Director,
T.E.(Terry)
Manning,
Schoener 50,
1771 ED
Wieringerwerf,
The
Tel:
0031-227-604128
Homepage:
http://www.flowman.nl
E-mail:
(nameatendofline)@xs4all.nl : bakensverzet
Incorporating
innovative social, financial, economic, local administrative and productive
structures, numerous renewable energy applications, with an important role for
women in poverty alleviation in rural and poor urban environments.
"Money is not
the key that opens the gates of the market but the bolt that bars them"
Gesell, Silvio The
Natural Economic Order
Revised English
edition, Peter Owen,
Edition 11: 15
August 2006
An innovative Model Integrated Self-financing
Development Project covering a complete package of basic services for
sustainable development in poor rural and urban areas has been developed. It
includes hygiene education, the provision of drinking water and sanitation
services, rainwater harvesting, PV lighting for study, PV lighting and
refrigeration in clinics, waste removal, high-efficiency stoves and bio-mass to
fuel them. It provides a strong thrust for on-going local development,
productivity, and employment. It contains many decentralised solar energy
applications.
The Model has been placed in the public domain.
The Model is strongly demand response oriented.
Project applications are worked out together with the users who execute, run,
maintain, own and pay for the project structures. The Model provides practical
working solutions for sustainable integrated development and covers all major
development priorities. It constitutes a practical way of applying modern
development concepts such as those outlined in the DFID "Guidance manual
on water supply and sanitations programmes" (WEDC for DFID, 1998). It
integrates in a practical and feasible manner policy, finance, technology and
human capacity building to offer sustainable solutions to development.
Project applications are self-financing,
subject to an interest-free seed loan repayable in 10 years. The Model is
structured for communities of 10000 households (50000 users) but can be adapted
to smaller and larger project areas as required. The minimum amount of the
interest-free seed loans is US$ 3.000.000 or US$ 60 per user, which covers the
entire basic package of structures and services, and calls for a monthly
payment of US$3 per family of 5 into a Cooperative Development Fund. The Model
is structured so that some, if not all, of these monthly payments can be
recovered by savings on expenditure for (inadequate) structures and services
such as firewood, water, and waste removal now available to users.
Project applications require 75% financing in
the form of a 10 year interest-free loan by an External Support Agency.
Regional or state authorities in the beneficiary countries are expected to
supply the remaining 25%.
Project applications are self-financing because they
allow the recipient communities to fully exploit a network of sustainable
development activities using:
(i) The interest-free loan itself
(ii) Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS)
(iii)Multiple re-cycled interest-free micro-credits to be administered by a
local micro-credit institution. They are generated by recycling seed loan
repayments and project reserves during the loan term, and by recycling
repayments of the micro-credit loans themselves.
One of the most important causes of poverty is
on-going financial leakage from poor rural and urban areas and nations to
richer national and international havens and nations. If poverty alleviation
projects are to succeed, financial leakage from individual project areas has to
be reduced and preferably stopped altogether. This does not imply closure of
project areas to the outside world. It implies that the balance expressed in
formal currency of transactions for goods and services imported into and
exported from individual project areas must tend to zero.
Some important factors causing financial
leakage are energy imports, import of industrial goods and services, and
interest. The cumulative interest content of a typical western industrial
product is thought to be anything up to 40% of the cost to the end user. This
interest normally exits from project areas never to return.
Technologies using local energy such as human
energy, local biomass, PV and wind energy, and locally recycled wastes together
with appropriate financial instruments help create and encourage open
competition and free enterprise within the framework of a cooperative and non
profit-making global financial structure. As the Model shows, self-financing
integrated development is then able to flourish.
This is particularly important in project
applications covering drinking water supply, where solar PV may be needed to
pump the water over several kilometres from the water source to dedicated tanks
near users' homes. In integrated projects, the initial capital costs for the
water supply can be at least in part covered by savings in the present
expenditure of the families. For instance, the use of locally made high
efficiency stoves and mini-briquettes to fuel them can lead to a substantial
saving on a family's present outgo on wood for cooking. This saving alone is
sometimes enough to cover part or all of the family's monthly contribution into
the Cooperative Development Fund.
Another example is the use of locally made dry
composting toilets in place of water toilets. Where water costs are high,
and/or where the water toilets consume a large part of a family's (often
expensive) water supply, the savings in water costs can go to paying (part of)
its monthly contribution into the Cooperative Development Fund. Water saved can
be used for other purposes, including small vegetable plots and/or vertical
gardens.
The Model foresees the following services :
a) Drinking water supply
b) Rainwater harvesting for private use
c) Rainwater drainage for micro-irrigation
d) The use of dry composting toilet systems to limit use of water at household
level
Each of these is now briefly described.
Project applications will decentralise drinking water
supply. Large diameter wells and bore holes will be dug or drilled using
wherever possible local labour, construction methods and materials supplied
under the local LETS money systems.
About 6-9 high pressure solar submersible pumps
will be installed in each well or borehole. Each of the pumps will supply water
to a dedicated water tank serving a local community of up to 40 families (200
people). The well is the hub of the supply system. The water pipelines
radiating from it are its spokes. The water tanks should not be more than
Adoption of the multiple pump solution means
that fewer wells/boreholes need to be dug or drilled than would otherwise be
the case. Savings on well and borehole costs may sometimes alone be enough to
compensate for the costs of the solar pumping systems.
Schools will each receive at least one
dedicated tank. Clinics, for further safety, will be served by two tanks each
with its own pump.
Wherever practicable, that is, where head is
not greater than about
Fig. 1
DRAWING
OF WATER SUPPLY SYSTEMS.
Where culturally appropriate, a communal
washing area can be placed near each well so that women used to doing their
washing in groups can continue to do so. The backup hand-pumps may also be used
to service the washing areas and in cases of emergency.
The drinking water supply is based on a water
consumption of
The preferred water tanks are spherical in form with a
volume of 1.5m3. They are made in the project area itself from Gypsum
composites (R) segments in low-cost labour-intensive local production units
with 100% local value added. Gypsum composites (R) is a state of the art
technology based on cheap gypsum (CaSO4 + H2O) or anhydrite (CaSO4 + = H2O)
which is usually available in or near any given project area. The tanks can be
built to "western" hygiene standards.
Tank supports and many other items necessary
for self-financing projects can also be made from Gypsum composites (R).
Any product made within project areas using
locally available raw materials can be built, constructed, and installed under
the LETS local exchange trading systems set up under each project application
under the Model, and practically no formal currency at all is required for the
tank installations.
More information on
Gypsum Composites.
The technology is available to local production
units free of charge for bona fide poverty alleviation purposes under project
applications under the Model.
Fig 2
DRAWING OF
TYPICAL WATER TANK AREA.
The basic structures foreseen under the Model are the
Tank Commissions. These are made up from 3-5 representatives chosen by the 40
families (200 users) served by a given tank. It is expected that most of the
members of the tank committee, including the chairperson, will be women. One of
the purposes of the Health Clubs set up under project applications is to create
a platform which women can use to organise themselves, make their voices heard,
and participate actively in project execution.
The duties of the Tank Commissions are
numerous. They can be analysed by referring to in fig.3
Fig. 3
TANK
COMMISSIONS - THE KEY STRUCTURES
Amongst these duties is control of access to
the tank, control of the amount of water used, maintaining the area around the
tank, and liaising with the Project Coordinator and the well commission, and
election of one of their members to the local Well Commission. Ownership of the
tank installation, the dedicated solar pump, and the dedicated solar array and
support system is vested in the tank commission once the users have paid back
their interest-free ten year seed loan.
Apart from reimbursement under the LETS systems
for services rendered, the tank commissions receive a small monthly fee in
formal currency for their work. They are able to dispose of these formal
currency funds as they wish. It is expected that the funds will usually be made
available to partly subsidise poorer families with temporary difficulties in
making their monthly payments into the Cooperative Development Fund. In this
sense, the tank commission forms a first safety net in favour of users in
financial difficulties. A second safety net is available to users through the
local LETS systems themselves. Users more permanently in difficulty with their
monthly payments can arrange for the community to make the monthly
contributions in exchange for goods and services supplied to the community
under the LETS systems.
The second structure foreseen for drinking
water supply is the well commission.
The duties of the well commissions are set out
in fig. 4.
Fig. 4
The
This water is not to be used for drinking
purposes except in emergencies (e.g. the drinking water tanks are empty, there
are no hand-pump backups at the well, natural calamity ) when it will have to
be boiled. It is available for washing and general household use. Household
wastewater from kitchen and washroom will run by gravity through a simple
filter to remove fats and oils into a Gypsum composites wastewater tank. The
contents of the wastewater tank can be mixed with urine in a urine tank (see
the paragraph on dry composting toilets below) in the proportion ten parts
wastewater to one part urine and spread in the vegetable garden plot if there
is one, or on vertical (usually roof) gardens. Users with neither a garden plot
nor a vertical garden will arrange for their wastewater and their urine to be
collected under the local LETS systems. For a diagram showing the entire waste
collection systems foreseen under the Model, refer to:
Fig. 5
DRAWING
OF WASTE DISPOSAL STRUCTURES.
The Model foresees the use of dry composting
toilets with separation of urine and faeces, so water from the rainwater tanks
is used in the toilets for washing only. Water for anal washing and for
cleaning the toilet itself will run into the dry composting toilet tank. Water
for cleaning the men's/boys' urinal and the urine section of the toilet will
run into the urine tank.
The water from the rainwater tank is also used
for some kitchen purposes.
Simple filter systems may be fitted to tank
inlets and/or to pipe outlets. These are intended to remove larger solids in
suspension only, not as substitutes for purification. Should, in a situation of
crisis, where drinking water is available neither from the collective solar
drinking water pumping installation nor from the back-up hand-pump
installations foreseen, water from the tanks have to be used for drinking and
personal purposes it will need to be boiled.
The design of the tanks, and their production,
installation and maintenance will be carried out under the local LETS systems,
so that no formal currency at all is needed for them.
Large-scale works for water storage such as dams in
water courses are not foreseen under the Model. Surface storage of water is in
principle discouraged as it may constitute a health hazard.
Small scale collection of run-off water into
closed Gypsum composites tanks for micro-irrigation is, however, strongly
encouraged. Rainwater drainage systems will be designed by local engineers and
technicians for local LETS currency. The purposes of these micro-systems is:
a) To improve drainage from town and village centres
b) To make small amounts of water available to farmers for micro-irrigation
purposes
The technicians will calculate rainwater
capacity literally on a street by street or block by block basis. They will
build small gravity run-off systems towards one side of each street to channel
overflow water from users' houses and run-off from around the houses and from
off the streets using locally made Gypsum composites grates and collector
pipes. The water will be channelled by gravity to a network of Gypsum
composites water tanks on the farmers' properties. Overflow from tanks higher
up and water run from the land will in turn be captured by tanks lower down.
The water stored in the tanks will be used
sparingly according to the collective experience and wisdom of the farmers. It
is not intended to substitute traditional irrigation. It is intended for
emergency use as drip irrigation in times of drought and/or to extend the use
of the land by the few weeks necessary to make the growth of a second crop
possible.
Where small scale collection of water is
impracticable, the run off water will be fed into the nearest water course,
from where it can be run off to feed micro-systems as already described further
down the valley.
Since dry composting toilet systems are to be
installed, the runoff water will be free from sewage. It should usually be
relatively clean and no further filtering is foreseen.
There are many reasons why dry composting toilets are
to be preferred to water flushed toilets. Two useful references are :
Winblad Uno et al, "Ecological
Sanitation", SIDA (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency),
Del Porto D and Steinfeld C, "The
composting toilet system book", CEPP (Centre for Ecological Pollution
Prevention),
In water scarce areas, water toilets may be
considered inappropriate technology. Sometimes they account for a large part of
the water consumption in a household. The scarcer the water the more expensive
it tends to become. Eventual savings in water costs can help pay a family's
monthly contribution under the project application. Alternatively, water saved
by not using water toilets is made available at household level for other
purposes, such as vegetable plots or vertical gardens.
Dry composting toilet systems based on
above-ground Gypsum composites tanks ensure complete separation of urine and
faeces from surface and other waters. Surface and run-off waters do not become
faecally contaminated and can be disposed of by gravity drainage without the
need for special treatment, the cost of which can therefore be diverted to
other, more productive, purposes. Run-off waters can be directly channelled for
use in agriculture and cost savings applied to other investments.
Fig. 6
DRAWING OF GYPSUM
COMPOSITES COMPOSTING TOILET TANK.
An appropriate allowance is made in the budget to
permanently cover ongoing maintenance costs. Trained maintenance personnel will
have a full time job under the local LETS money systems. They will carry out
inspections on each installation on a quarterly preventive maintenance visits
basis. A fund expressed in formal money to cover the cost of spare parts is
subtracted from users' monthly payments into the Cooperative Development Fund
and set aside in a Maintenance Fund. Should the Maintenance Fund build up to
considerable proportions, this money may, at the careful discretion of the
project coordinator, also be recycled for short term interest-free
micro-credits.
Monthly payments by users into the Cooperative
Development Fund continue indefinitely. After the repayment of the
interest-free seed loan after ten years, users continue to make their monthly
contributions into the fund, so that at the end of the second period of ten
years, capital is available to replace the original capital goods or extend the
services available, and so on in the following ten year periods to ensure the
system remains permanently sustainable.
The Model foresees the supply of equipment for
water quality testing to one of the clinics in the project area. Water samples
will be collected under the LETS systems from each water tank every three
months and water quality checked in the clinic.
Regular inspection of household water supplies
and sanitation systems under the LETS systems will be conducted, where possible
together with personnel from the Health Department.
One of the first structures created (at tank
commission level) under the Model are the Health Clubs. The Health Clubs offer
a complete hygiene education course and their members are expected to be mostly
women. The Clubs are also intended to help create a platform for women to group
together, express their wishes, participate in meetings and play a leading role
in the planning and running of the projects.
The work of the Health Clubs will be supported
by on-going health courses in the schools.
The following documents drawings and graphs form an
integral part of this paper:
DRAWING OF INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURES
CASH FLOW DIAGRAM.
TANK COMMISSIONS - THE KEY STRUCTURES.
WELL COMMISSIONS
DRAWING OF WATER SYSTEM STRUCTURES.
DRAWING OF WASTE DISPOSAL STRUCTURES.
DRAWING OF TYPICAL WATER TANK AREA.
DRAWING OF COMPOSTING TOILET TANK.
Anhydrite, use of; Banks, role of in development;
Gypsum composites products; Bio-mass, for cooking; Briquettes, bio-mass; Chain
control, integral; CO2 emissions, reduction of; Compost, recycling; Composting
toilets; Cookers, high efficiency; Cooperation, role in development;
Development projects, structures for; Development, sustainable; Drinking water
supply; Economy, developing countries; Economy, development projects; Economy,
foreign aid; Economy, industrial development; Economy, interest-free
development; Economy, Local Exchange Trading (LETS) systems; Economy, nominal
local currencies, development of; Economy, micro credits; Economy,
self-financed development; Economy, taxation and development; Education,
hygiene; Gender, role of women; Gypsum, cheap; Hand pumps; Health Clubs,
development projects; Hygiene, education; Industrial development; integral
chain control; Integrated development projects; Interest, role of; LETS
systems; Loans, interest-free; Local currency systems; Local Exchange Trading
(LETS) systems; Materials, regeneration of; Micro-credit systems; Photovoltaic
(PV) home systems; Photovoltaic (PV) lighting; Photovoltaic (PV) pumps;
Photovoltaic (PV) refrigeration; Poverty alleviation; Pumps, solar; Pumps, hand
; Rainwater, harvesting; Recycling, compost; Recycling centres; Recycling,
waste; Regeneration of materials; Rural water supply; Sanitation, developing
countries; Sanitation, dry; Self-financing development projects; Solar pumps,
submersible; Stoves, high efficiency; Sustainable development; Tanks, Gypsum
composites, local manufacture; Toilet facilities, Gypsum composites; Toilets,
dry; Urine disposal; Washing places; Waste collection systems; Water
purification, UV; Water supply projects; Water supply, rural; Water tanks,
gypsum composites, Women, role of in development.
