The matter at hand being of significant importance for better tomorrow, I can conquer that education and training are of vital importance. Many lack knowledge on this immense goal of development thus not able to contribute in it.There provision of education and training will open eyes of many who are lagging behind and hence able to contribute in achievement of sustainable development.

Greetings All! In follow up, yesterday we watched water boil on the really low-cost insulating rocket stove of the attached video! It's our first success! The stove liner shown is for this cook pot of 29 cms. diameter. After boiling, this can be replaced with a liner for a cook pot of a different diameter.

In burning hot using biomass fuel, there is no smoke! There is no need to cut trees for fuel wood; no need for the production of charcoal! Is this not nature-based cooking? Solid fuels can indeed be burned cleanly!!

Hi JK Makowka,
Thanks for your very helpful post and because of this I will be more specific about my assertion that? *What is really needed for sustainable development is education and training.* Of course, there is a huge lack of knowledge in the developing world, so that education and training is what is arguably the greatest long term need. Because I am a ceramic industrial designer I will cite specifically the urgent need for ceramic knowledge, but this should not suggest that other kinds of knowledge are unimportant.

For a developing country, what might be the best guarantee of prosperity? I would answer that the development of industry might be at the top of this list, at least in the long term. My personal, professional focus is in training potters and their neighbors in the production of insulating rocket stoves and candle water filters. This is what we are now doing in Rwanda.

As it happens, the skills and knowledge that the trainees gain is at the origin of micro-industry, especially important in that the stoves and filters are urgently needed by their neighbors and affordable within their economy. After all, both SDGs 6 and 7, as pertain to safe drinking water and energy, stipulate affordability.

I hope it's okay to reiterate what I have said before, that the earth's crust is composed of ceramic raw materials. The human and natural resources to such development are nearly everywhere. What is most needed is training and education. Nearly all industry has its origin in the high temperature processes of ceramics, entirely viable on a nature-based basis. It is arguable that the best guarantee of industrial development and prosperity will be from the grassroots, through training and education.

Many capital-intensive programs have failed. Could it not be true that the most effective capital-intensive programs will be those that are resource intensive, depending on natural and human resources that are abundant nearly everywhere? To my knowledge, the policy makers have never considered seriously reaching out specifically, to those who are knowledgeable in the use of the materials necessary to such devices as clean cookstoves and water filters. Had they done so they would have included ceramic educators and experts in the decision-making process.

Thanks again to all knowledge seekers who are in this discussion. You are the best!

Reid

depinder wrote: RANAS...................were they ever [...] validated before being applied in developing world WASH work? No.

At least for RANAS I can say that there were multiple validation trials, but AFAIK results were somewhat inconclusive and the people behind it continued pushing for wider adoption regardless.

I don't think it is necessarily bad for western funders to fund universities from their own countries that collaborate with local partners from the developing world (but sadly this is often done as an afterthought). At least this way you ensure that knowledge is shared and documented, but of course more efforts need to be made to ensure it is a two way street.

If they would fund universities in the developing world directly that would create a different kind of dependency and I think that would not be beneficial in the long term. General education sector budget support through inter-government channels would be probably more sustainable.

No Elisabeth, I am mindful that not everything that comes from developing world is great wisdom.
Just like what comes from developed world may not be relevant for developing world.

The discourse of "teach them to fish and not give fish" is an old version of what emerged in Rights Based Approach in early 2000s. - Teach them to fish, not give them fish...........Empower them to own the pond, then they will have the right to fish....etc.

So yes the developed world needs to provide access to education and learning through scholarships and fellowships to developing world. But also agree in principal to not produce new frameworks and tools in WASH and other development fields, sitting in offices in Europe and America. Collaborate, and validate, what you produce as intellectual knowledge for Africa and Asia. This is what de colonisation of knowledge means. 

Sadly this is not happening. We have big frameworks in WASH Behaviour Change - BCD(LSHTM), FOAM(WB), RANAS...................were they ever developed in collaboration with developing world or validated before being applied in developing world WASH work? No. This is what Reid Harvey i was implying in my response to you.

Western development/funding agencies continue to fund their own universities and experts to do research and development. This is already showing fatigue and directionless development in WASH knowledge sector.
 

Hi Depinder Kapur, Many thanks for your good work with sanitation capacity building! I want to answer your question, "...why assume that the ... western world has to GIVE education, training and knowledge to developing world?"

My premise in answering is based on the adage that... *it's better to teach people to fish than to give them a fish.* As we look at what's being implemented for the SDGs in the developing world, much if not most of it is handouts. The price paid locally can tend to be a small percentage of the actual cost. There are countless examples of this. This is NOT sustainable development, but rather, so many bandaids (bandages).

The point is that if we GIVE people training and education, we get them what is most genuinely sustainable. Of course, this assumes that we are educating and trainng in good practices and that these have been announced as such. There continues to be a need to revisit best practices rather than meeting quotas with unsustainable practices.

Incidentally, please regard the following presentation as the link in my signature. (I can tend to be all-thumbs when attempting to edit such changes in a profile.) Thanks again and all the best, Reid

Harvey, Anthony Reid (2021): *Sanitary stoneware toilets: production closer to the need*. Loughborough University. Conference contribution. hdl.handle.net/2134/16941193.v1

Hi Depinder,
What did you mean with "This is not to say that all that comes from developing world is great wisdom. No. "? Was it meant to read: "This is not to say that all that comes from developed world is great wisdom. No. "? 

And I agree with your statement:
"But why assume that the developing western world has to GIVE education, training and knowledge to developing world?"

Regards,
Elisabeth

Thanks Reid for highlighting what was earlier discussed as - decolonisation of WASH Knowledge. By expanding to development de colonisation and harping on the need for education. 

But why assume that the developing western world has to GIVE education, training and knowledge to developing world?

Yes do create opportunities for providing education, higher education and skills. More scholarships and freeships. But see education as a two way process. The western developed world needs to decolonise knowledge as well. This is not to say that all that comes from developing world is great wisdom. No.  

(Note by moderator: this post was originally in this thread but has now been moved to its own thread.)

Descriptions and images that are infantilizing and patronizing are bound to be in the literature of WASH and development since there has been little or no effort to get people education and training. Despite the independence movements of the 1960s, developing countries are still being colonized. It is true that this time the colonizers are not so free to take away the natural resources. This time they simply infantilize and patronize by suggesting that developing country populations are incapable of their own development. So rather than getting them education and training they get them, for example, water treatment or a toilet or a cookstove. These items are examples of what may be most basic to those in dire poverty.

How do sustainable developers get by, calling this sustainable development? In the meantime, a lot of young people especially, in the developing world, are furious with their leaders, because development is not happening. After all, people are well aware that the resources are abundant!

There is a serious need to get people education and training. In really getting people sustainable development, the most effective capital-intensive programs will be the ones that are resource intensive. The human and natural resources tend to be abundant almost everywhere. What is really needed for sustainable development is education and training. For unfathomable reasons, this is found to be difficult, however, so there has come to be an unfortunate emphasis on meeting quotas with imported resources, not doing education and training. After all, the quotas of those who get, for example, water treatment, latrines and cookstoves, need to be accomplished by 2030.

If we do not get people education and training and a knowledge of the use of their abundant resources, 2030 will be replaced by a new set of goals, with a different name and an end date of 2040 or 2050. We will be having these same conversations again. The developing world will continue to be the developing world rather than a prosperous and newly industrialized world. Apologies for so visceral a response but the blood is boiling. It is just plain wrong to give people a fish and tell them that this is sustainable development.