Unmet need: daytime indoor lighting

One of the deeply humbling aspects of doing development-related work is the frequency with which one says "... I didn't even know that was a problem." Today's example: daytime indoor lighting solutions.

Isang Litrong Liwanag (A Liter of Light), is a sustainable lighting project which aims to bring the eco-friendly Solar Bottle Bulb to disprivileged communities nationwide. Designed and developed by students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Solar Bottle Bulb is based on the principles of Appropriate Technologies – a concept that provides simple and easily replicable technologies that address basic needs in developing communities.

How it works:

First, a hole is cut in a corrugated iron sheet, and a one-liter plastic bottle that has been filled with water and about four teaspoons of bleach is inserted. A hole is cut in the house’s roof, the bottle is put in, and then the iron sheet is fixed to the roof with rivets and sealant.

“Unlike a hole in which the light will travel in a straight line, the water will refract it to go vertical, horizontal, 360 degrees of 55 watts to 60 watts of clear light, almost ten months of the year,” Diaz said.

Yes, it's a bottle of water-bleach solution that one sticks in a hole in one's ceiling. It solves a problem that's difficult to imagine until you've been in a dark shed during the middle of the day. It costs pennies. It's wildly popular. How can you not love it?

Doctors Without Borders: lessons learned

This looks like a really interesting new publication by the Nobel Prize winning organization MSF. Download the book in pdf form for free here.

"Medical Innovations in Humanitarian Situations explores how the particular style of humanitarian action practiced by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has stayed in line with the standards in scientifically advanced countries while also leading to significant improvements in the medical care delivered to people in crisis. 

Through a series of case studies, the authors reflect on how medical aid workers dealt with the incongruity of practicing conventional evidence-based medicine in contexts that require unconventional approaches."

Gender *within* aid organizations

The always interesting Chris Blattman directs us to a rather sobering article on gender issues within NGOs:

Ben Ramalingam’s recent post ‘Gender bias as an emergent property in international agencies‘ discusses how the aid industry has fallen short in walking the talk on gender. Ben basically says that agencies love building other people’s capacity around gender. Yet as with so many things agencies and aid organizations like advising on, our own capacity is in a fairly sorry state.

Ben notes that micro-level and informal attitudes and dynamics add up to an overall institutional bias against women at international development agencies. I’d hazard to say that most women face a gender bias, whether working in their home countries or afar, whether at an agency headquarters or in a ‘developing country’ where gender awareness programs are implemented, whether ex-pat or local contract. Above and beyond the gender dynamic specifically in development agencies is an overall gender bias working against women in many (most?) societies. This goes beyond what an INGO can address, but one could argue that if development agencies were really committed to addressing gender bias, they would start ‘at home.’ How many agencies have actually looked closely at their own set-up and made serious improvements before embarking on a ‘gender’ program or campaign externally?

It's an interesting read the whole way through. Tangentially relevant is the anonymous author's Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like page, which made me laugh quite a bit. Though often rather uncomfortably...