Avoiding the 30-Pound Paperweight: Success via Contextually Appropriate Technologies

In the context of our global information system, providing truly appropriate technologies to developing countries is one of the most meaningful services we can offer. Yet ensuring successful technology transfer can become one of the most complex and challenging endeavors humanitarian agencies will face. Obstacles include cultural misunderstandings, apprehensions about development aid, sustainability, skill deficiencies, technology demand and/or malfunction, communication gaps (both linguistic and technological), political insecurity, overly-complex bureaucracies, and, last but not least, simple implementation logistics. Moreover, many developing countries do not have basic mains electrical power, rendering many plug-in technologies inappropriate for these regions. However, long-term success is both achievable and essential for future growth. Projects that integrate contextually appropriate technologies and derive from or incorporate the human vector with the technological have a higher likelihood of success. Cultivating healthy partnerships with other extant aid organizations may also be necessary. And asking questions of one's aid recipients - frequently, repeatedly, and directly - is vital. Charitable organizations must realize that successful humanitarian technology transfer requires not just idealism, but pragmatism, patience, research, and responsive listening. Thus we may prevent transferred technologies from becoming mere paperweights, and spell lasting success both for aid organizations and for those they seek to assist.