Ever since I started my research in using technology for international development, I’ve had a constant nagging feeling that maybe I shouldn’t interfere in things I don’t fully understand - although I continue to do so. 

I’ve spent a considerable amount of my life living in the African bundu.  I’ve slept in flea ridden mud huts, hidden from African killer bee’s (yes they do exist), clashed antlers with government officials and occasionally feared for my life as civil war has erupted before my slightly bewildered eyes. 

Most sensible people would respond to this combination of doubt and a chronically challenging environment by possibly getting a nice office job, with much better pay, a pension and being able to spend weekends with the kids.  I however, still live in hope that my doubts are unfounded, the environment could be worse and plough on regardless.  What can I say, I’m obviously an optimist. 

The truth however is that over 60% of water and sanitation projects fail.  Sub-Saharan Africa is littered with broken hand pumps.  The metal carcasses of hope and goodwill left to rust in an unforgiving and brutal sun.  I’ve uploaded a little movie clip for you to see.  It shows some temporarily pretty chuffed goats and the elation of some aid workers as they finally manage to get the water pump working for the goat herders of Kenya. 

The reality I see though is quite different.  That hand pump has so many moving parts; nuts, bolts, bits that can break that it has no chance of surviving.  I give it 6 months before it is just another derelict western technology cluttering up the landscape of the African desert. 

After the engineers have left who is going to look after that hand pump?  The African goat herder?  The goats themselves perhaps?  What about spare parts?  Perhaps the goat herder can ride one of the goats to the nearest B&Q.  I am being facetious but you get my point. 

Or perhaps, and this I suspect might be a likely one – the goat herder is not that interested in the survival of the wilder beasts and at the first sign of trouble with the hand pump will obtain a large stick (or AK47 – slightly oddly, the only technology that really survives in the bundu) and beat off the wilder beast so that his much more important and valuable goats can drink from the waterhole. 

The thing is I think Aid can work; I couldn’t possibly do my job without this fundamental underlying belief.  However, I also think we westerners need a massive dose of common sense.  If there isn’t a B&Q nearby don’t build a technology that needs a B&Q nearby to maintain it.  It’s like buying a car when you know that there isn’t a petrol station for a thousand miles.  It’s ridiculous.  Your mates would laugh at you down the pub as they sensibly leave you behind in your car that doesn’t work and go home to their wives on their infinitely more sensible and appropriate mules.