I am one of the community managers of this forum and work at the GIZ. My background is in Management, Economics and Information Systems.
Posts: 113
I came across this talk by David Damberger where he discusses "Learning From Failure" at TEDxYYC 2011. Quick background to who he is:
David is the founder of Engineers Without Borders Calgary (EWB). After building the organization in Calgary and working with them in India, David spent four years building EWB's overseas programs as the Director of Southern African Programs. In this role, David consulted for dozens of African based companies, non-profits and governments in the fields of agriculture; food processing; water and sanitation; and mobile applications for development.
Having followed the discussion on "Dubbletten/Wostman Re: NoMix toilets of Roediger Vacuum" and Dena Fam's remarks on valuing failure
Our own project was set up as a learning experiment, we were funded to learn across multiple part of the system, technology being one important area. So there was an organisational culture within the project team that valued 'failure' as a learning experience (that included the water authority and council).
I find it good that the talk highlights that the area of failure is O&M usually and that development organisations need to know this, and structure their programmes with local partners so as to avoid taxpayer money being used in an unsustainable manner. As the key is to have local people involved in the programmes as well as local partners that are not going to leave as soon as the programme period is over. This line of thought ties in with what is also mentioned in the factsheet on Sanitation as a business.
Please take the time to watch the video, also look at the heated discussion below the video on youtube, and post your remarks and comments here please!
Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) Secretariat
Located at Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Eschborn, Germany
Thank you for the link to David's talk, great stuff!
I dont work in the development sector but have been involved in planning and trialing the installation of UD systems in a couple of places in Australia. And I think one of the things that has surprised me in looking internationally for guidance and experience is the lack of published material on the failure of UD systems. I understand that its difficult to get funding to write up and publish the failures that we experience in projects but very necessary if we are going to contribute to the diffusion of sustainable systems of service provision. Its also about being honest and transparent in the work we do.
An interesting point that David brought up in his talk was the need for more attention to the 'software', his definition of this being maintenance of systems...my definition of software would the be the socio-cultural side of the system, eg. the users and the engagement of users in actually contributing to designing a system that suits their socio-cultural needs
Thanks again for the link, it was really insightful
Regards
Dena
Dena Fam
Research Consultant/Post Graduate Scholar
Institute for Sustainable Futures
University of Technology Sydney
Phone: (+61)2 9514 4950
Fax: (+61)2 9514 4941
Email:
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