rajali Sihotang. Kopernik Final Project Report: Providing Light to Remote Areas. Ataúro Island, Timor-Leste: November 2012.

3- Yumiko Yamada. Kopernik Impact Assessment Report: Fire Up Madhya Pradesh, India. Madhya Pradesh, India: September 2012.

4- Suryamin of the Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics, as quoted in "Elementary School Graduates Dominate the Labor Force" by the Jakarta Post. Jakarta, Indonesia: May 2012.

5- Based on Kopernik research.

6- Kopernik. Drinks Are On Me! Final Project Report. Indonesia: 2012.