Tool exhibit shows capitalism can work in Third World

Tool exhibit shows that creative capitalism can work in Third World
By Jessica Bernstein-Wax
McClatchy Newspapers
6/11/07

Some of the unsung heroes in Third World development go by odd names such as MoneyMaker Hip Pump and PermaNet. They're low-cost tools and devices - the first for crop irrigation, the second for fighting malaria - that are intended to improve the lives of millions of people for whom a $25 investment is a big deal.

Nearly 40 of these innovative designs are on display at the Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, on New York's Fifth Avenue. It's called "Design for the Other 90%," and it's viewable via the Web links at the bottom of this story.

Typically, these development-promoting tools are sold directly to farmers, weavers, woodworkers and other local entrepreneurs, an approach that's gaining favor in development and design communities.

"The future lies in delivering these products at a fair-market price through the marketplace without subsidy," said Paul Polak, the founder of International Development Enterprises, a Denver-based nonprofit that has three irrigation devices in the exhibit.

"When you give things away, you lack discipline in how you design them because you don't have to get feedback from the customer," he said.

People are also more likely to use a product they've invested in themselves, said Julia Novy-Hildesley, the executive director of the Lemelson Foundation. The Portland, Ore.-based nonprofit, a leading promoter of inventiveness, is the exhibit's main sponsor. Novy-Hildesley described the capitalist model as "very empowering" compared with traditional giveaways by governments and nonprofit organizations.

"It sees poor people as innovators themselves and ... as investors in products," she said.

While people generally associate design with art deco chandeliers and sleek, overpriced chairs, the exhibit features objects made of durable but inexpensive materials and favors function over form.

The exhibit is "really about improving people's lives and saving people's lives," curator Cynthia Smith said. "I don't think aesthetics is the main point."

Many of the objects are striking in their simplicity, such as a treadle foot pump made of bamboo for pumping water. The biggest challenge can be reducing a known technology to its most basic elements to keep costs down, according to Polak.

"A lot of these solutions are very obvious and very simple, but often it's doing and seeing the obvious that's most useful in design," he said.

Smith organized the exhibit's inventions based on their function: water, shelter, transport, education, energy and health.

Among the objects are:

-The Drip Irrigation System by International Development Enterprises. It consists of an elevated bag or bucket that uses gravity to distribute water to crops via a network of plastic pipes. The systems can increase crop yields by more than 50 percent while reducing total water use. More than 600,000 have been sold in India, Nepal, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

-The MoneyMaker Hip Pump, by the San Francisco-based nonprofit KickStart International. This human-powered pump can irrigate three-quarters of an acre in just eight hours. It has enabled farmers in Kenya, Mali and Tanzania to, on average, triple their $34 investment on the first crop, KickStart says. Time magazine calls it one of the 10 inventions most likely to change the world.

-Sugarcane Charcoal, by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Development Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass. The D-Lab kit includes a kiln and press used to convert sugarcane waste into briquettes of cooking fuel. The system is designed for use in Haiti and South America, where wood charcoal remains the primary cooking fuel despite severe deforestation and respiratory infections among children,.

-The PermaNet, by Vestergaard Frandsen, headquartered in Switzerland. Malaria kills millions of people each year, many of them children under 5, and stagnates economic growth in poor countries. This washable insecticide-treated net keeps out mosquitoes for up to four years.

Edward Tenner, the author of "Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity," praised the exhibit, especially for featuring objects that were designed or co-designed in the countries where they'll be used. But he questioned whether good design alone can alleviate poverty.

"The question remains how much can design in itself do in the absence of other conditions, for example, honest government?" Tenner said.

Curator's tour:

http://www.realcities.com/multimedia/nationalchannel/archive/mcw/slideshow/design_ch/index.html

The Cooper-Hewitt exhibit:
http://other.cooperhewitt.org