(Part 1 below)
Three projects that appeared to
succeed. One involved teaching West African stove makers how to use
local clay to line the stoves, raise the temperature and use less
firewood. The stoves were locally made and sold well in the market.
Similarly, treadle pumps were designed for local metal-smiths to
build and repair for use in raising water 25 feet for small scale
irrigation. Neither of these devices had a use in the customs or
geography of any other third world nations.
Third was a locally made oil-seed
grinder that succeeded very well in the one West African country with
good metal-smiths. When the project tried to export the grinders to
neighboring countries where they were initially successful, the
project failed because the metal-smiths in neighboring countries
lacked the skill to make repairs. Importing and exporting of
anything (except food and small trade goods, mostly illegally) are
doomed to failure because import-export requires good government and
suppression of corruption; not to be found in most of Africa or most
Third World countries.