Tools and practice
Community based technology solutions: adapting to climate change
Community-based climate adaptation: a guide to selecting appropriate technologies for communities in need
Authors:
S. Thorne; B. Kantor; I. Hossain
Publisher:
SouthSouthNorth, 2007
Adaptation to the impacts of climate change will require considerable innovation and cooperation, and technology could hold the key to this process. However, in much of the developing world, technologies fail to operate optimally because of inadequate assessment of the location or due to the lack of available capacity where the technology is transferred. This manual introduces The SSN Technology Receptivity Programme Framework as a means of aiding facilitators and leaders to successfully initiate the most appropriate technological solutions for communities in need.
The framework advocates an approach which considers not just the hardware of the technology or the machinery it involves, but also the people and processes involved in applying it – the so-called “software” and “orgware” of the technology (i.e. the capacity and processes involved in the use of the technology and the ownership and institutional arrangements of the organisation or community where the technology will be employed). What is needed, it is argued, is an all-embracing and comprehensive definition of technology that includes the institutions and the processes necessary to deliver, finance, receive, operate, and maintain the hardware.
The paper describes discrete steps to help communities cope with the impacts of climate change, some of which will run concurrently and others separately, depending on the specific requirements of each individual project. The framework is something sufficiently general to be easily applied without the need for a methodical application of the steps, but is also rigorous to act as the practical or process component of achieving sustainable development.
Technology receptivity inputs highlighted include:
- focus and time spent in Project Development Teams (PDTs) on the issue of how the beneficiary community of the project can achieve ownership of project outcomes
- adequate time spent on identification and then the careful prioritisation of possible technologies for specific adaptation projects
- regular involvement and active participation by representatives of the community in the activities and functions of the PDTs to help facilitate the necessary reception of the technology within the community.
